Gratuitous sorcery and incantations from actual Wizards.

"I’ve never met a business owner whose advertising failed because they were reaching the wrong people." – Roy H. Williams

It's not that your advertising is failing, per se. But maybe, just maybe, it could be reaching a wider audience and bringing in more business. Especially if you took advantage of Google Local Service Ads (LSA). If you’re not familiar with LSA, they’re a newer way for businesses to advertise on Google. The importance of ads trends at an all-time high. Companies are spending billions of dollars on ads, and a large portion of that goes to Google. We need ads, but they're also expensive. So, what if you could get your company's name in front of potential customers without spending a fortune? Google LSA is definitely part of the answer. LSA is a newer type of ad offered by Google for service based businesses. It's designed for businesses that provide local residential services, such as plumbers, locksmiths, and HVAC companies. The goal of LSA is to help customers find ‘safe’ local businesses quickly and easily. Here's everything you need to know about LSA.

What are Google Local Service Ads (LSA)?

Google Local Service Ads are a type of online advertising that allows businesses to connect with customers in their local area. LSA appear as a special listing at the top of the search results. It’s separate from regular organic listings and other paid ads. Your LSA listing includes your business name, contact information, average customer rating, and cost per lead. One of the great things customers like about LSA is that they’re very transparent. Customers can see your business name, contact information, and ratings before even clicking on your ad. That helps build trust and confidence, which can lead to more customers contacting your business.  Wizard of Ads® for Essential Services can't just wave our wands to get you to the top of the Google LSA listing. But we can guide you down the right dimly-lit stone pathway toward getting your business found online by new and existing customers. Book a call.

Local Service Ads - A Brief History

Once, in a far-off land a long time ago, there was Google Adwords. Adwords launched in 2000 to much fanfare, and it was quickly apparent that Google had changed the way businesses advertised forever. Adwords allowed businesses to target potential customers with laser precision, and it soon became the gold standard for online advertising. It was and still is a very effective tool in its own right. But times change, and Google has changed with them. In 2014, Google launched “Home Service Ads” in the San Francisco Bay Area to connect people with local service providers. The product allowed businesses to create profiles and list their services, prices, and availability. Customers could then search for providers within their area and book appointments directly through the platform. The program was so successful that it quickly expanded to other markets across the United States. In 2017, Google rebranded the product as “Local Service Ads” and made it available globally. Today, in 2022, the product has continued to grow and evolve. LSA are available in over 50 countries and thousands of cities around the world.

Where to Find Local Services Ads

You can find Google LSA in the "Local Services" section of the search results. To see it, simply enter a search query into Google with the word "local" or a location identifier (like a city or ZIP code). For example, searching for "plumbers near me" or "lawyers in Los Angeles" will both return LSA at the top of the results page. You can also ask for Google ads support if you run into trouble in finding these.

Local Services Ads Rankings

To be eligible to appear in LSA, businesses must pass Google's screening process, including a background check. A company must first be verified and approved. Then it'll have a ranking based on its reviews, customer feedback, and other factors. This ranking will determine where the business appears in the LSA results. The higher the rank, the more likely customers will see the business's ad. Local Services listings in the Google Business Profile (GBP, formerly Google My Business) account are sorted and rated on several criteria. Google decides which service providers to include in response to a user's query. They consider the likelihood that consumers would contact your company. The following variables influence the decision.

Your Profile Content

• Having a Google badge of trust, Google Guaranteed, helps increase the chances of your business being chosen by prospects.
• Your bidding strategy is also vital. The higher the amount you're willing to pay per lead, the more likely the ad will rank for your business.
• Your business hours matter, too, for obvious reasons. Potential customers can only hire service providers available when they need them.
• How often you respond to customer inquiries and feedback affects ranking. Customer feedback includes any messages or calls. If you leave those unanswered, it will negatively impact your rank.

Your Business's Reports and Reviews

• Your review score is based on the number of reviews for your business and their quality. The higher your score, the more likely your LSA is included.
• Google receiving repeat or serious complaints about your business can remove you from the program.

What Customers Search

• Things like search terms, the time of the search, and other pieces of context related to a customer's search help Google determine whether your business should appear in an LSA.
• How close you and your customers' physical location are to each other also matters. If you're a moving company and someone is searching for "movers near me," you're more likely to show up than if they just search for "movers."

Ad Ranking Best Practices

Businesses can do a few things to improve their ranking and increase their chances of appearing in LSA. Below are ad ranking best practices.

Ask Customers to Review Your Company

Google recommends you have at least five or more customer reviews. Customer reviews are one of the most important ranking factors for LSA. Encourage customers to leave reviews by asking them directly or providing a link on your website where they can leave a review. You can also give customers an incentive, like a discount, for leaving a review.

Widen Your Service Area and Types of Jobs

The wider your service area, the more opportunities you'll have to appear in an LSA. You can also increase your chances of appearing in an ad by being willing to do more types of jobs. Or, at least just make sure all the job types your company offers are listed. For example, if you're a plumber, you might want to consider adding "toilet repair" and "drain cleaning" to the list of services you're willing to do.

Choose "Maximize Leads" instead of "Max Per Lead"

You can make the most of your ad's allocation by choosing "Maximize Leads" under Ads Settings. That will cause Google to show your ad more often, rather than spreading out your impressions (the number of times your ad copy appears) evenly throughout the day.

Post Prime Photos

Your photos can be of anywhere your business operates. But, for best results, post high-quality photos of your office, storefront, equipment, and any team members working with customers.

Figure Out Which Features to Opt-in

Google offers a variety of features for LSA, but not all of them will be right for your business. You'll need to decide which optional features you want to opt-in for. For example, you can opt into the LSA booking feature, allowing customers to book appointments directly from your ad. That's a great feature if you're a service-based business with set appointment times. But, if you're a retail store or restaurant, this feature wouldn't make much sense. You can also opt into things like background checks and insurance verification. These are optional, but they can help build trust with potential customers. Only choose the features that make sense for your business. The more features you opt-in for, the more likely it is that customers will be able to find and use your services.

Some Benefits of Using Local Services Ads

There are a few key benefits to using Local Service ads. First, they can help you stand out from the competition. With LSA, your business will appear at the top of the search results, above the organic listings. That can be a big advantage, especially if your competitors aren't using LSA. Second, LSA can help you attract new customers. Your business will appear in front of potential customers actively searching for your services. Because of this, you're more likely to get new business from LSA than from other marketing channels. Third, LSA can be an effective way to build trust and credibility with potential customers. Google requires businesses that use LSA to go through a verification process. That helps ensure that only legitimate companies with a good track record can use LSA.

How do Local Services Ads Work?

LSA are a type of Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising that allows businesses to promote their services to potential customers in a specific geographic area. To use LSA, companies first need to sign up with Google and create a profile. Once a business makes a profile, it can start creating ads. Each ad will target a specific service and geographic area. Potential customers sometimes search for the business's services offered in the target area. When this happens, the company's ad will appear in the top spot of the search results. The ad will include the business's name, address, phone number, and average customer rating. When a potential customer clicks on the ad, it goes to the business's profile page. Once there, they can learn more about the company and read customer reviews. You can also review the engagement rates of your LSA with Google analytics. Measuring the performance of this marketing ad campaign will be critical to its success. Keywords Everywhere or Google keyword planner are great tools to use for this, too. They help with keyword research. You can use them to measure how often your customers click on your ads and how much they spend. This data will be important to show whether or not your LSA campaign is working. If it isn’t, you can make changes to improve it. And remember, if you need any help, Local Service ads Google support can guide you on how to get started. Or, rely on us.  Wizard of Ads® for Essential Services can cast the spell to create a customer interaction that converts. If you're ready for us to craft your Google LSA campaign, book a call.

Think of a brand. Any brand. When you've thought of one, what image comes to mind? Is the image clear, or a little foggy? If it's the former, that company probably has a good brand identity. If it's the latter, however, their brand identity might be a bit lackluster. So what about your brand? Where does it lie on the scale of unrecognizable to legendary? If you aren't totally sure or feel that your brand development could use some extra oomph, you're in just the right place. In this article, we'll go over what brand identity is, how it has evolved, why it's so important, and what sets good branding and bad branding apart. Once you know this essential information, you'll be branding like a pro in no time.

Brand Identity Explained

A brand's identity is the visual representation of the brand, including its logo, color scheme, typography, and other design elements. It’s the visual story to your brand’s story. These elements come together to create a unique look and feel that can be used to differentiate a brand from its competitors. A strong brand identity can help build brand equity, which can lead to higher brand awareness and recognition. A brand's identity should be carefully crafted to reflect the brand's values and personality. It should be consistent across all channels, from website and social media to print and packaging. And it should be able to evolve over time to keep up with changes in the brand or its industry. Creating a strong brand identity is an important part of any branding strategy and it can take time and effort to get right. When your brand image and your brand story match, they tell a persuasive and compelling story about the benefits of choosing your brand over the competition. At Wizard of Ads® for Essential Services, we take all the guesswork out of your branding design. Book a call with us today and we’ll help you with creating a brand that stands out, builds trust with consumers, and drives sales.

The Evolution of Brand Identity

There's no doubt that national, guild, religious, and heraldic symbols, logos, and other visual branding have been around for a very long time. However, the modern practice of using these elements to sell products and services can be traced back as far as the industrial revolution. That's when factories started producing household goods, therefore manufacturers needed a way to stand out from the competition and make their products more recognizable to consumers. Over the years, branding efforts have evolved from simple visuals to including mascots, jingles, and other marketing techniques. Some of the oldest trademarked brands are companies like Stella Artois, Averill Paints, and Lowenbrau. Today, brand identity has become a complex process that involves everything from market research and target audience analysis to graphic design, web development, and even SEO. In other words, a lot goes into creating a strong, recognizable brand.

Does Your Brand Identity Matter?

A strong brand identity can do wonders for your business. It helps you attract new customers and build loyalty among existing ones by creating a sense of trust, credibility, and a positive association with your brand. A well-defined brand identity also makes it easier for you to stand out from the competition, communicate what you do and what makes you different, and reside in the minds of your potential customers. If your brand identity is weak or nonexistent, on the other hand, you could be missing out on all of these benefits. Your brand will be less likely to stick in people's minds, and you'll have a harder time differentiating yourself from your competitors. Just think about shopping for wine. The label, and sometimes the vineyard, are the only elements that are used to decide which bottle to purchase in a sea of options. So, yes, your brand identity matters — a lot. If you're not happy with yours, it's never too late to make a change. Work with a professional designer to create a new logo and visual style for your brand. And make sure to put some thought into what you want your brand to represent. With a strong identity, you can take your business to new heights.

Your Brand’s Identity is Your Aim

When building a brand, creating the right identity should be your second focus behind crafting the right brand story. This means getting to the core of who you are as a brand, understanding your audience, your product or service, the value that it offers, and what sets you apart from your competitors. To do all of this, call a meeting with your business partners so you can brainstorm and ask some pivotal key questions, such as:

• Who are we as a brand?
• What is our purpose?
• What do we stand for?
• What are our core values?
• Who is our target audience?
• What do they want and need from us?
• What are their pain points?
• What are our unique selling points?
• What is our competitive advantage?

Once you have a clear understanding of your brand identity and answer these questions, you'll have the tools you need to develop a strong brand that truly resonates with your target audience. But how do you know if your brand identity is effective? Here, we’ll describe the difference between good brand identity and bad brand identity with examples to boot.

Bad Brand Identity

A bad brand identity is centered around you, your company, your products, and your services. Now I know we've just told you that these elements are key to building a well-defined and impactful brand identity, but these same elements can easily be overemphasized and quickly form into bad branding. For example, using words like “I, me, my, we or our" in your branding can create a self-centered or "salesy" image. You are speaking from the limits of your own belief system, and in doing so you are only speaking to the members of your own tribe. This leaves you with a message that lacks the emotional depth and value that you need for your target audience to become devoted to your brand. One company branding mistake that made headlines was Pepsi and their commercial starring celebrity Kendall Jenner. The ad was meant to show how Pepsi could bring people from all walks of life together, but it received a lot of backlash for being insensitive to the current political and social climate. Ultimately, it's essential to remember that your customers and clients are the ones you're trying to reach. They should always come first as it's their input, suggestions, and feedback that forms the basis of a great brand identity, not yours. So keep that in mind as you design or re-design your brand.

Good Brand Identity

A good brand identity is centered around the customer, and how your product or service can elevate their happiness. It’s about seeing through the eyes of your customers and finding out what they care about, rather than lecturing them on what they should care about. It involves opening your heart and mind wide enough to speak to the values and beliefs of which are not your own. Using words like “You, you, you, your, you're…" and (you've guessed it), "you" in your branding will help keep the focus on your customer and show them that they are what matters most. You can also use a technique created by persuasive ad writers called “inclusive communication by design.” This can be done in two ways:

1. Include Something for Everyone You’re Targeting

Use language that appeals to every possible perspective a consumer will have when making a purchasing decision. To find these perspectives, create three or four customer "personas" with the help of the frontline salespeople who talk to your customers every day. Ask them questions that will allow you to confidently showcase each of these different belief systems. This will effectively take your brand identity to the next level, and the next.

2. Speak Only to Those Values and Universal Truths That Most People Agree Upon

You may have a great product, and your ad copy may be very well-written, but if it's not speaking to the values that most customers share, then it's not going to be persuasive. As beneficial as this advice is, it can be tricky to market your brand identity in a way that is still specific to your target audience. That's why initially establishing your customer personas is so important. One brand identity that does this well is Apple. Everything they do is focused on the user experience and making it as seamless, efficient, and joyful as possible — things that any customer would want out of a product. They do this through elegant design, user-friendly interfaces, and constantly finding new ways to make their products even more intuitive. And that's why people are so passionate about their products. When you put your customers first, it shows. And it pays off in spades.

Your Brand Identity Epiphany is Approaching

So, if you want to create a lasting and successful brand identity, it's important to start with the basics. Your brand identity is the precedent for your branding, marketing, and sales success, and without a solidified identity, your brand won't have the legs to take you onward and upward. Your brand should be easily recognizable and have an inspiring story that customers will connect with. It's also essential to have a style that stands out from the competition and makes an impression. And finally, don't forget to make sure your brand is being seen and heard by the right people. With the help of Wizard of Ads® for Essential Services , we can guide you through this process so that you can achieve household-name status in your industry. Book a call with Wizard Ryan Chute today so we can get started on building your successful brand identity.

Before the name Amazing Morrow meant anything in Houston, they were just another solid HVAC company: trucks, tools, heart all in place. But no one knew their name.

They were spending millions on pay-per-click and direct mail campaigns, yet they blended into the crowd like khakis at a contractor convention. Leads trickled in. Growth stalled. Sound familiar?

“We had a great team and a solid business, but we weren’t the company people thought of when their AC gave up in the Houston heat.” — Justin Morrow

This is where Wizard of Ads® for Essential Services stepped in.

The Strategy: Start with Questions, Not Answers

Too many marketing campaigns start with tactics — spend money here, post there, run that ad. Not us.

We started with questions:

• Who are you really?
• What do you stand for?
• Why should anyone remember your name the moment they need you?
  
  

And then it clicked: Mr. Morrow, the cartoon character lurking in the old logo, was a story nobody knew.

So we gave him life. We gave him a voice. We gave him a personality.

We didn’t just rebrand a name. We transformed a company identity:

• Morrow Mechanical became Amazing Morrow
• New logos, trucks, identity, and voice
• Radio ads that were intentionally silly, unforgettable, and stick
  

“When they hear something, we want them to think of us — not just now, but when it really matters.” — Justin Morrow

The Wizard of Ads Approach

Here’s how we made the brand impossible to ignore:

🎙️ Auditory Anchors

We created radio ads designed to lodge in listeners’ minds — so even complaints about them meant people were remembering the brand.

🧔‍♂️ Mascot Activation

We turned Mr. Morrow into a vintage, memorable character, giving him a personality people could connect with.

🚚 Strategic Rebrand

Updating everything from the company name to visual identity and tone, making Amazing Morrow instantly recognizable and trustworthy.

💡 Smarter Marketing Spend

 Low-performing PPC campaigns were cut, direct mail optimized, and auditory messaging amplified — achieving more reach with less spend.

The Results Speak for Themselves

In October 2022, Amazing Morrow was pacing $6.5M in revenue. Today, they’re on track for $14M+.

But the story isn’t just numbers:

🔊 Listeners called to complain about the ads — then booked service.

📈 Inbound leads from both customers and job seekers surged.

💰 Marketing spend dropped 40%, from millions to hundreds of thousands.

💸 PPC was eliminated entirely.

🧲 The brand became magnetic and impossible to ignore.

Amazing Morrow didn’t just grow revenue, they multiplied reputation, reach, and relevance.

Why It Worked

Most HVAC companies chase today’s customer. We persuade tomorrow’s prospect.

Marketing shouldn’t make you look like everyone else. It should make you unforgettable.

By transforming Morrow Mechanical into Amazing Morrow, we created a company Houston thinks of first when they need someone they trust.

“Your marketing shouldn’t just chase clicks. It should anchor memory, build trust, and multiply your business over time.” — Ryan Chute

The Takeaway for Essential Services

• Brand first, tactics second: Your story is the engine. Ads are the wheels.
• Make your company unforgettable: People hire who they remember and trust.
• Strategic weirdness works: Personality, humor, and boldness cut through white noise.
  
  

If you want your HVAC, plumbing, or home services brand to become a household name, not just another line in a directory, let’s talk.

✨ Because being remembered beats spending money on ads that sound like everyone else’s.

👉 Start the Conversation

Campaign Highlights

Industry: Home Services / HVAC

Location: Houston, TX

Growth: $6.5M → $14M+

Strategy Focus: Branding, Radio, Image, Identity, Strategic Weirdness

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Let’s be honest, ad fraud isn’t a glitch in the system. It is the system.

In this episode of Advertising in America, Ryan Chute, Michael Torbay, Chris Torbay, Vi Wickam and Christina Gressianu pull the curtain back on the dirty economics of digital advertising. From bot traffic and fake clicks to AI expansion that floods your campaigns with people who were never going to buy.

They explain why Google and social platforms are financially incentivized to let some fraud slip through, how display networks and audience expansion quietly multiply waste, and why most dashboards make bad traffic look like progress.

But this isn’t just about what’s broken.

It’s about what still works.

The conversation turns toward brand and why branded search is the hardest thing to defraud, why specificity beats scale, and why companies without a strong brand will struggle as AI search, voice assistants, and automated booking systems take over.

Because when AI starts choosing one provider instead of ten…Only brands survive the cut.

Episode Highlights

• Where ad fraud actually happens (and where it mostly doesn’t)
• Why display networks and audience expansion are fraud magnets
  
• How bots inflate impressions, clicks, and “performance” metrics
• The conflict of interest baked into auction-based ad platforms
• Why strong brands are the cheapest fraud protection available
• How AI search will reward familiarity—and punish anonymity

🎧 Hit play and learn how to stop paying for attention that was never real.

📱 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

💥 Brought to you by Wizard of Ads® for Essential Services

On today's episode of Advertising in America, we're looking forward to talking about ad fraud and the implications it has on your marketing strategy.

Truthfully, Google Search Network is probably only 1% to 2% fraud clicks. Google makes money off the fraudulent clicks just like it makes money off the real clicks.

If somebody is Googling Vi’s Computer Consultancy, and I buy that click, the list comes up, and it says, “Would you like to visit Chris's Computer Consultancy?” No. I was deliberately looking for a Vi’s. You're luring me into the thing and very subtly going to switch me over to this Chris guy.

Unless you create a webpage that says Vi’s Computer Consultancy by Chris, really small.

What are some of the ways that we can advise our clients to protect against ad fraud and maximize some of their ad dollars to go to the best uses?

I actually have no idea because I don't do any of this. I would say you have to hire someone who knows to do the computer shit.

Ryan Chute: On today's episode of Advertising in America, we're changing things up a little bit. Today, we have two other partners with us from the Wizard of Ads. Christina and Vi, welcome to the show. And we're looking forward to talking today about ad fraud and the implications it has on your marketing strategy.

We'll start off with Vi Wickam, talking about ad fraud, what ad fraud is, and how it implicates us in the marketing strategies that we follow.

Chris Torbay: Help me understand the first thing again when you talk about the bots that are supposedly getting views or getting clicks, is this something where those things are registering, or those clicks are registering, and Google is independently logging them as having been viewed, and it's being fooled, but the tally is coming from them? Or are they part of the problem, or how exactly does that work?

Vi Wickam: Yes, and yes. Say I build a website, and I want to display Google Ads, and that would be called Display Network in Google Ads term. And I am going to put up video ads, and I'm going to put up banner ads and I'm going to put them all over the site.

And I'm also going to make it so that I display maybe a hundred ads on every page, but only five of them actually show, but somehow I'm also writing a program that's going to go through and click on my ads. And Google specifically does catch some of that. It doesn't catch all of that. Google is much better, though at catching and stopping those clicks from being charged than Microsoft is. But if you look at Google Search versus the Display Network, there's far less click fraud on Google Search, which happens within Google, than within the Display Network, which happens on all the other websites that display Google Ads.

Now, ultimately, Google is incentivized to catch some of this, but not all of this. Just like any of the other ad fraud software that are being hired by agencies to catch bot fraud. The reason being is they want these agencies, are generally being paid by a percentage of spend and so if they were catching half of the clicks and saying half of these clicks are fraud, or 75% of these clicks are fraud, and all of a sudden only half of the budget is being spent, they look pretty bad because they're buying lousy traffic. So there is a built-in incentive because Google makes money off the fraudulent clicks, just like it makes money off of the real clicks.

And truthfully, Google Search Network is probably only 1% to 2% fraud clicks. Google PMax, which uses Display Network as well, is a much higher percent of fraud, probably in the 7% kind of ballpark. Microsoft doesn't let you block Display Network by default. It makes you block it a little bit at a time as your ads run, and consequently, Microsoft is harder to keep clean. In our historic reference, comparing Fou Analytics, which is a software that we install on all of our sites that is specifically designed to track and differentiate quality traffic, human traffic, spider traffic, which is another type of bot, but isn't necessarily fraud and fraudulent traffic to your website.

And so in looking at that traffic and comparing, very often with Microsoft or Bing Ads Network, we see fraud rates of 20 to 25%. With PMax or Display Network campaigns on Google, we often see fraud rates of 5 to 7%. With Google Ads running search only, it's typically less than 2%, but very often in the 1 to 2% rate. And most of that Google actually catches and refunds. With the Microsoft network, we have found times where, in addition to the 20% of Microsoft flags is fraud, there's another 20% that they paid for that was actually fraud, that Microsoft didn't catch and wouldn't refund.

Mick Torbay: See, that was going to be my question. For example, in one of the examples you just gave on a particular Google ad will have 5% fraud. Who came up with that 5%? Was it Google saying, “Yeah, this is 5% fraud.” And can you trust? Is that just the ones they caught, or is that not the ones they caught?

Vi Wickam: That is just the ones that Google caught. And in addition, there's usually a few percent that we can identify as probably fraud that Google doesn't catch.

Mick Torbay: Okay. So new question. If you are able to spot it, why is Google not able to spot it?

Vi Wickam: It's not a question of whether or not Google can. Again, Google has an inbuilt incentive to not catch it all.

Mick Torbay: So if they wanted to catch it all, they could.

Vi Wickam: I would say yes, they could, but then they'd have to.

Mick Torbay: They'd take a financial hit to do that.

Vi Wickam: They would take a financial hit of potentially 2% of their business, which is billions of dollars if they were to do that.

Mick Torbay: So they could do some R&D, they could solve this problem, and it would only cost them billions of dollars.

Vi Wickam: It would only cost them billions of dollars to do the right thing. It would also require that they build in better detection methods. So it would cost them money on the front end and on the back end.

Mick Torbay: So the question is, how much money are they willing to invest on this program that would cost them billions of dollars more?  

Vi Wickam: It's a very good question. And they're the ones that are doing the best at blocking fraud. So let's be clear that even though they're not catching at all, they are doing a better job than their competitors at blocking fraud. And the areas where the fraud is the worst is on social networks. When you turn on the audience expansion or those kind of AI or algorithmic expansions of who you're targeting, you are getting potentially up to 95% fraudulent or worthless traffic.

Mick Torbay: Where is that, where is that happening?

Vi Wickam: So that happens on all of the social networks. On Facebook, we've seen numbers of 40 to 50% be fraudulent traffic when you use the audience expansion. I read a statistic about TikTok being 95% fraudulent on the expanded network. LinkedIn is often above 50% in the data we've seen when you expand the network. So never use an expanded network on any of those platforms if you want to avoid fraud. Also, don't use the Display Network on Google if you want to avoid fraud.

Ryan Chute: And what you're speaking about here in plain terms, in layman's terms, in everyday terminology, is if you don't want to spend money on fake clicks, don't expand your networks on the social networks and put bot blockers in place on the search engine networks.

Vi Wickam: For sure. And so we use a combination of bot blocking software and fraud detection software that we use in conjunction with each other to both identify and block IP addresses and signatures of fraudulent behavior or programmatic behavior. Things like clicking on areas of your page multiple times when there's nothing on that page. Clicking on and having mismatches between screen sizes and devices. For instance, the screen size is a device size that doesn't exist, or the screen size doesn't match what the device is. It says it's an Apple iOS device, but the screen size doesn't match any Apple iOS devices, and that's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of ways you can detect it, but it's not easy.

Mick Torbay: So it's not only fraudulent, but it's also lazy. If the fraud people could just get the device sizes right, they could do way more fraud.

Vi Wickam: Absolutely. The smarter you are at fraud.

Chris Torbay: Anyways, whose side are you on?

Mick Torbay: I'm just, I'm not saying you should do this. I'm saying they're going to get better at this, aren’t they?

Vi Wickam: They will absolutely get better. And what you have is in other countries, you have data centers full of humans and robots and computers with programs running on them, specifically with the intent of defrauding people in the Western world through ad fraud.

Mick Torbay: The people who are doing this, how are they making their money by paying Google for ads that are not seen? Or am I just not doing that?

Vi Wickam: So they're not paying Google. Google has a program called AdSense, where you can get a 60/40 split on ads that show on your website. So if I have a website that has a lot of traffic, I can show ads on that website. When people click on those ads, I get a 60/40 share of whatever that click is.

Mick Torbay: You're incentivized to have more clicks.

Vi Wickam: I want more visitors and more clicks, and as long as Google doesn't flag me as being fraud, I can keep on making a 60/40 split on a bunch of garbage, a bunch of garbage traffic, and that's not real people.

Mick Torbay: But you don't care about traffic to your site.

Vi Wickam: Not real traffic.

Mick Torbay: You care about clicks on those Google ads.

Vi Wickam: Google is tracking the traffic as well as the clicks. And so if Google sees that 100% of the people that visit my site click on an ad, Google's going to know and trigger it as fraud.

Now, again, Google has an incentive to not work really hard.

It's like that Polish king who wanted his peasants to eat potatoes. And so he first tried to tell him you should eat potatoes. And then he figured out that if I guard the potatoes, but I don't guard him very well, everybody's going to steal my potatoes and plant them. Google's guarding the potatoes, but not especially well.

Ryan Chute: This is interesting. It may, it reminds me of a movie I saw years and years ago, just trying to see if I could find it on ChatGPT, and it's giving me a few different options. It was about scraping fractions of pennies off of each transaction.

Vi Wickam: Oh, absolutely. That's what all the banks do.

Ryan Chute: This is what all the banks do. And this is exactly what this one person did and made hundreds of millions of dollars.

Vi Wickam: Yeah. Fractions of cents.

Ryan Chute: And this is ultimately what we're talking about here with ad fraud, in one element. One element is that there are bots that are making money off of your ads.

Let's bring this down to real life here. We have a client who's in Southern Texas in a fairly large city, and he's getting tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, more impressions than he is getting total population in the industry. There are way more impressions than there is people. On top of that, those impressions are turning into the potential of how many households might need to have air conditioning repair.  

Mick Torbay: So literally every man, woman, and child in that community is clicking on this guy's ads several times.

Ryan Chute: More than once. Or getting that impression, not on the ads, but on the impressions. But then you go through the exercise with him of how many possible people could there possibly be looking for “air conditioning repair near me” today. And the answer is tens of thousands, maybe 18,000, maybe less.

Vi Wickam: I'll accept your supposition.

Ryan Chute: Yes.

Mick Torbay: Certainly not everyone.

Ryan Chute: But based on the certainly not everyone

Vi Wickam: And certainly no more than 5% in a year are looking for that to be replaced.

Ryan Chute: Or a replacement. Or a repair. So if we look at the pure math and the fact that the clicks coming through are 5, 10, 20, 40 times more than the actual demand. You've have to ask yourself, where are these extra leads going to come from? Which ones are real? Which ones are fake for one? What are you paying for? What are you not paying for? You are completely susceptible to not just the ad fraud that's being done externally of Google and other search engines, but you're also getting the ad fraud of Google extorting you for your own name, accepting the fraud that comes that they could catch and they're not catching, and the fact that there's just not that many people possible to capture that. And then of course, they're an auction system that also is the seller of the product, which creates the most significant conflict of interest on the planet.

Vi Wickam: Alright, let's start at the top of this. There's a lot to unpack here. The first thing about impressions and clicks and the population and how many people are in the market. So Google creates in-market audiences. And those in-market audiences could be, like in the market for HVAC service or repair, the way those audiences work is I type in a keyword at some point and for the next six months or 90 days or whatever the length of time for that audience is, I'm in that audience whether I've bought the thing now or not.

So it might be six months' worth of people who mostly have already purchased the service who are still in this audience, because it is people who have typed in one of these keywords that Google has identified as putting you in the market. Now, it could also be that IP address, which is a business that has a thousand people, that all of those people get flagged now as being in the audience, because I did the search from work, and there's a thousand other people that work with me at that same IP address.

Google is trying to make those audiences good, but there are a number of factors that make it hard for those audiences to be good. So I bid on, I want to show to people in this general geographic area who are in this audience. If it's a six-month window, then instead of me looking at the, and the turn of this is really a one-week churn, then I have 25 times more people in that audience than are actually currently in the market. But I don't know how many of those people and which of those people are and aren't actually in the market for that service.

So that's one of the issues with these audiences. And it doesn't mean it's not worthwhile to bid on those audiences. It just means they aren't perfect, and you should know what you're actually buying when you target those audiences.

The next thing is when we're talking impressions, somebody could get 5 or 10 impressions of one of your ads in the same day. So if you're showing ads to people in this demographic area or geographic area, and you're showing a PMax or a Display Network Ad, it's showing as many times as you have budget for clicks to people, all through that area, who fit whatever profile you set up and those profiles aren't perfect and you might be 50-50 at best on them being in your real audience that you're trying to target. So when you get to the end of that, you may have hit some people 20 or 30 times a day, over that 30 days. And some of those people that you wanted to hit, you didn't hit at all because they weren't in the audience, because they didn't search Google for that keyword. So again, not perfect, not actually fraud.

Chris Torbay: But also not what people wanted from their ads.

Vi Wickam: And not really what they were for looking for.

Chris Torbay: And scrolling through a page and then getting served the same ad like 20 times. We have all these sorts of guidelines around frequency, and we know that you need a certain amount of frequency for stuff to really seed in people's minds.

Mick Torbay: But that 20th ad doesn't really do much,

Chris Torbay: But if you're dumping 50 views, 30 views on me, that's not what that client wanted when they said I would like to buy 10,000 views of this ad.

Vi Wickam: No. Now, when you mentioned charging you for your name and letting your competitors bid on your name, that's a whole different class of problematic behavior on the side of the search engines themselves, which is, they won't let you use the name of your competitors in the ad, but they will let you pay to bid on your competitor's name. So not technically fraud, but on the verge of trademark infringement being allowed. But they have lots of lawyers that tell them how far towards that they're allowed to go before it becomes trademark infringement.  

Ryan Chute: And it does become those issues of “Best Home Services” and “Quality Home Services.” These are all just generic names. There is no trademark ability of those names. So these are all statements.

Vi Wickam: And even when there is, Google will not stop you from bidding on your competitor's name. So if I bid on my competitor's name, I'm not likely to convert that, but I'm likely to steal that click from them. I'm much less likely to convert when they're not looking for me. They're looking for them. But if I don't pay for my own name, I am potentially giving those clicks to my competitors, which is problematic as well because, from my perspective, Google shouldn't allow that behavior. That is too close to trademark infringement. I would call it trademark infringement to bid on somebody else's name. If I resell a product, then I think that's legitimate. I should be able to bid on that product I sell. But to bid on a competitor's name, I think is problematic.

Mick Torbay: You call it problematic. I call it straight up dodgy. That’s like, if I sell you a gun, and then I say to Chris, Vi's got a gun, and he might shoot you. You should get a gun too to protect yourself from Vi because that guy's packing,

Vi Wickam: And he's got a gun.

Mick Torbay: And I'm selling to both of y'all, and then I go back to you and you're like, he's got a gun. You need a bazooka.

Vi Wickam: Definitely.

Mick Torbay: And the only person who's winning here is me.

Chris Torbay: I think you make a fair point. It's not, you're not going to lose a lot of those things because if somebody is Googling “Vi’s Computer Consultancy” and I buy that click, and so the list comes up, and it says, “Would you like to visit Chris's Computer Consultancy?” It's no, I was deliberately looking for Vi’s.

So then they're going to search again or scroll down to, you'll be at the bottom of the list, whatever. But maybe a couple of them. “Oh, we'll go and say I was looking for Vi, but this guy Chris looks okay. So maybe I'll try him and that for sure.”

Vi Wickam: You won't lose a lot, but you will lose some.

Christina Gressianu: Unless you create a webpage that says “Vi’s Computer Consultancy By Chris,” really small. And so then, when I search for Vi's Computer Consultancy, and I click on this link, and I think it's still Vi's, and I make the phone call, and you're like “Yeah, we've got Vi.”

Chris Torbay: Oh, you mean where you're really devious. It has also happened where it's visconsultancy.org, and it's not his, which is a .com. And so then you go to it, and it's a decoy, but then you're luring me into the thing and very subtly going to switch me over to this Chris guy.

Christina Gressianu: There was a lawsuit. Some lawyers sued some other lawyers. This happened. They won because they won like the deceptive practices. But the lawyers sued the lawyers who were bidding on their keyword. They didn't sue Google.

Mick Torbay: They didn't dare

Christina Gressianu: Rats.

Vi Wickam: No. And that lawyer who was trolling wouldn't outright say that they were them, but they would not say that they weren't. And so they were deceiving the customers as well, and they had ads that used terms that made people think that they were them without using their name, and they still lost millions of dollars for defrauding those customers. So you're right, it's shady. And it's shady on Google's behalf for allowing it to have it.  

Chris Torbay: I was going to say the secondary point here is that Google also knows what's goes on, so it's one thing for that person to do something deceptive. But if Google sort of is totally aware that kind of deception is happening, they need to do more.

Ryan Chute: They are conspirators.

Vi Wickam: They're making many millions of dollars, if not billions of dollars off that behavior. And the way that it adds up is if I own the name, and my website is the name, and my content on the website is the name, I get that click for really cheap because I have a very high quality score. If you, Mick, are bidding on my name as a keyword, you are going to pay 10 times more than I would pay for that same click. Google's incentivized for you to get some of those clicks. If I'm paying $5 for that click and you're paying $50, I want you to get some of those clicks.

Mick Torbay: Why do you pay $5, and I pay $50?

Vi Wickam: Because I'm going to have a quality score of 10, which is the best, and you will have a quality score of one, which is the worst. And the quality score is a multiplier that says, I pay one 10th for this keyword.

Mick Torbay: Most of Google's users are not happy with landing on my page.

Vi Wickam: Correct. People are going to be bouncing most of the time, but you're still going to sell a little bit off that. And you're going to, especially if you're tricky about it and you try to deceive people, and when they call you, you don't say, “Oh, we're not Vi’s Computer Service. You clearly have the wrong company service. We're Mick’s Computer Service. We don't wanna deceive you.”

Ryan Chute: There's also an incentive for companies like Google, Amazon is certainly a big culprit of this, where they've coined it broad search, and that's broad search, both in the keywords specifically and in the geography.

And for example, at our home service company in Phoenix, we're consistently seeing companies or clicks coming in, paying for clicks from areas that we're not servicing. And it's just enough outside of the areas that we've already identified equally as much, they take away a certain keyword to say, “Hey, it matched so we're going to show it up.” And then of course, you paid for that. Click congratulations.

Vi Wickam: And Google has systematically made keywords broader in terms of their behavior. In terms of geography, I've gotta side a little with Google on this one, because restricting geography by IP addresses is notoriously hard because you don't know exactly where they are unless they're on a mobile device. If they're on a desktop computer, they are registered to an ISP. The ISP is in a specific town, which may not be the town that computer's located in, and if the ISP doesn't report back where that specific IP address is assigned to, which they generally don't unless they're subpoenaed. Google doesn't actually have a great way to know exactly where you are. They're estimating most of the time.

Mick Torbay: So how tight can they be on mobile devices?

Vi Wickam: It depends on the provider and what data they sell to Google.

Ryan Chute: And if your location is on.

Vi Wickam: Yeah, if you have location tracking turned on, and you have Google Maps installed and active, Google knows exactly where you are. Same thing with Apple and Apple Maps. Apple knows exactly where you are if you're using Apple Maps, or Waze knows exactly where you are, and a lot of those software sell that data to whoever's willing to pay for it. Google's default location is you are in, or frequently in or interested in this area. Now the more restrictive is you are in this area right now, so if you want to have better targeting, you're going to say, I only want to target people who are actually in this area right now, but sometimes it's useful to say I sell tours to Hawaii and I want to target anybody in the US who's interested in Hawaii. I want to target Hawaii and people who are interested in Hawaii, or maybe I want to target anybody who's interested in Hawaii, but not people who are actually in Hawaii.

Ryan Chute: Fascinating subject, and Bob Hoffman's book inside The Black Box, he talks about this being at the levels of organized crime in the multi-hundreds of billions of dollars worth of fraud happening every single year. What are some of the ways that we can advise our clients to protect against it, and the listeners here today, to protect against ad fraud, and maximize some of their ad dollars to go to the best uses? I wouldn't mind picking on you a little bit, Christina, because I know that you have a few ideas on this.  

Mick Torbay: And you might not use insider jargon like he does, so that we might actually understand the answer.

Christina Gressianu: Oh, I actually have no idea because I don't do any of this. I would say you have to hire someone who knows how to do the computer shit.

Mick Torbay: That was a great answer.

Ryan Chute: That was actually, that was such a good answer. So you've got to do the computer shit.

Mick Torbay: I picked on Vi a little bit. But the trouble is that you're talking to us like we're smart people, and you need to cut that out.

Ryan Chute: So smart. So I get click bots, like you need to have fraud protection?

Vi Wickam: So step one is don't buy things that are typically fraudy. So don't buy programmatic ad exchanges, which are a thing. That's a thing that a lot of big agencies spend lots of money.

Ryan Chute: Like Tabula and yes.

Vi Wickam: Like Tabula, and there's a bunch of them, but typically those are the most fraud-filled transactions, and I could get into the technicalities of it.

Ryan Chute: Please don't,

Chris Torbay: Just say that's go easy on us.

Vi Wickam: That's mostly fraud traffic. The next, so avoid programmatic. Two, avoid audience expansion anytime you can.  

Ryan Chute: So, audience expansion is saying, I want more of the same customers in this area and you're clicking a little button on Facebook, Meta.

Vi Wickam: It's usually on by default, so whether it's Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, et cetera. Turn it off.

Ryan Chute: So we're turning off that function.

Vi Wickam: Always turn off audience expansion.

Ryan Chute: What else?

Vi Wickam: And don't run display ads. So turn off the display network and the Search Network on Google Ads.

Ryan Chute: Does that include PMax?

Vi Wickam: You gotta be very careful with PMax. PMax can be run at a positive ROI, but you've got to be very careful. PMax is just as fraudy as Display Network if you are not extraordinarily careful because it's running AI expansion, and just like Google added AI expansion for search, and also generates tons of garbage.

I had an HVAC company that we added “HVAC repair” as one of the keywords we were targeting. And it was targeting handyman and lawn service keywords, things that were only tangentially related at best. The expansion of any sort, where you're letting a computer decide who you're going to see, is going to be rife with fraud and garbage.  

Ryan Chute: Fascinating.

Mick Torbay: It's terrifying.

Ryan Chute: Absolutely. One of the ways I'm going to throw you another softball here. One of the ways that we can go about getting, avoiding, or reducing the impact of fraud is to have a stronger brand.

Christina Gressianu: So then, when people are searching for your name, that is the hardest to defraud.  When people search for Christina Gressianu Shoemaker, that is the hardest brand to defraud because no one can really be Christina Gressianu. So I'm a big fan of all the messaging. Keep your eyes on your own paper and speak your truth in all of your marketing, and don't worry about what's going on out there. And then the right people, whatever that means, will be looking for you specifically.

Ryan Chute: One of the interesting things that I've recently reconciled with is that the right copy finds its way in front of the right people. For example, Ryan Deiss, when we were listening to some of his problem statements, is “Minnesota Moms, True or False? I want an air conditioning company that can come to me in the next hour.” Just as a problem statement. And that copy, just as a simple example. Gets in front of the right person. When I'm tugging the hearts of people who have a heart, a soft spot for veterans, and you leverage a strong, authentic, true veteran message and story, you're going to get in front of the right people who want to be a part of that tribe. And those have the power in bypassing this channel reliance that we have, which is where a lot of people have to overspend in an already expensive space.

Marketing is not cheap, and just because you double your budget doesn't mean you're going to double your leads, and if you doubled your leads, there's a good chance that 25% of them are fake garbage robots. That's right. Robots don't buy air conditioners or hot water tanks or,

Christina Gressianu: I don't know. Robots need a lot of cooling.

Chris Torbay: Yeah, they don't take hot showers.

Vi Wickam: When it really comes down to it, having a strong brand is the cheapest way to avoid fraud because if you're not bidding on general keywords and you're not bidding on broad keywords, and you're only spending money on people who are looking for you by name, which you've got to have a really darn strong brand to only bid on branded keywords.

Chris Torbay: That's what struck me is it sounds like the possibility for fraud expands or grows as you move into these markets where it's open space, people throwing darts at a wall, and you want to be up there with all the other brands that no one has a preference for, right? The more you are in a space where people already know your brand, and they're looking for you specifically, the less there is that ability to have fraudulent clicks, fraudulent displays, fraudulent links and the cost of that connecting to the wrong, paying for a link to somebody you don't want to go to.

Vi Wickam: For sure. I totally agree. The more tightly you are built around your brand, the less opportunities there are for fraud.

Christina Gressianu: I would say that the more generic of a business you have, the more you're right for fraud. If I'm looking for a plumber who likes dogs and cats because I have dogs and cats, then that's a more specific business, more specific person than a plumber.

Ryan Chute: So dialling in a deeper understanding of what our clients are looking for from us helps pull us closer to the people who are looking for that specific service.

Christina Gressianu: I would say so.  

Chris Torbay: And the more specifically they're looking, the less rife with fraud, those aspects of the digital space are.

Vi Wickam: For sure. And the better we convey who we are and who the audience can be selected by the messaging, and if the messaging truly reveals who we are as a person or as a business, the better we are going to connect with that audience we're trying to reach.

Christina Gressianu: And the more serious that buyer is, right? If I'm just looking for women's suits, I may or may not be actually ready to buy. But if I'm looking for petite women's suits that are satin and plum, I have a very specific thing. And if you show me that ad, I'm probably going to buy.

Ryan Chute: This is where I think a lot of the click fraud has come up in Amazon, and Amazon is really happy about you clicking on 10 things that are wrong before they click on the one that's right, because they're getting paid all along.

Vi Wickam: Which may be Amazon's undoing in the long run because ultimately, Amazon has been a brand built around customer satisfaction and how much their search function has gone downhill to drive more clicks, which they're getting paid for and is a big part of their revenue, now has undermined customer satisfaction.

Ryan Chute: I think it's a following the money kind of thing, right? It's like I need more money. When we saw Google lose a significant volume of search revenue last year, we saw prices dramatically shoot up. Some of that was announced, a whole bunch of it was not announced, meaning you're just surprised. Get to pay more now. Tough luck.

Vi Wickam: Not actually an auction.

Ryan Chute: Not actually an auction, right? It's actually a complete scam of an auction because you can't be the auctioneer and the person selling the product to make it an auction.

Vi Wickam: And Google came on under scrutiny not very long ago when internal documents were leaked that showed that internal people to Google had increased prices just because they were trying to meet revenue.

Ryan Chute: There are pressures. That's right. So, how does this shift as we finish off this conversation? How does this shift with AI search? And with voice search making a significant leap forward?

Vi Wickam: So Google just announced that AI mode is a thing. And so we've gone from search results that were just “search,” right? We just had organic search, and then we added a sidebar of ads. Then we added the three ads at the top, and so what Google really wants is people to do things that make Google money. So ultimately, they don't want you clicking on organic search results. Those are just there because that's the value to the customer.

Mick Torbay: Which is strange because that's actually the thing that we all thought we were going to get.

Vi Wickam: That's what we all wanted.

Mick Torbay: That's what search was going to do today. We wanted an honest search.

Vi Wickam: So then we started adding structured snippets, which were attempts to answer the question without you ever leaving Google. So undermining the organic search results by answering the question first in a structured way. The next level was we added AI search summaries, and that is causing huge drops in search traffic for people across the board. I read recently that many sites have seen 50% or more drops in traffic without drops in impressions. So the same number of people are searching for you. You're showing up in the same place, but you've just lost half the traffic because the answer is being given in an AI summary and people are staying on Google. Google wants people to stay on Google unless they're clicking on an ad,

Ryan Chute: Deeply incentivized to stay on Google.

Vi Wickam: Unless they're clicking on an ad. Google doesn't want them clicking anywhere.

Mick Torbay: And now to look at it at a true like legitimate search, you actually have to go to the second page.

Vi Wickam: Absolutely. Nothing above the fold is leaving Google without Google getting paid.

Ryan Chute: And who wants to keep going? At the end of the day, if it's answered your question, they're clicking the phone, they're clicking the chat, they're clicking the “Schedule Now” button. They're clicking the “Reserve Now” button, and Google's getting paid.

Vi Wickam: So, AI mode now is only going to give them one answer.  You don't get the results, may or may not get any citations, you're going to get one result, which is in the direction of what we talked about at the partner meeting after my presentation, which was what Google and Alexa and Siri and Cortana are all going to do before long is I'm going to call or I'm going to say, “Hey, Google, my air conditioner's broken.” And it might go even further, where my air conditioner contacts Google and says, “Alert, alert, signal.”

Christina Gressianu: “Help me. Help me.”

Vi Wickam: Preemptively, because it's monitoring it. And Google will automatically dispatch whomever they decide.

Mick Torbay: And that will be whoever pays Google the most amount of money.

Vi Wickam: Correct. It will be whoever is paying the most for that booking because software like ServiceTitan already has booking integrations with Google. If you don't have those set up, and you don't have a strong brand, and you don't own the relationship with your customers. You're not in that game, you will soon be out on your teeth.

Ryan Chute: If that's the case, and if you're not a company that's big enough to have ServiceTitan or chooses not to use ServiceTitan for their own good reasons, brand still seems to be pulling forward to help equalize this over the three layers of marketing that we can do.

Vi Wickam: Brand is the only way to hijack this system. You can manage the system if you're a strong enough company, and you target tight enough. You don't tie, you don't target broadly. You don't target geographically, broad or keyword broad or any of those kinds of things. You target as tightly as you reasonably can. You build a brand, you have to build a brand. That is the only way to hijack a system where the AI results get booked automatically.

Ryan Chute: So to be clear, we're not talking about brand or lead gen. We're not talking about one or the other. These aren't mutually exclusive things. Marketing is never going to be successful that way. Marketing is going to be successful based on the astounding amounts of research that already exist out there with brand awareness, sales activation, and lead capture, working hand in hand, not independently in silos.

This is what I call holistic brand forward marketing strategy, and it's built and designed to think about where you're going to both spend your money and deliver your message, and how you're going to deliver your message in a way that isn't just going to be seen at the moment of need, but before that and after that, so that you can build a base that doesn't have such dependence on the channels.

This has been a really fascinating conversation. I appreciate everyone here today with the contributions and input, and insights, and I look forward to seeing you. We all look forward to seeing you on the next episode of Advertising in America. Until next time.

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Thank you for joining us on Advertising in America. We hope you enjoyed the show and captured a nugget of marketing magic. Wanna hear more? Subscribe, leave a review and share this podcast with your friends. Do you have questions or topics you want us to cover?

Join us on our socials @advertisinginamerica. Want to spend your marketing budget better? Visit us at wizardofads.services to book your free strategy session with Wizard Ryan Chute today. Until next time, keep your ads enchanting and your audience captivated.

I've spent countless hours in Q4 of 2025 with brilliant economists, scaling experts, exit strategists, and wise old, battle-seasoned operators who’ve survived these tumultuous seas before.

I've been poring over the business topology for 2026, and I can summon it up in two words. Cautiously optimistic.

But don’t expect to get out of it without being bloodied. 2026 is going to be a vicious knife fight in the fog. The fog of AI platform updates, search algorithm changes, PPC price hikes, and oppressive economics. Most everyone is already swinging blindly...except the wise. Already, there are many bodies who never made it out of 2025 alive. 

Consumers are uncertain, and they are relying on us to give them certainty. Certainty that we're not going to try to sell them the farm. That we have their best interest at heart. That we can make that old clunker of equipment last a bit longer to see us through this fog.

Obligations are high. High mortgages, gas, and food prices aren't going away. People are putting their groceries on ‘4 convenient monthly payments.’ Tariffs are holding prices at all-time highs. Gold has never been so expensive, cresting $4000 an ounce for the first time in history.

We may not be in a traditional recession, but make no mistake. We are in a TRUST RESESSION.

And do you know who wins in a trust recession? You guessed it!

Those worthy of trust.

Think about the signals you're casting off. Do you have an aura of greed, ulterior motives, and creepy PE vibes?

The most trusted are the ones who will gain impressive market share, yet it won't feel as satisfying as you'd hope. Topline revenues will likely hold steady for the hardworking, honest types. You'll do more small jobs. Your average ticket will be up because of prices, but down because of lower replacement units.

But you'll be winning over the hearts and minds of your market in spades. You were there for them in their tough times. They'll appreciate you for that.

In 2026, people will NOT be looking for the best solution. They will be looking for something slightly less shitty than what they have right now. A repair, not a replacement. A restoration, at half the price of a new mid-priced system. A good enough piece of equipment. Low-level maintenance. None of the fancy stuff. Repairs will shift to their buddy Earl before it'll come to you. You'll fix what Earl muffs up.

Your closing ratio will rise, but your call volume will drop. Get serious bout your sales training, and have closing ARCs ready to go. High pressure won’t work, but polite persistence will. 

It's up to you to earn their willingness to even pick up the phone every day. Even the ones you've served before. When things get tough, people pull back to the fortress and protect the valuables. It’s been that way since the start of time. You get your piece of the rations when you earn your keep. 

That's a trust recession.

So be trustworthy. Exude empathy, then competence. Be convenient. Be abundant and reassuring. Be the company your mom would be proud of.

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2026 won't be sexy. It'll be sweaty. It'll require a lot of outbound calling. It'll be a lot of smaller tickets.

1. Protect your brand repetition to the masses.
2. Lean heavily into brand messaging about efficient operations and fast, fix-it-first repairs and Michelin Star service at Applebee's prices.
3. Stay curious, generous, and optimistic. People are looking for the Leaders to show themselves. Appear to be their leader, and they will follow.
4. Embrace the experiment. With so many unknowns, we are back on the digital frontier, cutting a path to potential.
5. Don't get precious about toplines. Get obsessed with efficiencies to drive the bottom line without sacrificing delightful service. Revenue is vanity. Profit is sanity. ‍
6. Be a gentleman, not a creep. Leave that to the finance bros and spreadsheet weasels. Love the one you're with. Take them all, big and small. Get intentional about building average tickets slowly and carefully. The era of the one-night stand is over. It's time to settle down and start courting again.
7. Don't start getting ready. BE READY. Train, train, train. From CSRs to Sales. Heck, even those AIs you have answering your phones. From mindset to motivation. Competence breeds confidence. Have your team ready to act like a SWAT team, not just in sales, but in problem-solving, adaptability, creativity, and enthusiasm. 

‍Luck favors the prepared. Luck favors the bold. 

While more people obsess about trying to hit the public (and AI Search) with low-quality quantity, you hit the masses with the soothing words that make them feel right about you. You're GOING TO WIN. You did this year, and you'll do it again in 2026. And you'll look back as one of the proudest years of your life. 

Tiring. Frustrating at times. Stressful too. I know you have a lot of obligations to provide for the people in your care. I respect the hell out of you for that. 

Just remember, you can't go on an adventure without facing trouble. 

Let's get this!

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A friend. A client. A brilliant mind. Shawna Devlin of Mo Better Garage calls it the Midterm Miracle. A Marketing Maven in her own right, Shawna has a lot of optimism for the latter half of 2026. Amid significant pressure to win the Midterm elections, her keen eye sees an economic reprieve in the trailing half of 2026. I like the way you think, Shawna. 

In 2025, we saw the average operator spend 12% on marketing. New Jersey, California, and New York topped the list with sky-high marketing costs. Meta and Google each nearly touched a 200% price increase that not even the most elite digital marketer could avoid. 

Nobody knows what Google and Meta will do in 2026. We have seen aggressive moves by YouTube in late 2025, and we expect Google to level the playing field in its favor in 2026. OpenAI and a handful of up-and-coming AI companies are all vying for a new grab at the AI advertising gold rush. 

Reddit and YouTube are currently the most frequently cited platforms for AI LLMs. Tomorrow? Nobody knows. 

As for trust, well, that requires words. Stories. Feelings. If you invested in a truck wrap, well, that’s not going to help you this year. If you invested in telling the world who you are and why they should care, you’re already in a better position than basically all of your competitors to dominate the shrinking market share available in 2026. 

If you don’t have a strong selling system, don’t delay. In a drought, you need to make every customer count. Handling resistance. Building the sale. Nurturing the relationship. These all matter more when there are fewer people to talk to. Every customer is like the pretty girl visiting an all-boys school. They are going to get a lot of attention. 

2026 is the year of the bottom line. Don’t let inefficiencies eat away at profitability, but don’t get rid of the inefficiencies that optimize profitability. Sales training and powerful brand messaging are your saviors. Guarantees with real consequences will show the world who you are when it hurts. And monthly finance payments will make the pain tolerable. 

You’re going to make your own economy in 2026. Lean into the trust signals and feel right. Familiarity. Calm abundance. Graciousness and kindness when nobody is looking. Standing for something. 

Build simple-to-follow systems and get them 70% right and 100% fast. It’s a mantra my friend at Call Dad, Matt Pozda, lives by, and it has served him well. 

There are a lot of shiny objects out there right now in marketing. A tsunami of media channel options promising you the perfect customer served up on a silver platter. AI promises lightspeed efficiency for covering any and every possible keyword a human could ever hope to search for.  

And seemingly delusional old people (like me) are insisting that people still listen to the radio and watch television (the data would break your brain). 

Then there’s what you say. Some scream out loud about your call to action. Others insist that you need to share your story with the world. Everyone wants your money, and it feels like you pay everyone else more than you ever receive.

You're left wondering,

‍“Where in the world do I spend my money?”

I believe that marketing researchers are pretty astute folks with a whole bunch of helpful data. I also believe Operators who have to deal with the realities of life on the frontlines. I’ve sat in the chair, making the decisions on what to cut to ensure payroll was covered. 

I understand how stressful it is to make the best decision about where to invest your money to achieve the best results from your marketing investment. 

Early on, when all you have available to spend is smaller than the impact you need to make, you have to add your Guerrilla Marketing resourcefulness into the pool to offset the lack of cash to make things happen. 

Here’s the thing. Brand awareness is what keeps you in the game. If they don’t know you exist, you’re just dumping your money onto a roulette table at Casino Google. With the steeply rising costs of PPC, this is a surefire way to make Google rich. 

Top of mind has always, and will continue to always be exponentially superior to top of search. Choose which game you’re trying to win. You only have so many resources.  

It has been clearly proven that 80% of marketing’s long-term ROI¹ comes from brand messaging, not performance-based marketing tactics. Auditory brand messaging, supported by related visual brand elements, builds memory, preference, and trust. 

It is scientifically impossible for PPC to do this as a function of brain chemistry.

It has also been well documented² that brands that advertise through recessionary periods (including trust recessions) grow more, both in revenue and market share.

Here’s what really hurts, and this means you folks in the back who are still sitting on the brand messaging sidelines. Cutting brand spend costs you more in the long run³. For every $1 you cut from the brand today, you’ll need to spend $1.85 to recover lost ground.

Thinking of going dark? It’ll hurt. In year one, the average sales decline is 16%. By year three, the data shows us a 36% sales crater⁴. Ouch! Not to mention when you cut (or don’t play for real) you’re just handing over your market share and revenue to your competition. 

Imagine your competitor doubling down on brand while you retreat? Expect to lose at least 15% market share⁵. 

What most competitors have failed to realize is how much solid branding builds pricing power. When 94% of pricing power comes from being meaningfully different, to opt out is to give up profits as well⁶. A 1% price increase will drive more profit than volume growth or cost cuts⁷. 

When making the case for how to show up in a trust recession, how can I avoid mentioning CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost)? Familiar brands convert better and click cheaper. 

Our data at Wizard of Ads® shows that branded keywords and brandable chunks come in at a whopping 10X less than unbranded keywords. These clicks have a significantly higher conversion rate and capture an 85X ROI. A strong brand message will make an ad budget go 11X further than a performance-centric strategy⁸. 

In Essential Home Services, your brand is the beacon of trust. In a trust recession, you want to be the shining light when all else feels hopeless. Brand messaging is as essential as the services you provide. Don’t let it slide. 

Be the leapfrog. 

TL;DR 2026: The Year of the Leap Frog

• 2026 isn’t a recession. It’s a trust recession. Consumers are anxious, overextended, and skeptical. They’ll choose companies they trust, not the flashiest or cheapest.
• Winners will feel boring, but win big. Expect fewer calls, smaller jobs, more repairs over replacements, higher close rates, and slower topline growth. Profit comes from efficiency, not volume.
• Trust beats tactics. Empathy, honesty, fix-it-first service, fair pricing, and real guarantees will outperform aggressive sales and “finance-bro” vibes.
• Brand > performance marketing. Top-of-mind awareness matters more than top-of-search. Cutting brand spend during a downturn destroys long-term revenue and market share.
• PPC is getting pricier and less reliable. Rising ad costs, AI-driven platform shifts, and algorithm chaos mean unbranded clicks are expensive and risky.
• Strong brands lower CAC and raise pricing power. Familiar brands convert better, click cheaper, retain customers longer, and can raise prices without losing trust.
• Train relentlessly. Sales, CSRs, operations, and even AI systems must be sharp. Polite persistence wins; pressure loses.
• Do more with less. Obsess over operational efficiency, protect margins, and don’t worship topline revenue.
• Marketing message matters more than channel. Words, stories, and emotional reassurance build trust—truck wraps and gimmicks won’t.
• Stay visible during the fog. Going dark costs market share and future recovery dollars.
• 2026 rewards leaders. Be calm, competent, generous, and consistent. Show up as the trusted guide, and customers will follow.

Bottom line:

2026 will be gritty, not glamorous. The companies that lead with trust, invest in brand, train hard, and operate efficiently will leapfrog competitors. You’ll look back on 2026 as one of your proudest years in business.

Sources:

1. WARC – Advertising in a Downturn
2. Analytic Partners – ROI Genome
3. Boston Consulting Group (BCG)
4. Ehrenberg-Bass Institute
5. Analytic Partners
6. Kantar – BrandZ Differentiation Study
7. WARC – Profit Partners
8. WARC – Left-Brain vs. Right-Brain Marketing

Niche ideas. Niche products. Niche market. They're everywhere you look in the business world today. Marketers have discovered that it's easier to target a small, specific group of consumers with a product or service that appeals directly to them rather than trying to sell a one-size-fits-all solution to everyone. This focus on narrow markets is called "niche marketing." It can be an extremely effective way to grow your business.

What is niche marketing, exactly, and how can you tell if it's right for your company?

The meaning of niche marketing refers to the process of targeting a specific group of people with services or products to sell that meet their specific niche or unique needs. To be successful, you need to have a deep understanding of the needs and wants of your target market and then create a product or service that meets those needs. There are a few key factors to consider when deciding if niche marketing is right for your business:

1. The size of your target market: Niche markets are usually small, specific groups of people. If your target market is too large, you may have trouble reaching everyone with your message.
2. The competition: Niche markets often have less competition than broader markets. It can give you a competitive advantage and make it easier to get noticed by your target audience.
3. Your resources: The niche industry can be resource-intensive, as you'll need to create custom content and build relationships with influencers in your target market. Make sure you have the time and resources to commit to a niche marketing strategy before you start.

Not all Niches are Created Equal

"Think too deeply about customer profiling, and you'll soon fall into niche marketing. And the problem with niches is they're not created equal." — Roy H. Williams, The Wizard of Ads™

When it comes to niches, there are many different ways to slice and dice them. And not all niches are created equal. Some niches are more profitable than others, while some are more competitive than others. Some niches require more resources to get started than others, too. Before you dive into niche marketing, it's crucial to do your research and make sure you're targeting a profitable, competitive, and resource-friendly niche. Otherwise, you could find yourself spinning your wheels without seeing any results. Are you in the home services industry? Do you know how to find your niche? Do you need help with developing or maintaining your niche marketing strategy? Wizard of Ads® for Essential Services has the answers you're seeking. Book a call with Wizard Ryan Chute today.

The Book of Reis and Trout

Niches were popularized in the 1981 book "Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind" by Reis and Trout. According to the book, we should consider our competitors' strengths and branding before deciding how we want to be seen by customers. Though some only read it as such, the book is much more than a marketing guidebook. It's not about marketing at all. It is about positioning your product, service, or company in the customer's mind so they will think of you first when they need what you sell. Niche marketing is a form of marketing that focuses on a specific target market or demographic. Niches are often small but can also be significant. They can be defined by geographic location, demographics, type of product, and many other factors. The key to successful niche marketing is to find a group of people who are underserved by the current market and create a unique offering that meets their needs. You can do this by catering to a specific demographic, developing a new product or service, or creating a new brand image.

The Seductive Logic of Niche Marketing

"Tragically, the seductive logic of niche marketing makes perfect sense even when it does not apply." — Roy H. Williams, The Wizard of Ads™

Niche marketing is all the rage these days – with good reason. When done correctly, niche marketing can be effective in reaching a specific target market and building a loyal customer following. However, there is a downside to niche marketing– and that is, it can be effortless to fall into the trap of only catering to a small group of people and ignoring the needs of the larger market. Roy H. Williams, the founder of The Wizard of Ads™, calls this "the seductive logic of niche marketing. "The seductive logic of niche marketing is that it makes perfect sense when you are first starting. After all, when you are just starting a business, you can't possibly be all things to all people. It is much easier (and cheaper) to focus your efforts on a small group of people with specific needs that you can fill. The problem with this approach is that it can be very easy to get comfortable in your niche and forget about the larger market. It is especially true if you are successful in your niche. Why bother reaching out to the larger market when you already have a loyal following of customers? The answer is that catering only to a small group of people is not sustainable in the long run. Eventually, you will reach a point where your niche market becomes saturated, and you will need to look for new customers outside your niche. That's why it's essential to keep an eye on the larger market and ensure you are still appealing to a broader audience. It may seem like more work in the short term, but it will pay off in the long run.

A Classic Example

Here's a classic example of this seductive logic from Roy: A dentist from a small town reached out to Roy for help. He was tired of seeing six or seven patients daily who only required thousand-dollar dental work. Instead, he wanted to focus on one or two patients daily who would require significantly more expensive treatments, between 10 and 30 thousand dollars each. "And make sure all of them have the money. Many people need that much dental work, but most don't have the money," the dentist said. Roy feared for the dentist. To pursue this would leave him very disappointed in the results. People in wealthy towns with good dental hygiene will not be his primary customers. He chose a target market that was much too small.

2 Known Strategies for a Smaller Target Market

"Considering a niche? Do the math. Be detached and objective. This isn't a time for wishful thinking." — Roy H. Williams, The Wizard of Ads™

If your market isn't big enough for niche marketing, here are two known strategies for a smaller target market:

1. Positioning: Positioning is about creating a unique selling proposition (USP) for your product or service. It sets you apart from the competition and makes you the only logical choice for your target market. For example, say you're in the HVAC industry. You could position yourself as the only company that offers green solutions or the only company that offers 24/7 services.

• It thwarts your competitor's advantages.
• Being unaware of what your competitors are doing is like driving with your eyes closed. To succeed, you need to understand the realities of the marketplace and recognize the position that your competitors occupy in your customers' minds.

2. Persona-Based Ad Writing: This writing style taps into personality type and hooks a larger-than-average portion of readers, even when those readers are selected at random.

• It's designed around the customer's preferred approach to purchasing.
• Persona-based ad writing focuses on your consumer's personality rather than their demographic profile. What personalities are your advertisements currently intended for?

Have You Found Your Niche?

Niche marketing can be quite valuable for some small businesses. It allows you to focus your resources on a specific group of consumers more likely to purchase your product or services. When done correctly, it can be an extremely effective way to grow your business. If you're thinking about starting a niche marketing campaign, the first step is to identify your target market and determine if it will be lucrative. Once you've done that, you can develop a marketing strategy that will appeal to them. If you're a home services business owner in need of niche marketing, you could always book a call with Wizard Ryan Chute of Wizard of Ads® for Essential Services . We know how to market a product. We can help you slide into the niche marketing strategy you've been pining for.