Google Ads for mortgage brokers: a complete guide to success

Google Ads: for mortgage brokers they can be something of a golden ticket. Here’s an extensive guide to getting them right.   

The need for good mortgage advice isn’t going anywhere. Compared to many other industries, yours is one where demand remains relatively stable. The key is to make sure enough of that demand is finding its way to you.

That’s where mortgage lead generation comes in. Google Ads come in – giving you a mechanism to draw people to your business at the precise moment they are searching for the kind of expertise that you provide. 

Done properly, Google Ads can generate a predictable flow of new leads for your business – allowing you to generate more revenue and grow sustainably.

Like the sound of 1,400% return on ad spend?

It’s easy to get started with Google Ads. But getting really transformative returns? That requires time. We are a paid media expert that helps businesses like yours generate huge returns from Google Ads and other paid media platforms. And we specialise in lead generation for mortgages. We’re so confident in our ability that if we like the sound of your business, we may offer to cover your ad spend. Get in touch for a free proposal.

Since working with Adbetter, our digital paid media channels have grown to be one of our most consistent generators of high-quality leads. Our lead volumes from paid media channels have increased over 1,400% whilst maintaining a low cost per lead.

Matthew Fawl, Director, Alesco Investment Property

An introduction to Google Ads for mortgage brokers

Okay, okay. You’ve searched Google before. So you’re familiar with the sponsored listings at the top of the search results. They’re Google Ads. And they are great for driving new leads towards your business.

As well as search, Google Ads encompasses the Google Display Network – which gives you the ability to advertise across a vast estate of websites, mobile apps and more. However, for this article we’ll focus on search.

That’s where the big opportunities are for mortgage brokers.

(If you want to learn about how you can get results using the Google Display Network, we’ve got you covered.)

>> Getting results from Google display ads for lead generation

Why do we love Google Ads for mortgage brokers?

Done well, Google Ads open the door to enhanced profits. Here are three reasons why it’s such a good platform for mortgage brokers.

• It’s accountable. You only pay when someone clicks your ad. And why would someone click unless they were at least partially interested in your services?
• It captures intent. You capture leads at the precise moment they are searching for the mortgage expertise that you provide.
• It’s easy to control your spend. You get options to automate daily, weekly, monthly or maximum budgets per campaign. And you can hit the pause button at any time. Every penny is accounted for in the performance analytics.

Google isn’t your only option

In most circumstances we’d recommend Google as your first port of call for promoting mortgage services. However it’s not your only option. Facebook Ads for mortgage brokers can also be hugely influential at driving qualified leads to your door.

Setting up a Google Ads campaign for mortgage brokers

The Google Ads interface is slick and intuitive. You don’t need any coding expertise. And you are likely to be able to get results with no prior experience with either Google Ads or advertising in general. (Not least if you read this guide!)

Create your account

Let’s start with the basics. To create Google Ads, you need to set up an account. Head to ads.google.com to sign up. Your account is where you will control billing, admin permissions and, of course, your ad campaigns.

Campaigns and ad groups

Each of your campaigns can be divided into different ad groups, where you’ll set your budget and targeting. Each ad group will have a different set of keywords that you can use to focus on a specific part of your service – with your ads triggered when someone searches for keywords that you have specified.

Think about target locations and niches

Once your account is up and running, take some time to think about the areas of your business that you want to promote and the type of people you are advertising to.

Do you specialise in mortgages for a certain type of property? Do you tend to work with first time buyers or people looking for equity release? Do you want to target people for face-to-face meetings or do you consult with clients online?

Create a list of neighbourhoods and niches that you’d like to target. These will eventually make up your ad groups.

Keyword research – and the need to consider intent

Next it’s time to think about the keywords that you want to target. This is all about putting yourself in your potential client’s shoes and thinking about what they might search for to find the mortgage services that you provide.  

Google’s free keyword planner can help you narrow your focus and offer ideas of the search volume, competition and potential cost for the keywords within various segments you might
want to pursue.

Creating a Google Ad Mortgage Broker Campaign

From your Google Ads account, click the blue plus sign to start creating your campaign.

Set your campaign objective

The first thing you’ll do is choose a campaign objective. For lead generation – surprise, surprise – we’d recommend the leads objective. Here’s a quick summary of each objective.

• Sales: Focuses on increasing the sales and profitability of your products or services. Bidding strategies are aimed at clicks, assets and ads that prompt purchases.
• Leads: Aims to drive leads for your business by capturing customer information through form submissions.
• Website traffic: Emphasises driving traffic to your website.
• App promotion: Designed for creating a streamlined journey to encourage installs of a mobile app.
• Awareness and consideration: Aimed at boosting the visibility and recognition of your brand.
• Local store visits and promotions: Designed to drive footfall to bricks-and-mortar locations.

Set your campaign type

Choose a Search campaign – for your ads to appear in the world’s most famous search engine.

Choose (and exclude) locations

As we mentioned, this will largely be driven by whether you want to meet clients face to face or whether you’re prepared to conduct meetings online. If it’s the former, think about how far people might be willing to travel to talk with you and set your location parameters accordingly.

Creating your ad groups

Remember what we were saying earlier about considering the different niches that you want to promote? Your ad groups is where you will segregate them. For example, you might have different ad groups for different introductory offers and/or ad groups for different types of mortgage.

Specify your keywords

Next it’s time to list the keywords that you want your ads showing up for. You’ll find this easy because you did your keyword research when we mentioned it earlier, right?

Some example keywords:

• manchester mortgage broker
• mortgage brokers in manchester
• best mortgages in manchester

Understanding keyword match types

Google lets you define how tightly it matches your keywords. For example, you can set it to display your ad for keywords that are loosely related to yours. Or you can insist that your ad is only served when your exact keywords are searched for.

• Broad match: Your ad will be displayed for all keywords that are similar to the ones you specified. This is the default setting.
• Phrase match: Your ads are shown in search queries that contain the exact phrase or a close variation.
• Exact match: Your ads will only be served when someone searches your exact keywords, with no additional words.

There’s no right or wrong answer here. It all depends on the keywords you have chosen and the search volumes your keywords attract. Exact match allows you to be highly targeted. Whereas broad match can enhance your exposure – although potentially serves your ad to people with less interest in your services.

Experiment and let your performance data guide you.

What about negative keywords?

Just as you can define keywords that you want your ad to be shown for, you can define keywords that block your ad from being shown.

Why would you want to do this? Let’s say you have an ad based on the keyword “mortgage broker manchester”. You’ll want to make sure people searching for “mortgage broker jobs manchester” are excluded from seeing your ad.

Specifying “jobs” as a negative keyword reduces the chances of you paying for a click that won’t create new business. Think carefully about other words you can exclude to weed out the searchers with no conversion intent.

Creating your first ad

Now it’s time to start actually creating your ads: writing the copy and firing it out into the world.

Where are you sending your leads?

To start with, you need to provide a URL that your ad will drive traffic to. This should be a landing page that’s specific to your ad group. (More on landing pages shortly.)

You will also be prompted for a display path. This is simply the way you want your URL to look in your ad.

For instance, your final URL might be something like:

http://www.mega-mortgages.com/landing-pages/manchester/equity-release 

But you could style it as:

mega-mortgages.com/equity-release

Much neater.

Crafting your headlines and descriptions

Okay, it’s time for some wordsmithery.

Google Ads comprise one headline and two descriptions.

• 1x headline (30 chrs)
• 2x descriptions (90 chrs each)

An important thing to note is that Google ultimately creates your ads for you. You feed it variations of headlines and descriptions – and it finds the best combinations for driving leads to your business.

Here are some tips for attention-grabbing ad copy.

Remember your reader

Remember there’s a real person behind every search. Speak directly to your lead using “you”-focused messaging. Think about what this person might be feeling. What are their ambitions? What outcome are they looking for? Why might they be nervous about reaching out to a mortgage broker? Try to get inside their head and write accordingly.

Include your keywords in your copy

It’s a good idea to use the keywords you are targeting in your campaign, which will be emboldened in your ad copy.

Communicate with clarity

You have milliseconds to get your message across. Be concise. Keep it relevant. Write with clarity.

Should you use assets?

Assets are pieces of additional information that can be included in your ad. We’d advise steering clear of additional links to your website. You want your ad to have a singular focus – driving all clicks through to your landing page.

However, you may want to take the option to include your phone number – which people can click straight from the Google search results to call you. You can also include the locations of your offices if it’s relevant to the region you are targeting.

Beyond the click: optimising your landing pages

When you’re paying for every click, it’s worth thinking carefully about what happens next.

Landing page best practice

You should have a specific landing page that’s highly relevant to each of your ad groups. Landing page design is a huge subject in its own right. But here are some quick tips.

• Design and copywriting. Your landing page should feel like a continuation of the ad your visitor clicked. Your design should be optimised for mobile and feature a compelling proposition above the fold.
• Create a closed journey. Single-mindedness is a strength when it comes to landing pages. Limit navigation options and stay focused on one clear call to action.
• Gather data. The main aim of a landing page is to gather information on your lead. Create a form that allows you to start the marketing conversation. More on this shortly.
• Remember your GDPR obligations. For your forms that means having a tick box that gets people to actively opt in to your comms. Be clear about who will be contacting your lead and how they will be contacted. You must also provide a link to your privacy policy.
• Utilise social proof and trust signals. Testimonials from previous patients will go a long way to helping build credibility and trust in your company. If applicable, utilise trust signals such as industry accreditations, qualifications or awards.

Create a lead magnet

To repeat: the main objective of your landing page is to gather data on your leads. You can incentivise form completion with some sort of giveaway. That could be a guide to finding the right mortgage. A short jargon-busting ebook. Or perhaps even a free consultation.

Setting your campaign budget

The final step in creating your campaign is to set a campaign budget. There is lots of freedom to experiment here. You can set daily or weekly budgets, set rules around seasonality and change your settings anytime within a matter of clicks.

Here are the main bidding strategies to be aware of.

• Maximise clicks: Google will aim to bring you the most clicks possible for your daily budget.
• Maximise conversions: Google will aim to get the most conversions possible for your daily budget.
• Target CPA (cost per acquisition): Like the above, but Google tries to get as many conversions as possible within CPA parameters that you set.

Tracking and optimisation

Your willingness to monitor and act on your performance data can be the difference between success and failure. No overstatement. You should constantly look for what’s working – and what isn’t – so you can iterate your campaigns and drive increased performance and efficiency over time.

Set up conversion tracking

You need to tell Google what represents conversion for your campaign. Under “Tools and Settings,” go to “Conversions” to create a new conversion action.

This will often be measured when a visitor fills out a contact form or signs up on your website, but you can also measure calls.

Continually monitor metrics

Your ads dashboard will provide you with lots of data on how your ads are performing. Many businesses pay only cursory attention to it. But this data holds the secrets that will help you crack the code of campaign performance.

Is there something you are saying in your messaging that is encouraging clicks? Is one location dramatically outperforming another? When you know what’s getting results, you can double down on those tactics – creating more ad variants based on what’s working and ditching the stuff that isn’t. 

Test, repeat, test, repeat.

This is the recipe for increased performance. And more revenue.

Review your campaign search terms

Regularly review the search terms that trigger your ads to show up. This insight helps you to optimise your keyword and negative keyword lists so that your ads only appear for the most relevant and potentially lucrative queries.

Nurture your leads

Getting a lead is one thing. Turning that lead into a new client is quite another. Make sure you have a process in place for nurturing your leads – whether that’s via email, phone calls or retargeting efforts on other PPC channels.

Only one acronym matters around here…

LTV. ERC. APR. As a mortgage expert, you’re no stranger to acronyms. But the only one that matters around here is ROAS: return on ad spend. That’s what we strive to deliver for every client. And we get transformative results – such as 1,400% ROAS for Alesco Investment Property. 

Ask us for a free proposal and we will outline how we might be able to do the same for you.

Frequently asked questions

You should also read:

>> Lead generation for mortgages: 8 tips for success
>> Facebook ads for mortgage brokers: top tips for success
>> Google ads for financial advisers: essential tips for success
>> Lead generation for financial services: 16 tips for getting big results