Worried that Google Home Service Ads is coming to your area, and you don’t feel prepared?  Here are some of the things Google is asking other Home Service companies, like yours, to do before being eligible for the program.

The first step to showing on Google Home Service Ads (HSA) is being invited.  At this time, it is an invite only program.  Google can reach out directly to your company, or you can be recommended into the program by a current participant.  You can also submit a request for consideration here.

We were able to get our customers invited to the program by reaching out to another business that was already in the program and asking them to recommend us.  Had we not done that our customers would be on the outside looking in. 

Once Google invites you, they are going to ask for some preliminary information to begin the process.  In the verticals we have dealt with, the information they have asked for looked something like this.

  1. License Number
  2. Phone number to be used in the ad.  Note, this is the number Google is going to forward all of your calls into.  They actually display a Google forwarding number to users.
  3. Website
  4. Hours of operation
  5. General liability insurance (how high is it)
  6. Weekly budget.  Strangely they opted for a weekly budget instead of a daily budget like in AdWords
  7. Service Cities.  Google will tell you what cities they cover with HSA and you select from that list which ones you will service.   You can choose to do some or all.
  8. Services to advertise for.  Google provides a list of services to choose from.  For plumbers it consists of Install faucet, Repair pipe, Repair outdoor systems, Repair garbage disposal, Install water heater, etc.
  9. Business Address
  10. The year the company was founded
  11. Number of employees going to a customer’s home.  This is the number of employees they will need to have background checked.
  12. Type of smartphone you have – Android or Iphone.  This is to determine which version of the HSA app you should download.
  13. Gmail address or Google account.  This is the email address that you use to log into Google HSA, and it will also receive notifications about leads.  Don’t worry, you can add more than one upon request.
  14. Callouts.  These work similarly to their AdWords counterpart.  They are basically short phrases that give more information about your business.   Example: 24/7 Emergency Service or Family Owned

Once you provide the basic information listed above, your account will usually be handed off to a Google HSA onboarding representative.  The onboarding representative will work with you to begin the background check process.  Google has contracted Pinkerton Consulting and Investigations, Inc. to perform these checks, at no cost to the business during their beta/pilot.   You can learn more about the background checks for HSA here.   All employees that provide services at customers’ locations,  business owners, and business entities will be  required to pass a check.  If you have never background checked your employees, and you are hoping to join the Google HSA program at some time in the future, you may want to background check your own employees in preparation for HSA.  At this time, Google is failing the entire company if even one submitted employee does not pass the background check process.  The business then has to wait (we heard 30 days) to resubmit their business for HSA.  At a high level, the information Google is asking for during background checks include: name, phone number, email, SSN, DOB, address, and information about previous convictions.

Have you been contacted about Google HSA and been asked to provide different information?  Please share with us in the comments so we can help prepare all Home Service verticals in all metro areas for Google HSA.