Solved: Indianapolis Google Ads Targeting (Find the Moment!)

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out!

Happy to give you some initial thoughts on your Google Ads situation in Indianapolis. It sounds like a classic targeting problem, and tbh, it's one of the most common issues we see. People get bogged down in demographics and endless keyword lists, when the real answer is usually a lot simpler, if a bit counter-intuitive.

The core of the problem isn't about finding the *right people*; it's about finding people at the *right moment*. Specifically, the moment they have a painful, urgent problem that you can solve. We'll need to completely reframe how you think about targeting, moving away from "who" and focusing almost entirely on "why" and "when". Let's get into it.

Your ICP is a Nightmare, Not a Demographic

Right, let's get this out of the way first because it's the foundation for everything else. Forget the sterile, demographic-based profile your last marketing hire might have cooked up. "Homeowners in Indianapolis, aged 35-55, with an income over $75k" tells you almost nothing of value and leads to generic, ineffective ads that speak to absolutely no one. You're burning cash trying to guess who your customers are.

You need to become an expert in their specific, urgent, expensive nightmare. Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) isn't a person; it's a problem state. Let's make this practical. Are you an electrician? Your ICP isn't 'Bob, the 45-year-old dad'. It's 'the moment Bob's power goes out at 10 PM on a Friday, and his family is sitting in the dark, and he's desperately searching on his phone for an "emergency electrician near me".' See the difference? One is a vague profile; the other is a moment of acute pain and high motivation.

Are you a cleaning service? Your ICP isn't 'busy professionals'. It's 'the overwhelming panic someone feels the week before their in-laws visit, looking at their messy house and realising they'll never get it clean in time'. They're not searching for 'cleaning tips'; they're searching for 'last minute house cleaning indianapolis'.

This isn't just a bit of marketing fluff. It's the blueprint for your entire keyword and ad copy strategy. Once you've isolated that nightmare, every decision becomes clearer. You're no longer selling a service; you're selling a solution to a very specific, very painful problem. Your ads need to find people in that exact moment of pain. And on Google, the way you do that is with keywords that scream intent.

I'd say you need to focus on keywords that actually convert

This brings us to your keyword problem. I'd wager a decent amount that your account is full of what we call "informational" keywords. These are queries where people are looking for information, not a solution they can buy right now. They're doing research. They're in 'learning mode', not 'buying mode'.

These are budget killers. You're paying for clicks from people who have no intention of hiring you today, and maybe never. We need to be ruthless here. You need to pause every single keyword that doesn't show clear commercial or transactional intent.

Here’s a simple breakdown of search intent:

• Informational Intent: The user is looking for an answer to a question. Keywords often start with "how to," "what is," "why does," etc. Example: "how to fix a flickering light bulb." This person is trying to DIY the problem. They are not your customer yet.
• Navigational Intent: The user is trying to find a specific website. Example: "Mr. Sparky Indianapolis website." You might bid on your own brand name here, but that's about it.
• Commercial Intent: The user is investigating products or services with the intent to buy in the near future. They are comparing options. Keywords might include "best," "review," "vs," "cost of." Example: "best electrician reviews Indianapolis." These can be valuable, but are still a step away from a purchase.
• Transactional Intent: The user is ready to buy. Now. Their nightmare is happening, and they need a solution immediately. These keywords are pure gold. They often include terms like "near me," "quote," "for hire," "service," "emergency," "prices." Example: "emergency electrical repair indianapolis."

Your job is to shift 90% of your budget to those Transactional Intent keywords. You might get fewer clicks overall, but the clicks you do get will be from people who are actively looking to hand over money in exchange for a solution. It’s about quality, not quantity. One click from someone searching "get quote for house rewire" is worth a hundred clicks from "how does a circuit breaker work". One is a potential customer; the other is a curious student.

I'm reminded of a campaign we're currently running for an HVAC company in a competitive area. By focusing strictly on these high-intent keywords—the 'I need help now' searches—they're seeing a consistent cost of around $60 per lead. For them, that's a profitable number because they know the value of each job. It proves that getting fewer, but better, clicks is the key. That's the power of focusing on intent.

You probably should stop worrying about demographics

Now for the second part of your question: demographics. Here’s the brutally honest truth for Google Search ads: for most service businesses, they don’t matter nearly as much as you think. In fact, focusing on them at the start is often a distraction that costs you money.

Think about it. If someone, regardless of their age, gender, or income, searches for "24 hour plumber Indianapolis," what does that tell you? It tells you they have a pipe that has burst or a toilet that is overflowing. They have an urgent, expensive problem. The keyword itself has done all the qualification you need. The intent behind that search is so powerful that their demographic profile becomes almost irrelevant. A 25-year-old in their first apartment and a 65-year-old in a paid-off house both need a plumber, and they both need one right now.

By layering on demographic restrictions from the start—like only targeting ages 35-65—you are actively telling Google, "Hey, if a 28-year-old homeowner has a burst pipe, I don't want their business." It makes no logical sense.

Where demographics *can* be useful is for optimisation down the line, once you have a good amount of conversion data. After a few months, you might look into your Google Ads reports and see that, for example, the 45-54 age bracket converts at a 20% higher rate than any other group. At that point, you could apply a small "bid adjustment" of +10% for that group, telling Google you're willing to pay a bit more for those clicks because you know they're more valuable. But this is a fine-tuning tactic, not a foundational strategy. You are refining an already working system, not building the system around a guess.

For now, my advice would be to open up your demographics. Target all adults. Let the keywords do the heavy lifting. You’ll get a much clearer picture of who your actual customers are, based on their actions (searching for your solution), not on assumptions about their identity.

You'll need to know what you can afford to pay

Before you can truly optimise your campaigns, there's a critical piece of maths you have to do. The real question isn't "How low can my Cost Per Lead (CPL) go?" but rather "How high a CPL can I afford to acquire a great customer?" The answer lies in understanding your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV).

If you don't know what a customer is worth to you, you're flying blind. You might pause a campaign with a $60 CPL because it feels expensive, without realising that those leads turn into $5,000 jobs, making it incredibly profitable. Conversely, you might be happy with a $10 CPL, but if those leads only ever buy your smallest, lowest-margin service, you could be losing money on every single one.

The calculation can vary depending on your business model. For a business with recurring revenue (like a monthly cleaning service), the formula looks something like this:

LTV = (Average Monthly Revenue Per Customer * Gross Margin %) / Monthly Customer Churn Rate %

But for a more typical service business where jobs are one-off (like an electrician or plumber), it's much simpler. Your 'lifetime value' is really the average profit you make from a single new customer over a year or two (including any repeat business).

Let's walk through a simplified example for a service business:

1. Average Job Value (AJV): What's the average revenue from a job you get through ads? Let's say it's $800.
2. Gross Margin %: After materials and labour directly related to the job, what's your profit margin? Let's say it's 40%.
3. Average Profit Per Job: $800 * 40% = $320. This is the value of a new customer.

A healthy business model often aims for a 3:1 ratio of value to acquisition cost. So, you can afford to spend up to $320 / 3 = ~$106 to acquire that new customer. This is your target Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC).

But that's not your target Cost Per Lead! You still have to factor in your sales conversion rate.

Let's say you're good on the phone and you close 1 out of every 4 qualified leads that come in (a 25% close rate). Now you can calculate your maximum affordable CPL:

Max Affordable CPL = Target CAC * Lead-to-Customer Conversion Rate
Max Affordable CPL = $106 * 25% = $26.50

Suddenly, you have a hard number. Any lead you get for under $26.50 is, in theory, profitable for your business. This is the number that should guide your optimisation decisions. That $50 CPL from a broad keyword now looks terrible, but a $25 CPL from a super-specific transactional keyword looks like an absolute bargain. This is the maths that unlocks intelligent, aggressive growth and frees you from just guessing what 'expensive' means.

We'll need to look at structuring your account for intent

So, how do we put all this together into a practical campaign structure that you can actually build in Google Ads? The key is to structure your campaigns and ad groups around intent and the specific 'nightmares' you solve, not just a random list of services.

Here’s a simple but powerful structure I'd recommend starting with, using an electrician as our example:

Campaign 1: Emergency Services (Highest Intent)

• Goal: Capture users with an urgent, immediate need. These are your most valuable leads.
• Ad Groups:
  • Ad Group: Emergency Repair (Keywords: "emergency electrician indianapolis", "24 hour electrician near me", "power outage electrician")
  • Ad Group: Urgent Panel Issues (Keywords: "sparking electrical panel help", "circuit breaker won't reset service")
• Ad Copy: Must scream urgency and reliability. Headlines like "24/7 Emergency Electrician," "Fast Response in Indianapolis," and "Call Now For Immediate Help." Use call extensions and set them to show prominently.
• Landing Page: Should be incredibly simple. Big phone number at the top. A simple form saying "Get Help Now." No distractions.

Campaign 2: Standard Quotes & Services (High Intent)

• Goal: Capture users who are actively shopping for a specific, non-emergency service. They are problem-aware and solution-seeking.
• Ad Groups:
  • Ad Group: House Rewiring (Keywords: "house rewire cost indianapolis", "get quote for electrical wiring", "electrician to rewire a house")
  • Ad Group: Lighting Installation (Keywords: "recessed lighting installation quote", "hire electrician for light fixture")
  • Ad Group: EV Charger Installation (Keywords: "ev charger installation indianapolis", "tesla wall charger installer price")
• Ad Copy: Focus on trust, expertise, and getting a clear quote. Headlines like "Free, No-Obligation Quotes," "Licensed & Insured Electricians," and "Upfront Pricing on All Jobs."
• Landing Page: Can be more detailed. Show customer reviews, list the services included, and feature a clear "Request a Quote" form.

Campaign 3: Brand (Navigational Intent)

• Goal: Capture users specifically searching for your business name. This protects you from competitors bidding on your brand.
• Ad Groups:
  • Ad Group: Brand Name (Keywords: "[Your Company Name]", "[Your Company Name] Indianapolis")
• Ad Copy: Reinforce that they've found the right place. "Official [Your Company Name] Site," "Schedule Your Service Online."
• Landing Page: Your homepage is usually fine for this.

Notice what we've done here. We've seperated the campaigns by the user's state of mind. The 'emergency' person gets a different ad and a different experience than the 'just shopping for quotes' person. This alignment of keyword intent, ad message, and landing page experience is what dramatically improves conversion rates. You're giving each searcher exactly what they're looking for in that moment.

Here's a table summarising the main advice I have for you:

This approach takes a bit more work to set up than just chucking a hundred keywords into one ad group, but the results are almost always night and day. It forces discipline and clarity, and it aligns your ad spend directly with revenue-generating activities.

Getting this stuff right—identifying the right intent, doing the maths on what you can afford, and building a structure that supports it—is honestly the difference between Google Ads being a money pit and it being a predictable, scalable engine for growing your business. It can be a bit overwhelming to overhaul, especially when you're also busy running the actual business.

This is often where expert help can make a big difference. We could take a proper look through your account, identify the specific keywords that are wasting your money, and implement a structure like the one above tailored to your exact services. It often accelerates the process from months of trial-and-error to a few weeks of focused implementation.

If you'd like to chat through this in more detail, we offer a free, no-obligation initial consultation where we can review your account together. It might give you some more clarity on the best path forward.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh