We thought we’d show you something most businesses probably wouldn’t: our actual Google Ads dashboard.
The screenshot accompanying this article is straight from K&M Steam Cleaning’s advertising account. Over the 12-month period shown, we spent $291,813 on Google Ads. Yep. Almost $300,000. Those ads generated 645,493 impressions and 33,999 clicks, with an average cost of $8.58 every time somebody clicked.
And here’s the important part: A click isn’t a customer. It isn’t necessarily a booked job. It isn’t even necessarily a phone call. It’s a click.
Why would a locally owned Austin family business spend that kind of money with Google? Because advertising is one of the less-visible costs of running a professional home service company. We’re pretty transparent about how we operate K&M, so we thought customers might enjoy a peek behind the curtain. It also helps explain something else: why doesn’t K&M Steam Cleaning try to be the cheapest carpet cleaner in Austin?
Our “storefront” is often a Google search
K&M doesn’t need a storefront at The Domain with thousands of people walking past it every day. We’re a home service company. You don’t come to us; we come to you.
But think about why retail space in a major shopping center costs so much more than the same amount of square footage in a low-visibility commercial building. Businesses aren’t paying only for the building. They’re paying for visibility, traffic and the opportunity to put their sign in front of thousands of potential customers. Part of that higher real estate cost is really a marketing expense.
For a home service business like K&M, Google is one of our versions of prime real estate. When somebody searches for “carpet cleaning Austin,” “carpet cleaner near me,” “upholstery cleaning Austin” or “tile and grout cleaning Austin,” we want them to know K&M exists. So do our competitors. We’re all competing for a limited amount of space on that screen, and that costs money.
Yes, sometimes we even pay Google when you’re already looking for K&M
Here’s one of the stranger realities of digital advertising: You can go to Google, type “K&M Steam Cleaning” and potentially see advertisements from companies other than K&M.
Businesses can advertise around searches involving competitors, brands and services in an attempt to get in front of customers who may have originally been looking for somebody else. We generally don’t build our advertising strategy around buying every carpet cleaning company’s name in Austin and trying to intercept their customers. We’d rather compete for somebody who is actually searching for a carpet cleaner and earn that customer ourselves.
But we also want to make sure K&M is easy to find when somebody is specifically looking for us. So, yes, we buy Google Ads for searches involving K&M Steam Cleaning, too. Fortunately, those searches generally aren’t nearly as expensive as broader competitive searches.
If you’re already a K&M customer and you Google us, there is one small favor you can do for us: scroll past the Sponsored K&M result and click our regular website listing instead. It’s certainly not a huge deal either way, but if you already know you’re looking for K&M, clicking the regular result saves us the cost of paying Google for that click. Every little bit helps.
And, heck, we wish we were Google
Nobody had to cold-call K&M and convince us that people use Google when they need a carpet cleaner. We know. We spend enough money with Google that we have an actual human representative who works with us on our advertising.
Google has built something enormously valuable for businesses: It can put us in front of somebody at almost exactly the moment that person needs what we do. Businesses are willing to pay for that, and we certainly are.
For a locally owned carpet cleaning company, nearly $300,000 in annual Google advertising is a substantial investment. National companies, franchises and some larger local competitors may spend comparable amounts or considerably more. We don’t know their numbers. We’re comfortable showing you ours.
We’d much rather keep a customer than have to find a new one
Once you understand what acquiring a new customer costs, something becomes pretty obvious: Taking great care of the customers you already have is a much better investment.
That’s one reason customer satisfaction matters so much to us. If something isn’t right, we want to have the resources to make it right. We don’t want a technician worrying that spending another 30 minutes at your house is going to destroy the economics of the job. We don’t want to hesitate to send somebody back when a legitimate issue needs additional attention. We don’t want to worry about whether we can afford a little more labor, cleaning solution or equipment time. And if circumstances genuinely warrant giving a customer their money back, we want K&M to be financially healthy enough to do that, too.
Standing behind your work costs money. We price our services so we can afford to stand behind them.
We want to pay our people well
This is a big part of why K&M doesn’t try to be the cheapest carpet cleaner in Austin. We don’t want our business model to depend on paying people as little as possible.
We want to attract good people, retain good people and compensate people appropriately for professional work. We also want to give them the equipment and resources they need to do their jobs properly. We want technicians driving reliable, well-maintained vans. We want the air conditioning working when it’s 100 degrees outside in Austin. We want equipment maintained and replaced before we’re explaining to a customer why something broke in their driveway.
We want quality cleaning products, training, office staff answering phones, technology that helps us operate efficiently and proper insurance so that if something genuinely goes wrong, there’s a real business standing behind the work. All of those things cost money.
What does it actually cost to run a professional carpet cleaning company?
There’s a really easy way to become the cheapest carpet cleaner in Austin: Call everybody else, find out what they charge and charge 20% less. Congratulations. You’re the cheapest.
But that doesn’t answer the important question: Can you actually operate a sustainable business at that price?
A professional home service company has vehicles, fuel, equipment, maintenance, cleaning solutions, insurance, payroll, payroll taxes, advertising, office expenses, software, credit card fees, phones, training and dozens of other expenses customers never see. There’s also the time and expense involved in getting from one job to another.
A technician might spend an hour cleaning at your house, but the company’s expenses didn’t begin when the cleaning wand touched your carpet, and they don’t end when the technician pulls out of your driveway.
“Three rooms for $99” makes us ask one question: How?
You’ve probably seen the offers: Three rooms of carpet cleaned for $99.
Our reaction isn’t anger. It’s curiosity. How?
The math of operating a business doesn’t disappear because somebody lowers the advertised price. The van still costs money. Gas still costs money. Insurance and labor still cost money. Equipment still wears out. Cleaning products still have to be purchased. Advertising costs money. Credit card companies take their cut. And then there’s perhaps the most important question: What happens when something goes wrong?
Here’s an intentionally simplified example. Imagine somebody charges $200 for a job and, after the costs associated with providing that service, there’s $20 of profit remaining. Now imagine a customer legitimately needs a $200 refund. That one refund just consumed the equivalent of the profit from 10 jobs.
Now add a $3,000 van repair. Or a major piece of equipment that fails. Or an insurance increase. Or a great employee who deserves a raise. Or a customer who needs you to return and spend two additional hours solving a problem.
Extremely low prices don’t magically eliminate those costs. Eventually, something has to give.
We don’t want to cut corners
That’s really what this comes down to. K&M doesn’t want to price a job so aggressively that our employees are put in a position where they have to rush. We don’t want to cut corners on equipment, maintenance, insurance or employee compensation. Most importantly, we don’t want to cut corners taking care of a customer.
Sometimes doing the right thing costs money. We want to be able to afford to do it.
There’s nothing wrong with starting with one truck
Almost every successful home service company started small, and there are outstanding owner-operators running one truck who do exceptional work. The number of vehicles somebody owns certainly doesn’t determine whether they know how to clean carpet.
But we’ve also been doing this long enough to see the other side of the business. People buy a truck and cleaning equipment, start a carpet cleaning company and discover that knowing how to clean carpet and knowing how to build a sustainable carpet cleaning business are two completely different skills.
Some eventually decide it isn’t working. And, yes, sometimes those people eventually call established companies like K&M because they want to sell their equipment. Buying the equipment is relatively easy. Building a company that can take care of customers year after year is much harder.
Your bill isn’t just paying for the time we’re inside your house
This is true across the home service industry. When you hire a plumber, electrician, HVAC company, roofer or carpet cleaner, you aren’t simply buying the minutes somebody spends physically working inside your home.
You’re paying for the entire system necessary to put a qualified person at your house with the right equipment at the promised time — and for a company to still exist afterward if you need something.
For K&M, that means wages, vehicles, equipment, fuel, maintenance, insurance, cleaning products, training, office support, scheduling, technology, advertising and the financial resources necessary to stand behind our work.
Those things aren’t expenses we can simply wish away. They’re part of providing the service.
We’re not trying to win the race to the bottom
Can you find somebody willing to clean your carpet for less than K&M? Absolutely. Austin is a huge market, and we’re not going to pretend otherwise.
But we’re also not going to chase somebody else’s $99 offer down the pricing ladder.
We’d rather ask a different question: What do we need to charge to do excellent work, pay our people well, maintain professional equipment, operate reliable vehicles, carry appropriate insurance, invest in our company and still have enough resources to take care of a customer when something doesn’t go perfectly?
Then we price accordingly.
K&M Steam Cleaning has been serving the Austin area since 1996. We want to clean your carpets today. We want you to be happy enough to call us the next time.
And when you do, we want to still be here.
