Good vs Bad Marketing
Google Ads: the ad and the page it lands on
An ad is only half the spend. Drag the slider to compare a company-name ad pointing at a homepage with a job-focused ad pointing at a landing page built for one decision.
Drag the slider to compare
Or pick a common trade
Showing Garage Door Repair in Denver, CO.
Search ad
Ad · www.sjenterprisesllc.com
S&J Enterprises LLC | Home Services
We offer a wide range of services for residential and commercial customers. Family owned. Call today for more information about our company and services.
Where the click lands
Generic homepage with five nav choices
Search ad
Ad · www.summitgaragedoorco.com/garage-door-repair
Garage Door Repair in Denver | Same-Day Service | 4.9★ (418)
$59 off any spring replacement. Upfront pricing before we start. Licensed, insured, 17 years in Denver.
Where the click lands
Garage Door Repair in Denver — Same-Day Service
Broken spring, off-track door, or opener that quit? We fix it today, and we tell you the price before we start.
Drag the handle, or focus it and use the arrow keys. Tap a numbered pin to see what is wrong or why it works. Summit Garage Door Co. and S&J Enterprises LLC are fictional demo businesses.
Bad vs good garage door Google Ads account: what actually differs
Below is the readable version of the comparison above — what a bad garage door Google Ads account does, and what a good one does instead. It is the same list we use when owners ask "contractor Google Ads mistakes" or "home service Google Ads best practices". Every example uses Summit Garage Door Co. and S&J Enterprises LLC, two fictional garage door companies in Denver, CO.
Bad marketing
Good marketing
- One campaign, broad match, every service and every town mixed together.One campaign per service, tight keywords, and only the towns you actually drive to.
- Ads point at the homepage.Ads point at the matching service page, with the same words as the ad.
- No negative keywords, so budget goes to 'jobs', 'DIY', and 'free'.A negative list built weekly from the actual search terms report.
- Conversions are page views, so the report looks great and the phone is quiet.Calls over 60 seconds and submitted forms are the only counted conversions.
- Ads run 24/7 with nobody to answer after hours.Schedule matches staffing, with emergency copy only when someone will pick up.
- No call extensions, no location, no reviews in the ad.Call, location, and offer extensions make the ad twice the size of the competitor's.
Free printable PDF
Free: Garage Door Repair Google Ads bad-vs-good checklist
A printable, branded checklist of every difference on this page — the bad-marketing signs, the good-marketing fixes, and the order to fix them in for a garage door company.
A printable bad-vs-good checklist for garage door companies covering the Google Ads account. The left column is what bad marketing looks like, the right column is what to do instead, and the last section is the order to fix it in. Work it with your team, mark what is missing, and fix from the top.
What to take back to your team
- Put the searched service and the city in the headline. Matching the query raises quality score, which lowers what you pay per click.
- Never send paid traffic to your homepage. One ad, one promise, one landing page, one action.
- Use every asset: sitelinks, callouts, call extensions, and location. They cost nothing and take more of the result area.
- Say the offer and the availability in the ad, not just on the page. Filtering unqualified clicks before they cost you money is free.
- Track calls, not clicks. If your call tracking isn't wired to the campaign, you're optimizing blind.
- Add negative keywords weekly — 'jobs', 'salary', 'DIY', 'free' — or you'll fund an education instead of a pipeline.
Garage Door Repair google ads questions owners ask
- Why are my Google Ads not producing calls?
- Usually three things at once: broad keywords buying the wrong searches, ads landing on the homepage instead of the service page, and conversions counted as page views so nobody notices.
- How much should a home service business spend on Google Ads?
- Enough to buy real data in one service and one area first — then scale only what produces booked jobs. Splitting a small budget across every service and town buys nothing you can learn from.
- Should I run ads if my website is weak?
- Fix the landing pages first. Paid traffic magnifies whatever the page already does, including losing people.
Want this done on your marketing?
The $497 Marketing Audit is the same teardown, applied to your website, ads, map listing, and reviews — with a prioritized fix list you can hand to your team.
Every business, phone number, and review shown in this training library is fictional demo content created for teaching purposes.
