Managing Google Ads for emergency-driven local services—like wildlife removal—requires more than just setting up a few search campaigns. It demands precision, responsiveness, and an understanding of what drives people to call right now. When PPCAssist took over this contractor’s Google Ads account, our goal was clear: improve performance, increase conversions, and reduce waste.
This isn’t our first time working with wildlife and pest removal, and it won’t be our last. With our industry knowledge, we employed our AI-driven PPC philosophy to meet these goals like we strive to do for all our local business clients.
With lower management fees and smarter optimization strategies, we made every advertising dollar stretch further. Here’s a look at what changed—and the impressive results we delivered.
Before We Took Over: The Baseline Metrics
Prior to the account takeover, the account was running, but it was far from efficient. The search campaign they were running used very broad keyword targeting, generic ad copy, poor geographical targeting, and didn’t make full use of extensions (among other things). We’d certainly seen worse accounts, but these factors lead to wasted clicks and a high cost-per-acquisition.
| Metric | Pre-PPCAssist |
|---|---|
| Clickthrough Rate (CTR) | 5.54% |
| Total Conversions | 30 |
| Conversion Rate | 10.5% |
| Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) | $31.08 |
Not only that, but the agency managing the account was charging $500/month to manage campaigns, which had been running at $1,000/month the past couple months (for a total budget of $1500/month). That works out to a 33.3% management fee, meaning a lot of the budget was going to the agency instead of the ads.
High proportional fees are a central point of discussion in our blog: do you really need an agency to manage your Google Ads?
Our Optimization Strategy
- Granular Ad Groups: Split by service (e.g., “Raccoon Removal,” “Emergency Wildlife Call”) for more relevance.
- Geotargeting & Bid Adjustments: Focused on service zip codes with performance-based bidding.
- High-Intent Keywords: Paused low-converting broad terms and focused on users more likely searching for services
- Negative Keyword Expansion: Applied proprietary negative lists to reduce wasteful traffic (e.g., zoos, wildlife jobs, DIY).
- Niche Segmentations: Isolated and controlled “animal control” searches
- Compelling Ad Copy: Emphasized urgency, availability, local expertise, and spoke directly to the search’s need (e.g. Groundhog Removal Experts).
The theory behind these strategies is applicable across most local small business accounts. Of course, there are niche factors to consider and necessary customizations for each business, but our streamlined process and knowledge of how to focus on high-quality spend allow us to quickly and efficiently make improvements on small business accounts.
Results After 30 Days with PPCAssist
It’s easy to say that these things work, and if you’re not from the advertising world (like most local businesses), then it’s difficult to know what to believe and who to trust. In the digital marketing industry, it’s all too common to get burned. We like to think our numbers speak for themselves, as well as our business model that isn’t front-loaded with high setup fees like most agencies.
Speaking of those numbers, let’s see how core KPIs (key performance indicators) changed in the time period after our strategy was implemented:
| Metric | Before | After | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| CTR | 5.54% | 14.37% | +159% |
| Conversions | 30 | 68 | +127% |
| Conversion Rate | 10.5% | 17.15% | +63% |
| CPA | $31.08 | $20.72 | -33% |
It gets better!
The numbers above even factors in scaling the account up from a monthly spend of $1000/month to $1400/month. So while the CTR, Conversion Rate, and CPA are apples-to-apples metrics showing increased efficiency, the conversion jump is both a factor of increased efficiency and increased spend.
CPA doesn’t factor in agency costs. If we calculated CPA based on total budget rather than Google Ads spend, we saw a CPA drop of 56% from $50.00 to $22.06. Google Ads agencies rarely factor in their costs when reporting your CPA, and look how different it is: $31.08 vs. $50.00!
If the client had decided to just lower their budget to $1100 and keep their spend the same on Google Ads, conversions would have increased from 30 to 48 (probably a little more due to diminishing returns). Factoring in the reinvestment of the management fee savings (a cost reduction from $500/month to $99/month), the conversions jumped to 68 as reported above.
That’s a 127% increase in leads on the same budget over just the next couple months.
More Bang for Your Buck: Lower Fees, Higher Ad Spend
Unlike traditional agencies that charge high retainers, PPCAssist is built for lean, effective PPC management. In this case, our monthly fee was $400 less than what the client had been paying their previous agency.
That $400? We recommended it be reallocated into the ad budget, allowing the client to:
- Test additional keyword areas
- Increase daily budgets and bids for high-intent, high-value users
- Generate additional conversions without increasing total monthly spend
Other Key Wins
- Seasonality Readiness: Campaign structure allows us to quickly increase or decrease volume based on wildlife seasonality or large events (e.g., spring raccoon activity, storms, infestations).
- Call & Lead Quality: Proprietary negatives and ad group structuring reduced low-quality, time-wasting calls for their small team
- Transparent Reporting: Easy-to-understand reporting gave the client confidence that everything was on track
Final Takeaways
Wildlife removal is competitive, and clicks can be costly or low quality if not managed well. But with the right structure and strategy—and a partner like PPCAssist—it’s possible to:
- Reduce wasteful spend
- Lower your cost-per-lead
- Improve lead quality
- Maximize your budget without overpaying for agency fees
Will this campaign be completely hands-off forever? Probably not. Budgets will need to change for seasonality, new opportunities arise, and they might want to scale operations up or down based on the number of projects they have or team size. And all that’s ok!
We’ll be there to help them navigate those changes on an as-needed basis, providing expertise while not saddling them with unnecessary ongoing costs.
Need Help with Your Google Ads?
If you’re a wildlife or pest control contractor—or any home service business—struggling with your ad performance, reach out to us at PPCAssist or subscribe today. We’ll review your account, highlight quick wins, and show you how better management (for less money) can unlock serious growth.
