I would recommend keeping a close eye on cost per click, budget & etc. If you are attracting mostly residential customers, the revenue generated by a successful conversion is not very high. If you have a 10% conversion rate, and each click costs $7.95, then each customer ends up costing you $79.50. If your average ticket price for a new customer is $100, then your ROI is pretty good at 125%. If, however, you have only a 5% conversion rate, then each customer costs you $159, and your ROI plummets to 63% and you are losing money.
Conversion rates don't just reflect how well you promote yourself when someone does call - you have to take into account the other things that reduce your return. Your own already-existing customers can look you up online and click on the ad just because they are lazy or lost your phone number - that means you spent a click rate for no benefit. You also have to fend off calls asking for services you don't provide (just because people don't read your ad, or maybe your ad is poorly worded) until you zero in on the best language for the ad. Or, you get people calling you that are out of your service area, things like that - all of these occurrences dilute your return.
And - none of this takes into account your time in keeping this running. You have to spend time monitoring performance, tweaking wording, etc., which isn't free.
My general opinion is that pay-per-click advertising has a much higher chance of success for businesses that have a higher per-ticket revenue than residential computer services.
@300DDR, for example, probably has a better shake on pay-per-click because his average ticket price is higher.
Yes, yes - I know - if you keep that newly-gained customer and they call you back a couple of times per year, then your return is much better. In reality, if you really want to take the long view, then you need to develop metrics and track your customers closely to calculate a truer ROI.
