Let's TalkLet's TalkMoving searches mix people hiring a full-service mover with people renting a truck, buying boxes, looking for labour-only help and looking for moving jobs. Google Ads for a moving company has to pay for the first group, show proof of a real mover in the ad and answer before the competition.
We go through the search terms you paid for, the quotes they produced and what became of them, and show how much went on truck rental, boxes, labour-only and job searches, which campaigns produced booked moves, how your ads present your registration and reviews, and what to change first. You get a recorded walkthrough; there is no call to sit through.
Four failures we see repeatedly in this vertical, and what each one actually costs.
'Moving truck rental', 'cheap moving boxes', 'portable storage containers' and 'how to pack a kitchen' come from people moving themselves. 'Mover jobs' and 'moving helper jobs' come from people looking for work. Without careful exclusions, these searches can take a real share of every day's budget before someone who wants a crew and a truck has seen your ad - and they inflate every report.
Lead sites and brokers bid on the same moving searches as you, then sell the enquiry on. Customers click without knowing who they are dealing with. Ads that make it clear you are the mover - your name, your trucks, your registration - give customers a reason to choose the company that will actually do the work.
Local apartment moves, long-distance family relocations and office moves are worth very different amounts and convert at different speeds. Lumped together, the quickest conversions win the budget - often small local moves - while the long-distance and commercial work that pays best is left with whatever remains.
Accounts that spend the same in a fully booked July weekend and a quiet February weekday buy leads nobody can serve and miss the dates that need filling. Budgets need to follow the calendar - pulling back when trucks are booked and pushing when they would otherwise sit idle.
Business outcomes rather than dashboard metrics. None of these is a guaranteed number - where we do guarantee something, it is written into the offer above.
The real deliverables, not a list written to make a proposal look thicker.
Not the general agency pitch. The reasons that only apply to this kind of business.
Moving keywords attract self-movers, box buyers, container renters and job seekers alongside customers who want a full-service mover. We build exclusion lists from the search terms you actually pay for and keep them current, so the budget goes on searches that end in a survey or a booked move.
Customers clicking moving ads cannot always tell a mover from a lead site. We write ads and assets that show your company name, your registration, your reviews and your own trucks, so the cautious customer can see who will turn up on moving day - and federal advertising rules for interstate movers are met rather than forgotten.
We plan budgets against your bookings: holding back when peak weekends are full, pushing mid-month and weekday dates, and giving long-distance and commercial campaigns the time they need to convert. Spend goes where it can actually become a move your crews can do.
Recent searches sorted into moves, rentals, supplies, DIY and jobs.
Negative lists built and reviewed monthly.
Local, long-distance and commercial campaigns and pages.
Name, registration, reviews and trucks in copy and assets.
Spend shifted toward dates with room.
Booked and completed moves fed back for bidding.
The parts of this that come from having run it in this industry before rather than from running it well in general.
Google's current US list of Local Services Ads categories includes moving services. Where available they charge per lead rather than per click and show a Google Verified badge for businesses that pass Google's checks. Compare them with search campaigns on cost per booked move.
Federal rules require interstate household goods movers to show their name and U.S. DOT number in every advertisement, in the form 'U.S. DOT No.' followed by the number. Building that into ad copy, assets and landing pages from the start avoids compliance gaps and reassures customers.
Many moves are booked by phone, often by people working to a deadline. Call assets with tracked numbers, answered promptly and recorded with outcomes, capture those customers and feed real results back into bidding.
The easiest conversions in moving are often small local jobs and price checks. Importing booked and completed moves with their values teaches bidding which searches lead to valuable long-distance and full-house moves.
None of our case studies is a moving company. The nearest Google Ads engagement is an auto dealership, where tightly targeted search campaigns produced 1.22M clicks at a 0.90% click-through rate, 627% ROAS and $617K in revenue. The transferable lesson is targeting discipline - paying only for searches from people ready to buy, which in moving means filtering out truck rental, box and job traffic first.
Read the full case studyYes, when rental, supplies, DIY and job searches are excluded, campaigns are split by move type and ads show proof that you are a real mover. Measured on booked moves rather than clicks, search ads can be one of the most dependable sources of work a moving company has, especially for long-distance and commercial moves.
Truck and van rental, portable containers, boxes and packing supplies if you do not sell them, how-to and DIY searches, labour-only help if you do not offer it, and job searches. Review the search terms report monthly, because new variations appear constantly, especially as the summer season builds.
If you are an interstate household goods mover, federal rules require your name and U.S. DOT number in every advertisement, shown as 'U.S. DOT No.' followed by the number. Build it into ad copy or assets and landing pages, and check with your compliance adviser how it applies to each ad format you use.
Google's current US list includes moving services, so many movers can, though availability varies by area. They charge per lead rather than per click, and invalid leads are not charged. Run them alongside search campaigns and compare the two on cost per booked move, not on lead price alone.
Yes. Long-distance searches are fewer, more valuable and slower to convert, and the customer needs more reassurance about estimates, registration and timing. A separate campaign with its own budget and landing page stops quicker local conversions taking all the money.
Make it obvious you are the mover. Use your company name, registration, reviews and photos of your own trucks in ads and on landing pages. Customers who have read about moving scams prefer to deal directly with the company that will do the work, if they can tell which one it is.
Your company name, address and registration numbers, photos of your trucks and crews, the move type the searcher asked about, how estimates and deposits work, genuine reviews and a short inventory form or survey booking. Every element should answer a question a cautious customer would otherwise call someone else to ask.
Enough to fill the dates your trucks and crews can serve, paced to your calendar. Start with your most profitable move type and areas, judge it on cost per booked move over a couple of months, then expand into what works. A small, well-targeted account can do very well.
Import booked and completed moves as offline conversions, with their values where possible, so bidding learns which searches lead to real jobs. Counting every quote request equally teaches Google to find people who request quotes, and in moving many of those are price checks sent to several companies.
On dates that are already full, often yes. Paying for enquiries you will turn away wastes budget and annoys customers. Shift spend toward dates with room, toward long-distance and commercial moves booked further ahead, and toward the quieter weeks either side of the peak.
Written for owners weighing this up, whether or not they work with us.
This is one part of a bigger service. Here is the whole of it, and the closest neighbours.
No pitch deck, no discovery call you have to sit through. Tell us the situation and we will tell you whether we can help.