The Best Facebook Ads for Plumbers

As the owner of a plumbing company, you may not think of Facebook as a viable place to spend some of your marketing budget to get in front of more potential customers—but what if I told you could get in front of real homeowners, needing plumbing services, in your service area? And then what if I told you could get them at a really low cost per lead?

That’s where Facebook paid ads (along with other types of plumber social media marketing) come into play—because they work for plumbers. And I’m going to tell you how.

If you’re like most of the plumbing companies we work with, your business has either a non-existent or borderline abysmal Facebook presence. I get that it can be hard to wrap your head around Facebook as a viable marketing strategy when you typically associate the platform with political rants and baby photos.

And, admittedly, the way most small businesses carry out their social media strategy (a.k.a. sporadic and ad-hoc posts without proper promotion) is probably a waste of time and unlikely to generate leads.

But Facebook advertising is different—or at least worth testing for your plumbing company. There are several different types of Facebook ads your business can take out depending on your objectives. Some of the Facebook ad types aren’t going to be super relevant to your plumbing business, so for the sake of saving you time, I’m only going to include the ones we’ve had success with for plumbers, including plumbing ad examples.

And just as a preface: All of Facebook’s ads allow you to customize your audience by your target audience’s:

• Location
• Age range
• Gender
• Language
• Interests
• Behaviors
• Connections

There are more than a thousand targeting options, which you can see by downloading the guide below:

Before You Get Started With Facebook Marketing

Before you start advertising on Facebook, you need to install the Facebook pixel on your website. What it does is enable you to gather information about Facebook users on your website, create custom remarketing audiences, and optimize your advertising campaigns. If you need help installing yours, give us a shout.

Facebook Ads for Plumbers if You Want More Leads

Take out a Facebook Lead Form Ad.

Before I continue, there’s one thing you should understand about Facebook—people don’t necessarily go there when they need plumbing services. For example, if a pipe breaks, they’re going to pull their phone out and search frantically for emergency plumbers. Therefore, you should not expect extremely need-based leads to come from Facebook. That’s what SEO and PPC ads are for. Plumbing services like installations, maintenance, and topical services (sump-pump inspections after a heavy rain, water heater maintenance before winter, etc.) are going to be your best sources of success .

However, you can use Facebook in another way to get solid leads—by advertising  using lead form ads.

These ads allow Facebook users to input their contact information without ever leaving the platform. Two of the best ways we’ve seen plumbing success is by using lead form ads to build up your email marketing lists or by using them for giveaways.

Facebook Ads for Plumbers if You Want to Get More Website Visits in Your Service Area

Take out a Facebook Website Traffic ad.

These ads send people to a designated page on your website, rather than sending them your plumbing company’s Facebook page.

Examples of pages you might want to send people to on your site:

Your homepage – I used this option recently on a Website Traffic Ad when I wanted to get people to visit our new website. If you don’t have a lot of organic traffic right now because your website is new, this can be a good way to boost visitors in your location and increase awareness of your company in the area.

A product or service page– This can be especially helpful for contractors with seasonal lines of business. For example, if you’re wanting to promote your emergency plumbing services offered in your area during the holidays (because you know at least a few families out there are going to put too many leftovers down the garbage disposal or wreak havoc on their pipes with 20+ family members in town), you can send your Clicks to Website Ad right to your emergency plumbing page with the number they should call to request service.

A promotions page – Maybe someone wasn’t planning on having their drains inspected and cleaned this month—in fact they were going to deal with the clogged shower with waiting it out and another bottle of drain cleaner—that is, until they saw your Click to Website Ad that sent them to your limited-time-only drain cleaning special page on your website.

Pro Tip: Make Sure to Optimize for “Landing Page Views”

A lot can happen in the time between when a person clicks on your ad and your web page actually loads. For example, if you have a slow website, they may hit the back button. They could have tapped your ad by mistake. There are a million things that could happen in that instant. By optimizing for landing page views, you’re only tracking and paying for the people that actually land and stay on your website. You need to have the Facebook pixel installed in order for this to work.

Facebook Ads for Plumbers if You Want to Get More Website Conversions

I keep mentioning the Facebook pixel, and here’s where it really matters—website conversion ads. With the pixel installed, you can set and track goals like:

• Viewing a key page
• Filling out a contact form
• Adding an item to a shopping cart or completing a checkout
• Registering for an event
• Signing up for an email newsletter

For plumbers, sometimes people won’t fill out a form, but instead pick up the phone and call you. For this reason, it’s important you have the proper call tracking set up to get your true return on ad spend from your social media marketing services.

Facebook Ads for Plumbers if You Want to Get More Business Page Likes

Like I said before, I’m guessing that your plumbing company has less than 300 likes on its Facebook page—and I’m willing to bet real money that it has less than 1,000 at least. Getting likes to your company’s Facebook page shouldn’t be your first priority if you’re just bursting onto the online marketing scene (I recommend you start with a website optimized for conversions and for search engines), but if you’re well established in the search engine results page and you need to compete with other contractors with 1,000s of likes, take out a Page Likes Ad. This allows you to target homeowners in the area (yes, you can select if they own the home and even exclude renters!) who may need your services, or may have seen your trucks around their neighborhood. With proper ad set up and calls to action on your Page Likes Ad, you can increase the size of your Facebook page community and increase the voice you have for other ads you run, and even organic posts and reviews to your page.

Facebook Ads for Plumbers if You Want to Get More Likes on Your Posts

We wrote an entire blog in the past called “Why Nobody Likes Your Facebook Posts.” Facebook newsfeed has an algorithm to determine exactly what content to display in each user’s feed. Imagine how overwhelming it would be to see every update from every person, business, and organization you follow!

This is a common misunderstanding about social media amongst most business owners, not even just plumbers—that if you have 350 followers, all 350 of them will see your posts. In reality, unless you pay to promote your posts, only about 2% of your followers will see them. And they can’t like what they don’t see!

To get more likes, consider a Page Post Engagement Ad.

Types of posts you might want to promote from your Facebook:

• All of them– Seriously, put at least a few bucks behind all of your posts or else no one is going to see or engage with them.
• Awards you’ve won – a local Chamber of Commerce award, Angie’s List Super Service Award, etc.—doesn’t matter what the award is, it just matters that you show your Facebook fans you’re a winner and provide award-winning service.
• Recent projects – I hope you took some good before and after photos!
• Recent blog posts –You are blogging, right?
• Testimonials– OH HAPPY DAY, someone has taken the time to give your plumbing business a raving review. You should be screaming it from a mountain top, and if you don’t have a mountain top, you can promote it on Facebook.
• Contests – Here’s an easy way to get engagement—a caption contest. Post a fun photo and ask your fans to try and come up with the best caption for the photo. Mail the winner some company swag, like a tshirt, hat, or if you’re alcoholics like us—a branded bottle opener and koozie (Relax: we’re not alcoholics but our company name has the word “Corona” in it. It’s only natural).

Plumbers: Get a Free Social Media Analysis

If you’re like most plumbers, you probably don’t have time to be messing around on Facebook and don’t have the resources to hire a full-time person to do it. Do your family, your bottom line, and yourself a favor and start with a free social media analysis from Blue Corona or download one of our social media case studies today.

Marketing Services You Might Be Interested In

• Plumbing SEO Services (search engine optimization)
• Plumbing PPC Management (pay per click)
• Plumber Email Marketing
• Plumbing Website Design