A landscaper who mows lawns and builds retaining walls is selling two very different jobs, and Google prices the clicks for them very differently too. Keyword Planner's top-of-page estimates for "lawn mowing service" stop at about $11 across the US. For "retaining wall contractors," they reach $29.66.
Put both under one bid and something breaks. Bid for walls and you overpay on every mowing click. Bid for mowing and your wall ads sit below the fold while a competitor takes the $6,000 job. Here's how we price those clicks for landscaping clients in the opening campaign: a hand-set bid for each ad group, worked out from what the job behind it pays. Then it covers the two reports that tell you whether the bids are working, and how the real numbers become the target for the second campaign.
Mowing and Retaining Wall Clicks Shouldn't Share One Bid.
Isolation, the label we use for that opening campaign (Google has no setting by that name), buys exact-match searches with manual CPC. You type in a maximum price per click for each group of mowing or wall searches, and Google can't charge you past it. Smart Bidding comes later, once there's conversion data for it to learn from.
Google gives two ways to set those bids. Its own help page uses a bakery: one default bid for the whole ad group, so every pastry keyword gets the same price, or separate bids on individual keywords when some of them sell more than others. We start with a default bid on each ad group and add keyword bids only where a search earns it.
That only works if the ad groups are built around jobs, the way Chapter 4 built them. Look at how tightly the mowing searches bunch together. Across the US, Keyword Planner's top-of-page high estimates run $10.97 for "lawn mowing service," $11.22 for "grass cutting service," $11.90 for "lawn cutting services near me" and $11.95 for "lawn mowing companies near me." One bid fits that whole group.
The retaining wall searches sit on a different shelf. "Retaining wall contractors" draws about 8,100 searches a month with estimates up to $29.66. "Retaining wall company" reaches $29.50. "Repairing retaining wall" draws about 1,900 a month and tops out at $23.07, and "retaining wall installation," also about 1,900, at $17.08. Those searches belong in their own ad group, with their own bid.
A Wall Job Can Afford About $20 a Click. A Mowing Customer Is Worth About $8.
Keyword Planner tells you what the market is charging. It can't tell you what you can afford. That number comes from the job, and Chapter 3 built the chain that gets you there: what you're willing to spend to win a customer, times your close rate, times the share of clicks that turn into leads.
Start with what a wall pays. HomeGuide, a cost guide that also sells leads to contractors, puts retaining walls at $35 to $65 per square foot installed. Take a wall 40 feet long and 3 feet high as an example: 120 square feet, or about $4,200 to $7,800. Say you'd gladly spend $1,250 in ads to win a job that size. If you win one estimate in four, an example rate, you can pay up to about $312 for a lead. If 6.42% of clicks become leads, the average LocaliQ reported for its own landscaping clients, that lead allows about $20 a click.
Mowing runs the same chain to a much smaller number. Chapter 3 put a new mowing customer at about $375 in ads. Win one quote in three and a lead can cost about $125. At the same 6.42%, that's about $8 a click.
Those are examples, and your own close rate will move them more than anything else. Measure it before you set a single bid: estimates sent, estimates won, by service. Win walls one estimate in three rather than one in four, and the same job stretches to roughly $27 per click.
A $20 Ceiling Keeps Some Retaining Wall Searches and Gives Up Others.
Now hold the ceiling up against the market. "Retaining wall installation" tops out at $17.08 in Keyword Planner, under a $20 ceiling, so you can expect to reach the top of the page on most of those searches. "Retaining wall contractors" runs from $4.33 to $29.66. A $20 bid wins it some of the time and loses it when the auction runs hot, and that's the right outcome. Paying $29 for a click your math prices at $20 is losing money on purpose.
This is where keyword bids earn their place. If the wall group's default is $20, you might set "retaining wall installation" a little lower, since it rarely needs the full ceiling, and leave "retaining wall contractors" at the full $20 rather than chasing it higher.
Some searches in the group shouldn't get a bid at all. "Retaining wall blocks near me" draws about 2,900 searches a month, with estimates up to only $4.28. It looks like a bargain next to "contractors." It isn't. It's someone shopping for block at the supply yard, the kind of search Chapter 5 put on the negative list. A cheap click from someone who will never hire you still costs money.
Keyword Planner's figures are a starting line, not a quote. In our experience, the real cost per click lands about 30% either side of the estimate. Launch at the ceiling, read the results weekly and move bids in small steps.
Wall Ads Belong at the Top of the Page on 75 to 90% of Searches. Top Impression Share Shows How Close You Are.
Once ads are running, the question is whether your bids put you where homeowners look. Google's word for it is impression share: the number of times a wall or mowing ad appeared, divided by the number of times it was eligible to. Two versions matter most for bidding. Search top impression share is the slice of those chances where your ad landed in the paid block over the unpaid listings. Its stricter sibling, Search absolute top impression share, counts only the times your ad took the first paid slot on the page. Google notes these reflect where the ad actually landed on the page, not just how it ranked against other ads.
On the searches that book jobs, we aim for top impression share between 75% and 90%. Below that, too many homeowners never see you. Chasing 100% gets expensive fast, because the last few top spots go to whoever will pay the most on the busiest days.
Two more columns tell you why you missed. Search lost impression share (rank) counts the times your ad didn't show because its rank was too low. Search lost impression share (budget) counts the times the money ran out, and Google reports it for the whole campaign, not for each ad group. They point to different fixes. A wall ad that loses on rank needs a higher bid or a better ad and page, which is Chapter 4's territory. A wall campaign that stops showing by early afternoon because the day's money is gone needs more budget, and raising its bid would only make that worse.
Quality Score belongs on the keyword view as well. A keyword with a low score tends to pay more for the same position, so before raising a bid on a weak keyword, check whether the ad and the landing page actually match the search. A "retaining wall repair" search that lands on a page about new patios is a page problem, not a bid problem.
LawnStarter and Lawn Love Sell a $19 First Mow. Auction Insights Shows How Often They Meet You.
Impression share is about your own ads. Auction insights names the other companies in the room. For each competitor that showed in the same auctions, it reports several numbers. Four matter most for bidding. Overlap rate: of the auctions where your mowing ad appeared, the share where a rival's ad appeared as well. Position above rate: of the times you both appeared, the share where theirs sat over yours. Outranking share: the share of auctions where your ad placed over theirs, counting the ones where theirs didn't appear. Top of page rate is how often each ad appeared above the free results.
In landscaping, that report can surface competitors who aren't landscapers. Of the LawnStarter and Lawn Love ads we found running in the past 90 days, all 30 led with a price: "First mow is only $19!" and "First Lawn Mowing is only $19.99." Of 143 readable ads from local landscapers in our example market, one showed any dollar figure at all. The marketplaces book the first mow and hand it to a crew; their math on a mowing click isn't yours.
So read the report as a decision, not a scoreboard. If a rival shows up in most of your mowing auctions, sits above you most of the time and your cost per click is already pressing against an $8 ceiling, more money won't fix it. Our reading is that it's time to step down in that auction: lower the mowing bid, accept fewer top spots and move the money to walls and patios, where your math allows a higher price. If a rival shows up rarely, or you outrank them most of the time, hold your ground.
Leaving an auction is a choice, not a defeat. The landscaper who wins every mowing click at any price has a full schedule and an empty bank account.
Once Leads Reach About 30 a Month, What They Really Cost Sets the Broad Match Limit.
The exact-match campaign does one more job: it tells you what a lead really costs. Chapter 6's broad-match campaign, Exploration (another of our labels), lets Google bid for conversions under a cost cap, a target CPA, and the wall and mowing leads Isolation actually paid for are what set that cap. The switch flips at around 30 quality conversions in a month. For a lot of landscapers that lands in month two or three, but the calendar doesn't decide it; a company spending more through the spring rush can get there in weeks.
Set the target from what Isolation actually paid, not from what you hoped a lead would cost. Google's own guidance cuts the same way: aim the target under what leads have been costing and the campaign passes up conversions it would have won, and the target Google proposes for an established campaign leans on its recent average. Say your wall leads have been costing $280. A $150 target would starve the campaign.
The word "quality" matters. Before you average anything, listen to the calls. Drop the wrong numbers, the job seekers and the vendors selling you mowers. A form fill from someone wanting a quote on a job in a town you don't serve isn't a lead either. Counting junk makes leads look cheaper than they are, and a target built on junk tells broad match to find more of it.
Then answer the real ones fast. In 208 low-star reviews we read from people who hired a landscaper or asked for a quote, 99 were about silence, slow replies or crews that never showed. A lead you paid $280 for and never called back costs the full $280 and books nothing. Our Google Ads management sets bids from each client's job math and reviews calls before any number becomes a target.
Next: Landscaping Ads Sell the Free Estimate. Customers Mentioned It in 2 of 959 Reviews and Complained About Slow or Missing Replies in 66.
With bids set, the next question is what the ad itself says. Chapter 8 compares what landscaping ads promise with what homeowners actually write about in reviews, and builds ad copy from the second list.
Every chapter is on the guide's home page.
