Automotive Repair News Today

Braxton Critcher [00:00:05]:
Hello, Brian Walker.

Brian Walker [00:00:06]:
Hey, Braxton.

Braxton Critcher [00:00:07]:
We're at Apex in Las Vegas and yesterday I came up to you and said, hey, there's some, there's some news with Google verification for local business ads.

Brian Walker [00:00:17]:
Yeah.

Braxton Critcher [00:00:17]:
And you were like, well, let me talk to my team, do some research, get back with you. And. Yeah. So what did you learn?

Brian Walker [00:00:26]:
Yeah, so you know, with local service ads are, you know, we have an acronym for everything in the automotive industry. Well, there's an acronym in marketing also. So, you know, you'll hear like Google Business profile, people talk about gbp. Well, LSA is the one that you're going to start hearing a lot about and that's your local service ads. And those are those ads that if you're ever doing a search for a particular service, especially like in the home services industry, you'll see it up at the top of the page. It'll have like the logo, sometimes a picture of someone's face. Like if you, especially if you're looking for like a realtor or something, you'll see the picture of their face. It'll have their star reviews, all that information right there.

Brian Walker [00:01:06]:
And basically. So they're also known as Google guarantee ads. And it's because Google will actually guarantee, they will put a guarantee on the service that you are providing with an actual financial component to it. Like if somebody comes to you and they don't get what they expect, it is possible for Google to reimburse them or to give them some kind of a financial. Yeah, I didn't know that. Like when they say Google guarantee, Google is literally guaranteeing the service that you are offering. And we used to do these, you know, we've only specialized in Automotive since 2019. And previous to that our agency was a, we were a generalist agency and we worked for a lot of different businesses and we did a lot of home services businesses.

Braxton Critcher [00:01:54]:
Yeah.

Brian Walker [00:01:55]:
So I'm familiar with the ads, but it's been years since I have even personally logged into a Google Ads account. You know, my team does all of that now.

Braxton Critcher [00:02:04]:
Yeah.

Brian Walker [00:02:04]:
So when you asked me about that, I'm like, well, I don't want to tell you four year old information. So I went to my team, talked to them this morning and kind of got the download from them and it's actually still very much the same. There are a few little differences that we can talk about today.

Braxton Critcher [00:02:20]:
Well, the reports that I've read, they're doing this verification process because there's been a lot of fraud, there's been a lot of businesses mimicking others and it's causing confusion.

Brian Walker [00:02:30]:
Yeah. So, well, there's the verification process, which is very different than the local service ads. The verification process, they're connected though, right? Well, you have to be a verified business in order to do local service ads. So there's that connection. But you can be verified without doing local service ads. They're different. We go through a verification process now just to be able to do just regular old pay per click ads, which that's a distinction too. Local service ads are not pay per click, they're pay per lead.

Brian Walker [00:03:06]:
And that's a very attractive thing to many business owners is instead of paying because, you know, if you're running Google, just Google Ads, you get a lot of stuff that comes through that is not relevant. We look for about a 50% quality or not quality. People who, like, they could actually be your client. We look for about 50% because there's others that, I mean, people don't read, you know, the ads and all that. But so with this, you're only paying for the lead and you're the one who gets to determine was that a qualified lead or not.

Braxton Critcher [00:03:51]:
So you look for a 50% rate for that. Well, I mean, is that good?

Brian Walker [00:03:56]:
It is, it is, it is. It is very often that we are hitting closer to 40% and so that's not great. Well, 40%, I would say it's on the low side of good. But, you know, there's people out there that, you know, I've had, I've had clients before or not clients, but people who come to us and they're, they're like, yeah, we were working with this company and, you know, only half the leads that we were getting were qualified. And I want to get 80%.

Braxton Critcher [00:04:27]:
Yeah, you'd like to see a higher percentage.

Brian Walker [00:04:29]:
It's not going to happen. You know, we would love to, but the problem is, is that there's a human element to that. You have people who are searching and we can't determine whether someone picks up a phone and you know, they've, they've got a, they have say a BMW that they need to get repaired. And they call a company because they did a search for auto repair near me.

Braxton Critcher [00:04:54]:
Right.

Brian Walker [00:04:54]:
But you know, the shop is, you know, Atlanta Asian Imports. But they call it anyway because they're in Atlanta, they see Atlanta, they have an import car, they see imports, but they don't see that Asian part. Right. And it's a lot of that kind of thing, especially on the general side, where you'll have people who call that they need their diesel truck worked on or their European car worked on, and you don't work on that stuff. Or you have the Euro shop and somebody calls with the Chevrolet and you don't work on that. And there's a lot of that. And then there's also people who are calling and looking for parts and all that kind of stuff as well.

Braxton Critcher [00:05:30]:
So it says that it's going to start November 21st, and Google is going to require companies that utilize their local services to have a verified Google business profile. The process requires you to claim your business through phone, text, email, video, and verification can take up to five days. So if you have a Google profile, you have to go before the 21st.

Brian Walker [00:05:55]:
And claim it if you want to run these ads.

Braxton Critcher [00:05:59]:
Right.

Brian Walker [00:05:59]:
Yeah.

Braxton Critcher [00:05:59]:
Okay.

Brian Walker [00:06:00]:
And that's something that you.

Braxton Critcher [00:06:01]:
How many people actually do that?

Brian Walker [00:06:03]:
Well, most small businesses have claimed their listing already. I would say most of them have not gone through the verification process unless they're running paid advertising right now. Because to go through the verification process, you have to submit information on your business. You know, your could be things like your articles of incorporation or business license, those sorts of things. Because there are so many companies out there that they're, for example, selling leads and they'll go set up these listings and collect a lead and then go sell it to another business. And all that they're doing is unnecessarily competing against actual real businesses and charging them money to send them these leads.

Braxton Critcher [00:06:48]:
So if a business is already verified, nothing changes. Right now.

Brian Walker [00:06:52]:
No. Now for them to do local service ads, there is further verification.

Braxton Critcher [00:06:56]:
Yeah.

Brian Walker [00:06:57]:
That they will have to go through.

Braxton Critcher [00:06:58]:
Okay.

Brian Walker [00:06:58]:
Like they they with local service because of Google guaranteeing this, they want to make sure that they're working with a legitimate business. And not only a legitimate business, but one who is going to do a great job and take care of their clients. So if you have a, an auto repair shop and you have bad reviews, chances are they're not going to approve you for this. And when I say bad reviews, I'm talking about like consistently bad reviews.

Braxton Critcher [00:07:24]:
So that's also playing into it.

Brian Walker [00:07:26]:
Yeah, reviews. They are going to do a background check on the owners of the business. In many cases, they're going to check your business license. They're going to make sure that you have the proper insurance that you need.

Braxton Critcher [00:07:38]:
Wow.

Brian Walker [00:07:39]:
So they are. It's good for the consumer.

Braxton Critcher [00:07:44]:
They're almost vetting the business as a part of their team. If you're going to be on our platform and run ads through our service, we want you to be super reputable.

Brian Walker [00:07:57]:
Yes.

Braxton Critcher [00:07:58]:
And it's almost like they're hiring you.

Brian Walker [00:08:00]:
Exactly.

Braxton Critcher [00:08:01]:
Yeah.

Brian Walker [00:08:01]:
Yeah, they are. They're attaching their name to yours.

Braxton Critcher [00:08:04]:
Right.

Brian Walker [00:08:05]:
And when they do that, they need to know that you're going to do things the right way.

Braxton Critcher [00:08:09]:
Wow.

Brian Walker [00:08:09]:
And it, it took so long for them to do auto repair. For them to take on auto repair as one of the services that they do local service listings for or local service ads for. And I can't help but think that that was the reason why is because of the challenges that come, you know, with automotive. Because it's not always the shop, you know, it's very often an unreasonable client.

Braxton Critcher [00:08:36]:
Yeah.

Brian Walker [00:08:36]:
And even if it's an unreasonable client, if that person is complaining to Google, then Google may have to, you know, arbitrate or possibly give them some kind of compensation for recommending you.

Braxton Critcher [00:08:50]:
Now it says here at the bottom of this article, I found that the process could take a few days. So if someone is currently running a local service ad and they're not verified in the way they need to be before 20, the 21st, it says that it could take a minute and not to wait a few days. So if you, let's say you go on there to try and get verified on the 19th and it doesn't process till the 24th, I'm guessing you lose three days.

Brian Walker [00:09:19]:
I would think so. I don't know.

Braxton Critcher [00:09:20]:
I mean, maybe your ads get taken down, you have to put them back up. I don't know.

Brian Walker [00:09:25]:
Yeah.

Braxton Critcher [00:09:25]:
So this is pretty important to jump on this now.

Brian Walker [00:09:27]:
Yeah. Well, the verification part, you're not already.

Braxton Critcher [00:09:30]:
Verified yet, but there are very few.

Brian Walker [00:09:31]:
Few shops out there who are running local service ads right now. Very few.

Braxton Critcher [00:09:37]:
Right. Yeah.

Brian Walker [00:09:38]:
Because like I say, unless you were in California or Florida, you weren't doing it anyway up until like just, just recently in the last couple of weeks. And you know, you. So, so most of the shops just have not done that yet. Local service ads. And they're, they are something that you could absolutely do yourself. But most shop owners, they stay away from running ads themselves. And also, you know, with this, most of them don't even understand really what it is. Yeah.

Brian Walker [00:10:09]:
Because it's so new to our industry that they're not really doing it themselves. There are those, you know, anomalies out there who do it themselves, but it's just complicated. Yeah. But now is the time to do it because, because it is a pay per lead system. There's only so many leads out there to be had. So when, you know, right now if you're the first shop out there to do it, you're probably going to get a lot of leads. But a year from now, once everybody realizes that, oh, this works really well, then you're going to have all of your competitors doing it as well. There's not going to be as many leads to go around.

Braxton Critcher [00:10:51]:
Right.

Brian Walker [00:10:52]:
And yeah, I mean, now is the time to do it.

Braxton Critcher [00:10:55]:
I mean, it says here, this article, this is for a realtor, but she said that she gets eight to nine leads a week. And I mean, if you're a repair shop, I don't know what your closing rate is, but that's significant. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. What else, Anything else about this?

Brian Walker [00:11:14]:
Yeah, so there's basically three different ways that leads are going to come into you. If you're running local service ads, you are either going to get a phone call and it'll be through Google system. So it'll. The phone call will be recorded when it comes in. So that's one way you also, there's an app that you would download and I'll tell you the name of it, here it is. Let's see. Local services ads by Google is the app that you'll install and you can get a message through the app. And then the third way would be through an online booking form.

Brian Walker [00:11:53]:
Something like it would have to be an approved one. I am pretty sure that Autops does that. I actually messaged them to get them to verify for me before we came on. But that's the three ways that the leads will come into you. And then you have a dashboard where you go in and you tell them whether that was a lead or it was not a lead. If it was not a lead, then you mark it as so. But at the same time, you want to be really accurate with this. Now, you don't want to mark something that was not a lead as a lead just so that they continue to send things to you.

Brian Walker [00:12:28]:
But you also don't want to look at the ones and say that wasn't a qualified lead. But you know, I'm. I don't want to pay for that. So I'm going to mark it as not. Because the shops that do the best of converting those people into clients are going to be the ones that Google makes the most money off of. And those are the ones that Google's going to continue to funnel the leads to. If you got one shop that they're only marking 25% of them as qualified leads and another shop that's got 50% as qualified leads, they're going to send it to the shop with 50%.

Braxton Critcher [00:13:03]:
Right? Yeah. Because they don't want Google's customers to keep having to search.

Brian Walker [00:13:07]:
Right.

Braxton Critcher [00:13:08]:
That frustrates, you know, your client base. You want people to find what they want and you know, make a decision.

Brian Walker [00:13:14]:
Yeah. You know, the real thing is though is, I mean Google's a business, they want to make.

Braxton Critcher [00:13:19]:
Yeah.

Brian Walker [00:13:19]:
They want to make money. Yep. And they only have one operator. You know, each lead, there's basically one opportunity to do that. And if you're messing it up on your end, then you're costing them money. You're costing yourself money, but you're costing them money.

Braxton Critcher [00:13:31]:
When you say pay per lead, I'm guessing there's probably a tiered based system for payment. But what, what is the cost for a repair shop to do this?

Brian Walker [00:13:39]:
So you can, you can go, if you do a search for Google local service ads cost, there is a calculator where you can go in and you basically tell them how many leads you want. Now it doesn't mean that, you know, if you go in and put 100, I want 100 leads. It doesn't mean you're going to get 100 leads, but it'll tell you if there's 100 leads, it's going to give you a range. It'll cost you between this and this per month. So you basically go in, you tell them how many leads you want, the geographic area that you're in and the type of service that you do and it will give you that range of how much it'll cost.

Braxton Critcher [00:14:13]:
Well, this would be great for new shops. I mean all shops.

Brian Walker [00:14:16]:
It's actually not great for new shops. No, you want to be an established shop that has a lot of reviews.

Braxton Critcher [00:14:23]:
Well, that's true. Yeah, we talked about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

Brian Walker [00:14:25]:
So you need to have a lot of reviews. You need to have a lot of good reviews. You need to be verified. You.

Braxton Critcher [00:14:32]:
So shops been around for five plus years have a huge leg up here. Especially if you have those reviews. Yeah, reviews are everything.

Brian Walker [00:14:39]:
Yeah.

Braxton Critcher [00:14:40]:
Now they're really everything.

Brian Walker [00:14:41]:
And what's a shame is if you're the shop that's been around for five plus years and you have 10 reviews because you don't do a good job of asking people or using your CRM to get those reviews. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, but this is, this is one of those things that will be, I don't want to call it a disruptor, but it's going to have a good positive impact on the industry.

Braxton Critcher [00:15:01]:
Okay, well Brian, you got 20,000 steps to get to.

Brian Walker [00:15:04]:
Yeah, you better stand up, boy. Thanks for having me on.

Braxton Critcher [00:15:07]:
Yeah, man. Hey, if you're still here, thank you so much for listening to this episode of Automotive Repair News today. If you enjoyed the show, please take a moment like share. Subscribe to the podcast. It'll help us out a big deal and help grow the show. And you know what? While you're at it, slap on a review too. If you feel like this content is helpful for the industry, don't forget to follow us on all your favorite social media platforms. We're on Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn.

Braxton Critcher [00:15:38]:
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