People do not move through your marketing in a tidy line. They see an ad, they search your name to check you are real, they look at your reviews, then they maybe visit your site.
Every one of those is a chance to contradict yourself.
The five things that must match
- What you do. If the ad says emergency plumbing and your profile's primary category is general contractor, that is a mismatch a person notices and Google notices.
- Where you work. Ad targeting a suburb your profile's service area does not include is paying to disappoint people.
- Your phone number. Different numbers across the three is confusing to people and splits your tracking.
- Your hours. Ads running at 11pm when the profile says you close at 5pm sells a service you are not providing.
- Price signals. An ad promising a free quote next to a site that charges a call-out fee is the fastest way to a bad review.
It costs you twice
First with people. A mismatch reads as carelessness at the exact moment someone is deciding whether to trust you.
Second with Google. Quality Score takes account of how well your ad, keyword and landing page line up. A mismatch there means you pay more per click for the same position than a competitor whose story is consistent.
The one most often wrong
Hours. Ads run on their own schedule and profiles have their own hours, and almost nobody checks that the two agree.
Set the ad schedule to the hours someone answers the phone. If that is 7am to 6pm, do not run ads at midnight. You are paying for calls that ring out, and a missed call from an ad click is the most expensive kind of missed call there is.
A fifteen minute check
- Open your ad copy, your Google Business Profile and your website side by side.
- Read the headline of each. Do they describe the same business?
- Compare phone numbers, hours and service areas across all three.
- Click your own ad and ask whether the page you land on delivers what the ad promised.
- Fix whatever disagrees, starting with hours and phone numbers.
It is not glamorous work and it will not take a week. It is usually the difference between an account that converts and one that does not, and almost nobody checks it.
Want it run for you? Our Google Ads management is built around tracked calls, not clicks.