Mat Rogers on the Second Digital Marketing Renaissance and the KPIs That Matter Now

00:00 Dan Leibrandt

Hey there and welcome back to Pest Control Legends. I'm your host Dan Leibrandt and today I'm with Mat Rogers. If you don't already know Mat, he's the Chief Operating Officer at Lizard Marketing, bringing nearly two decades of digital marketing know-how to the table. Before Lizard, he scaled his family's company, Killingsworth Environmental, serving as VP of Marketing and guiding it through rapid growth and a successful sale. And he later drove expansion as CMO at Aruza Pest Control. So if you're looking for a masterclass in turning data-driven SEO, PPC, and AI tools into real-world revenue for service businesses, particularly pest control, this is the episode for you. So without further ado, Mat, welcome to the show.

00:43 Mat Rogers

Thank you, thank you so much. That was a very generous intro.

00:48 Dan Leibrandt

Of course, no, I told you before the show and you kind of didn't believe me. You said you were blushing, like, seriously, you are like arguably the number one person in pest control marketing. Obviously it's not crazy competitive, but you are really well known in the space. Yeah, there's not too many people, but still it's a really...

00:57 Mat Rogers

Come on. It's not, the bar is low. Yeah, it's a small pun.

01:06 Dan Leibrandt

Big honor to have you on the show.

01:08 Mat Rogers

Thank you, I'm really excited that you invited me. Honestly, when I started watching some of your episodes, because Allan was on, I was like, oh shit, this is awesome. And so, I'm so glad that that's how we found each other.

01:18 Dan Leibrandt

Yeah, definitely, I appreciate it. Yeah, give me some more of your background. Tell me about like growing your family's business and what that was like and then how you eventually got to COO of Lizard.

01:28 Mat Rogers

Yeah, I'll do the quick and dirty version because I actually think it sets us up for what we're going to be talking about in this meeting. When I, in 2012, when I jumped into the family's business, I had pushed away every request to come join the family's business. To the 10th one, my dad would say, the 10th time he asked me, I finally said yes. When I stepped into that space, marketing itself was entering into its first, what I think of as a renaissance, a transition of how things are done, right? And at the time, there was a ton of traditional media. You occupied a metro with traditional when I stepped in 2012, they were spending $321,000 a year on phone book advertising, right? Because that's how people found the professionals that they were looking for. And it was hard work because my dad is cantankerous and stubborn and a lot of stuff. It was hard work to help him think about marketing in a new way. At the time that search was rising, Google was rising and social media was rising, right? And so at the time the tool that Google launched was Google Guaranteed, which was their response to Angie's List. Remember, Angie's List used to be huge in service space, and now it's like, meh, it's like Yelp, right?

03:04 Mat Rogers

So Google responded with Google Guaranteed, which became LSA, which is already transitioned and is transitioning, right? And so I helped guide the biggest part of that. And I think the thing that will be really interesting in terms of what we're talking about today to help the PCOs that are tuning in to you understand is we're in the middle of a digital marketing renaissance right now, and it's happening so much faster than the one that I lived through in 2012. And if PCOs aren't ready and engaged and working with digital marketing companies that they trust that they can give a little bit of leeway to as the digital marketing company also is grappling with these rapid changes then they are going to be left behind so fast and it's heartbreaking because I got to watch my family you know we I grew up in a double wide and so I got to watch my family take us from the laundry room all the way up to Lake Norman when we sold you know and so it's heartbreaking for me to think that people that are stuck in their ways might be stuck in their laundry room when they could really find people that they trust and take very big steps forward because AI is changing the game for sure.

04:10 Dan Leibrandt

Absolutely, I agree. No, I'm seeing all the changes in real time and it's even hard for me to keep up, you know I'm a young guy. I have a good amount of free time. I'm watching all the videos all the podcasts I'm interviewing all the people and yet things are constantly changing you were even saying that that series that you did with Paul I don't know might be a year or two years ago at this point. It's all completely changed So maybe we can even start there is well, what's what's changed in the past year or two?

04:29 Mat Rogers

Different. Well, now that this is the year that we will look back on and remember 2025 is the year that Google's control over search weakened, right? Or changed, could be pick one, right? We'll know better and then like six months maybe. But with the advent of ChatGPT and Gemini specifically, and even earlier precursors to that like Alexa, right? When these things started to infiltrate our life we started to look for content in different ways. We used to Google it, right? And now we're doing something different. And so a smart PCO is thinking about how people are searching for them. This is one of the things my dad was good at. This is why it was easy to help. Not easy, fuck. It was not easy. But this is why he allowed me to transition him out of traditional marketing because I was able to show him, hey, this is how people are trying to find you. Please let me put you there, right? Please. And we went from, 8 million to... No, shoot, now the numbers are getting fuzzy. We went from, no we did, eight million to 28 million in six years, right? And it's with that exercise, right? People are searching here, let's get in front of them here, right? That's changed. And so even some of the stuff that I was doing with Paul, it's also changed, right? Because AI is literally like driving a Tesla, like in ludicrous mode, okay? Foot to the floor, and back in your seat, and it is going, and PCOs are gonna have.

06:08 Mat Rogers

Grab on and ride with it, because it is a gold mine, right? Or they're gonna get left behind, truthfully.

06:03 Dan Leibrandt

Haha.

06:16 Dan Leibrandt

So you actually, thankfully, gave me some notes here that some of the things that you want to cover over the show. No, no, I'm glad. It makes my job easier.

06:20 Mat Rogers

Talking points. Sorry. I'm always prepared. Good.

06:26 Dan Leibrandt

So one of the things you want to cover was AI overview. So this has obviously been a huge change. Was originally search generative. Experience in 2023 then got renamed to AI Overviews last year and now they're super prevalent. They're in like 50 % of searches. So talk to me about AI Overviews. Should you be optimizing for those?

06:42 Mat Rogers

Yeah. Facts. Alright.

06:48 Dan Leibrandt

Tell me all about them.

06:50 Mat Rogers

So I'm gonna take off my lizard hat, right? Take off my marketing hat and put my Killingsworth hat back on, okay? If I am trying to evaluate, if I use AI to find stuff, which I do now all the time, right? If I use AI to find stuff, that is the place where I want to start speaking, right? And so my real kind of message here is that paid search, the tool that Google is transitioning into, well, hold on, let me take a step back. When you search in Google right now, what is the first thing that you see in the top left? It used to be LSAs, right? Formerly Google Guaranteed, transitioned through the Renaissance, becomes Google Local Services, big dogs start buying local service ads like Anticimex, like Rentokil, like Terminix, and start weeding out the little man, and now everybody's spending a shit ton of money to be in local service ads, right? And now, what you see up in the top left is Gemini, right? And that is how the PCO needs to start thinking about working with a digital marketing that understands the tool. And is ready to get behind it. So one of the things that Google has launched is AI Max, right? Which basically is paid SEO. I love that you work in SEO. Like, I truly do. Because one of the hardest things for me, and I'm sure that you have, I bet if I had, one of the hardest things for me in talking to PCOs is when they say, I'm not on page one of Google. Shit, that doesn't even matter anymore. Do you know what I mean? It does not even matter anymore. AI Max is going to be the new thing. That everybody is talking about and basically what that is paid SEO and how you structure and think about SEO is what's going to make sure that Gemini offers you a solution for people who are looking for businesses like yours. I put this quote in my notes. Didn't want to give credit where credit is due. Was reading an article by Andrew Block.

08:20 Dan Leibrandt

I know. Yeah.

08:49 Mat Rogers

He said AI Max for Search equals paid SEO. It's reshaping search campaigns into hybrid beasts that demand SEO level page quality, technical structure, schema, and traditional PPC signals. So what does that mean to PCOs who are already starting to like glaze, right? It means campaign performance now hinges on things like page experience, which when you, I mean, have you done a lot of paid? Page search, okay, so you know, that's not something you really paid attention to before AI took over, right? You cared that your pages was well and that the conversion between clicks to, or the number between clicks to conversion was solid, right? But there wasn't really any math on how to help you get there. So page experience has become important, and then schema markup has become important for that page in particular. And before anything else, this is a big shift, crawlability. So your landing pages need to be connected to your domain now, right? Before, you were working with an extra, so PCOs pay attention, if you're working with a digital marketing company and they're not connecting your landing page to your domain, you've got a problem, right? Please make sure that's happening. But that's a big shift. That's something that we've had to wrestle with, with the clients that we work with, right? And so to be successful in that overview space, in that top left corner space now, you have to have a marketing company that's skilled with both paid search mechanics, right? Because that's crazy. And it is, you've, I mean, you've been under the hood of paid search. It's like, am I looking at?

10:24 Mat Rogers

And then landing page architecture if they care about winning, right?

10:29 Dan Leibrandt

Yeah, so I'm sure that sounds like really confusing. I at least want to get clear on one aspect of that. You're saying basically when people like a lot of companies and I see this as well in their, let's say Google ads account, they might be running ads to completely different websites. So let's say their normal website is like xyzpestcontrol.com and you're saying that they're running, they might be running ads to a landing page, which might be xyzlandingpage or whatever.com.

10:55 Mat Rogers

Distinct distinct. Yeah, I'll throw lizard under the hood because this is a big work that we had to do an AI push the pedal down and we weren't ready. Right. We work inside of the HighLevel platform, right? A modified version, a white labeled version of the HighLevel platform. And when we work with all of our clients, all of their landing pages are set up inside of our funnel. We build their sales funnel, right? We build their pipelines and the way that we can connect these dots easily is being in control and having their stuff inside of. And so what that means is their domains, not all their domains were on. Our other pages were on their domains, right? We had to make this big Transition to move all of these landing pages on to their own domain so that Google could crawl it because what Google cares about what Gemini cares about what AI cares about is Authority and trust right and if it's not connected to your domain your domain has a rich history of content Hopefully that you've put on there from an SEO perspective that informs that you are a business of authority and trustworthy solution that it can give to the consumer, right? And so if it's connected to your domain, it's gonna grab that rich history that your business has set up, things like your domain authority, which actually count now, which they didn't before, Things about how many keywords are ranking on your page, all that stuff. It will all factor into how your information is offered. And this is something I want your PCOs to do that are listening to us, okay? Take your pest control hat off and ask...

12:24 Mat Rogers

Ask Google about lawn care companies or what can make it, you know my yard have more Kentucky Fescue, right? And it's gonna give you this whole readout in the top left corner and then the next question I want you to ask it is how did you source that information? Okay, and it's gonna tell you exactly what you and I are talking about It's sourcing from sites and landing pages that have that show trustworthiness and authoritativeness And that's how it's giving pulling that information and so that's how you get to the top left of Google now. You've got to be in control of your page experience. It's got to be solid. You've got to be in control of your schema markup and your page has to be crawled and to connect that dot. If it's not connected to your domain, your page is crawled separately from your domain. You've got to connect it to your domain so that when it crawls the page, it's also accessing all of the history on your website. Make sense?

13:17 Dan Leibrandt

Interesting. So just so I'm understanding you properly, you're saying that when you connect it to your website, your actual website with all the rich history and all the pages and such that you've actually built over the years, then your ads will perform better or what's the result there?

13:31 Mat Rogers

Yeah, yeah, the, there's gonna be, the KPIs that we've all been measuring while we've been playing this game for the last several years, they're gonna be changing this year. So as I say this, as you guys are listening to this podcast, please hold what I'm saying loosely and recognize that things are changing rapidly and these KPIs shifting is a part of that change. But we used to care about, it's the second point, right? That I put on the thing. One of the KPIs that we cared about before AI was clicks, right? This is an example of high performing landing pages that are connected to your domain. Clicks are going away, right? They're going away because people aren't clicking, right? They're taking the content that's being fed to them by AI and they are consuming that information and making a decision about what they want to do before they ever get to your website, which is why page one of Google doesn't matter anymore, okay? It really does not. And so ads and organic results are bleeding clicks because Google AI overviews like Gemini and like SGE gives users instant answers. Okay, they don't need to go and read your blog. Nobody was going to read your pest control blog anyway. That's not why Dan did. That's not why I did it. Okay, we created this content for you because you had to rank for keywords to be offered as a credible solution. Okay, what you need to care about now is that your landing pages also rank in authority and trust by being connected to your domain and they're also hyperlocal right you care that that information is hyperlocal because Gemini and chat are gonna offer the user information that is relative to where they exist right and so trustworthiness authority and hyperlocal has become key components but that's a KPI thing that's changing like over time well I'm not gonna report on that soon as soon as my PCOs aren't gonna freak out and that's not on the report anymore you know how PCOs are I love you guys but sometimes you guys are slow to the party...

15:22 Dan Leibrandt

Haha...

15:23 Mat Rogers

Sometimes I'm slow to the party, but clicks are changing. Conversion rates are also gonna change. There used to be a relationship between, and if you're doing this exercise that we're talking about now, your conversion rate should climb, right? But there used to be a relationship between how many clicks, meaning how many times did somebody click on something to evaluate if they wanted to do business with you, in relationship to did they convert? Did they call that number at the top of your page? Did they fill out that form, right? What this exercise, this activity that we're talking about today is gonna do, connect, making sure that your digital marketing company is AI informed, is going to decrease the amount of clicks, I believe, over time, and it's going to drive up the conversion rates, right? You're gonna see more high quality conversions over time. That's what I believe.

16:12 Dan Leibrandt

Definitely. No, I love this concept that you've been preaching that everything is essentially becoming more intersectional. Everything is merging with each other. It's not just the web, but it's web and social. It's not just the web, but it's also web and paid and paid web, know, organic web and paid web and organic social and paid social. They all merge together. So yeah, then how does social play into this?

16:25 Mat Rogers

Mm-mm.

16:38 Mat Rogers

Great question. This is one of the things that has stood the test of time with stuff that I was doing with Paul, right? Content really matters, okay? For you PCOs, I want you to look into, can I give a shout out here? Okay, look into my buddy Tommy Bottoms' social media, okay? I love Nice Pest Control and I'm gonna tell you exactly why. Shout out Tommy, shout out Tyler, love you boys. I love these boys because they are having fun and they are creating high volumes of content. What Search needed before AI was a body of information about your company that it could pull from because Search's goal was to offer the user solid information. That's how Google made its money. That's how AI makes its money. So the same is true for AI, and particularly for Gen Zers, which are coming into their fiscal they're gonna start to, you know, my dad was always great about thinking about the generations and how generations consume and how generations step into their financial authority to start making buying decisions, right? And so Gen Z, they don't search, right? They don't search like I'm a millennial, I'm an elder millennial, okay? The struggle is real up here, okay? So Gen Z is finding the kind of brands and things like that that they love through content on on things like TikTok and things like Meta. And so these works connected to your website are also going to build a sense of trustworthiness. If you're building a following, if you're building a brand and it is notable, then it's gonna happen. The Nice Pest Control is going to be a, I put money on it. It is going to be a force to be reckoned with in the Phoenix market for sure. I deeply believe that, like a green mango force to be reckoned with. And so I am super excited for that, boys.

18:36 Mat Rogers

That's one of the ways that that plays in you've got to give Search and you've got to because it's not over for search yet and Google's gonna fight like hell to keep its market share. Okay, but for search and for AI you care about creating bodies of content. They all you also need to look up Goins I love going special they create content to happen a blast and people know who they are when we're all going to Orlando I hope to see you there bro. I need to invite you to something. I can't put it here because I don't want everybody to come but I've got something I want you to come to it's on Thursday night. Okay, but I'll shoot you some details, but when I see them at PestWorld, everybody knows them. And why does everybody know them? Because they're good at putting that content out there. And so it is very important for you to tell your story. Don't be afraid to do that. We work with Natura Pest Control. That's Jake, Jana and Eric, right? Love them. They also are not afraid to tell their story into their markets through social media, right? And it matters. If you ask Eric right now what his cost per qualified lead was right now, he would tell it's $94, right? Do you know how much a PCO would pay? $94 to get a $700 return all day long. My dad would say, cut the check, who do I pay? Right? And that's a combination of solid SEO, we do their SEO, that's a combination of solid PPC because they're integrated now, and that's also because they are telling their story, their story, and they're doing a great job. And so, shout out Jake, Jana, Eric, love you.

20:08 Dan Leibrandt

So just to get more practical on the content strategy there, telling your story, should that be in video form and should it just be telling your story? Should there be any other kind of content?

20:19 Mat Rogers

Do both, do images and video. Make sure you've got all of your meta set up. Make sure you have TikTok set up, right? And because the pecking order is when you load, particularly your videos to TikTok, it's gonna reel down into Instagram, it's gonna reel down into your, it's right down the hill, right? I know people don't use it, particularly Gen Z does not use Facebook anymore, but get that out of your mind because what you're trying to do is create, you're trying to cast a net out there for people that are searching. And so when you can create one piece of content that can exist in three separate places, that's a multiple that's increasing your reach, okay? And that's increasing AI and search's opportunity to find you. So take advantage of that, don't be afraid. Go ahead and hook up your Facebook, okay? Leave us millennials alone, right? But yeah, definitely images, definitely testimonies, definitely testimonies, bro, testimonies. If you think of how AI cares about authority, it cares about testimonies. So if you're using something like Podium, man, push the pedal to the floor, right? Shout out Podium.

21:23 Dan Leibrandt

You...

21:24 Mat Rogers

Like go, go, let your customers tell your story for you and share those on your social media platforms, right? But definitely images, definitely testimonies, definitely videos. And have fun, man. It translates, it matters, right? If you're gonna try to put on, this is why my dad would have never made it in this space, okay? If you're gonna try to do the polished, the... I don't know, it's not gonna translate to Gen Z. And so if you're gonna do that impersonal, mechanical, robotic, it's just not gonna work. So look it Nice, look at the Goins, have fun, make content.

21:57 Dan Leibrandt

Yeah, no, I love everything you're saying here. I'm super bullish on social media and particularly telling your story, connecting with your audience. Don't like the, you know, I see a lot of companies just use an AI generated image and then AI generated caption. It's like, guys, there's no connection here. There's no connection here. There should be some kind of connection with your audience. And that's actually how you. Separate yourself from the AI. That's actually something that it can't take away from you is the relationships that you build, the stories that you have. So I absolutely...

22:11 Mat Rogers

Canva. F Canva. So bad.

22:28 Mat Rogers

So true.

22:28 Dan Leibrandt

Love that. I'm a big proponent of that. And also repurposing. It's like, if you're making a great piece of content, why not put it everywhere? That's like the whole point is you spend all this time making this great content, then you just put it on Facebook. Like put it everywhere. You might as well. Yeah.

22:41 Mat Rogers

Yeah, what are you doing with your life? Stop. Yeah, yeah, cast that net. Make that net as big as you can. And this is why, you know what I think is interesting for PCOs moving into the future? They're gonna have somebody like you and like me on staff pushing them to make this kind of content. That was not as prevalent at Killingsworth before we sold. And quite frankly, I hope you're listening, Killingsworth, because your social media sucks.

23:05 Dan Leibrandt

Ha!

23:06 Mat Rogers

It sucks bad. God. But having like a Gen Z-er on your staff, I love this story. Wait, I gotta tell you this story. A friend of mine, I actually know this guy, and maybe you've seen, he blew up on TikTok. He had a Gen Z, he's a realtor, this goofy looking realtor, okay? No offense, guy, I won't say your name here. But he doesn't look like he would blow up and become crazy viral. The last time I checked, he like 54 million views, okay? He was gonna do a house tour and he's gonna, you know, just. Ho hum through the house and walk people through and show them the crown molding and all this kind of crap But he wanted his Gen Z employee to make it go viral. How do you do this? How do you make this go viral? So the Gen Z employee cut out every word of the house tour and the entire house tour was just this guy breathing and fixing his hair So good wasn't I died laughing every time that guy would like adjust his hair just you know, I'm just like, this is awesome. And that guy's, know it...

23:58 Dan Leibrandt

I saw that one. That hilarious. Yeah.

24:08 Dan Leibrandt

And it blew up on every platform.

24:10 Mat Rogers

Blew up on every platform, but also his calendar is maxed out, like for the rest of this year, right? And so what I think is gonna happen with PCOs in the future is they're gonna see value in it. My dad would have never seen value in that. But PCOs that do see value in that, the Goins, Tommy, looking at that kind of stuff, Jake, Jana, Eric, having fun making content, they're gonna see the reward. They're gonna reap the rewards of that work. You are gonna reap the rewards of your work of planting these seeds in a multiple place, being bullish, having fun, telling people who you are. I was telling my account managers today, especially as we transition, the two of us transition, right, into this new space, because we're learning just as rapidly as we can, and then we're also having to educate the clients that work with us because we're trying to help them shift into a new way of thinking, right? I was telling my account managers today, when you've got a long guy that comes up to your door, what makes you think that he has authority to speak to you is the uniform that he has on, right? It automatically sets your mind into thinking, but I, we ran nine blue collar companies, okay? I employed, my family employed lawn care guys. Some of these guys could have totally been convicts, man.

25:29 Mat Rogers

You just automatically defaulted in your mind, this guy knows how to give me Kentucky Fescue in my front yard because he has that uniform on, I see his name tag, we're good, right? How do you, Dan, how do I let our clients know, let our future clients know that we can speak to these issues with authority? It's by being bullish, it's by telling our story and letting people in on who we are and what we're about, right? You were saying earlier... A little bit over the top, how people are recognizing us in this space. And that's because we have to have that conversation. That's what sets us up to have authority in the same way from a PCO world or whatever that walking up to the front door with a uniform on lets a homeowner know, this guy knows what he's doing. I can welcome them into my house. We want to make sure the PCOs that we work with feel the same kind of confidence when they work with us because the ground is shifting underneath us constantly. And if we're not talking about it and they don't trust us and we shift the their KPIs change, which they will. They're changing now, right? If we don't educate them and walk them into this process, they're gonna think we're full of shit and then they're gonna fire us. And so, then what are we gonna do? So, yeah.

26:36 Dan Leibrandt

No, especially, like I'd say, I mean, just really home services as a whole, trust is so important because you're going into their house. And pest control, have like a, they might have a major pest issue. There might be ants all over, spiders all over. It might be a serious problem for their kids. Like, this is someone that they need to trust. They don't want to call another pest control company. They want to call someone that is trusted, they know, and it's not like, well, this is the fifth pest control company that I'm on. And they're like, okay, I guess I'll take this one. They want to choose one that they're already familiar with, their friends are working with, and you can do that by doing free organic marketing, like we're saying, on social platforms. I think the crazy thing here is like, yeah, but it's free. That's something that blows my mind. I've been watching a good amount of Gary Vee lately, and he just, he always hammers his home of you. Social media marketing whatever you might pay a little bit for a tripod or it'll take you some time to record videos But it's free like I don't care if your videos are getting a hundred views...

27:19 Mat Rogers

They get, they feel like they know you. Yeah. Yep. It's free.

27:37 Mat Rogers

So free. It's just time.

27:39 Dan Leibrandt

Each It's free. So like why aren't you doing it? But I do want to switch...

27:42 Mat Rogers

And you're increasing the margin for trustworthiness when that client opens the door and they feel like they know you've already sold them, right? You've already sold them. Same is true for you, same is true for me.

27:52 Dan Leibrandt

Exactly. But I do want to switch gears here. Now let's move into paid social. So we're talking all about organic social. Now where does paid social come into this? So, you know, is that just Facebook ads? Should we be doing other platforms? What do you recommend moving forward?

28:08 Mat Rogers

It is few and far between. Mean, we share spaces in a lot of communities and there will always be that PCO that stands up and swears that paid social is converting. That's not what paid social is for. Stop it. If you've got a door-to-door team, need to be, please believe me, you need to be using paid social to saturate zip codes that you're working in. And the KPI that you can track and measure is the conversion ratio of your door-to-door sales team. The door to a brand that they feel like they're familiar with. They'll open the brand to Rian and Noelle, or open the door to Rian and Noelle. They'll open the door to Tommy because they feel like they know him, right? And so if you've got a door team that's running around and they've got Nice Pest Control on there, and they've seen your ads on social media and they think it's funny, they're going to open the door. And that's the KPI that you need to measure. You need to be using social media, paid social, in the same way that my father, and this is that transition, that new renaissance that we're talking about, right?

29:09 Mat Rogers

We went viral one time, one time only. I wasn't good at it. We went viral one time only, and we paid heavily for it. I paid $38,000 total, okay? I know we...

29:20 Dan Leibrandt

For what?

29:21 Mat Rogers

Made this dope ass commercial. Okay, it was dope like polished right the commercial was my daughter my daughter was having tea time with my dad and While he was waiting for his tea to heat up She offered to paint his nails right and so in the commercial that's all it's about it's about customer service, right? We weren't like hey guys call us. We're gonna kill your bugs, right? The commercial my daughter was painting his nails green and then at the commercial he said if you want my I'm gonna give let my daughter give me a full makeover if you want to see the makeover head on over to the big green K calm and we played it in the second quarter before everybody was drunk in the Super Bowl and we were fortuitous because the Panthers had gone to the Super Bowl that year, right? And so that was in Cam's glory days. Cam Newton, I still love you, but take your grandma's scarf off, man. Take it off. But these were in the glory days. The Greg Olsen, Luke Kuechly, Cam Newton, Christian, like all of it. It was beautiful. We were in the Super Bowl and we had a commercial. We had no idea they were gonna make it. So our website failed. We had so many visits. Hitters come to the website, right? Our website failed and the phone was full of voicemails the next day. So we got that lightning in a bottle, we never could pull it off again. But your PCOs that are listening to you that don't have a door team need to think about paid social like a ad for the Super Bowl. It's cheap. You can flood a geographic region with good, fun, interesting branding information about your company. And that way when your truck's rolling up and down the street, then remember, I like these guys. There's an old Harvard study that said that to retain information by 73%, we need to review something 28 times. I believe it's 28, it's 27 or 28. It's getting old now. It's getting foggy up here. But if you're flooding using social media to get your brand message out there, you are putting your impression, your brand, in that consumer's mind. And when they see the truck, and when they see the billboard, or when they see the whatever else you've got going on, and then they see the ants on the counter, they're gonna think, I should call those guys, I know those guys. And so that's how I would use it. Either let it support your door team, or let it build your brand reputation. That's what Tommy's doing. Tommy grew his entire client base right now on the back of good social media. That's what he's done. That's it. That's why he's gonna take over that market. It's powerful.

31:52 Mat Rogers

Free to your point. Do it. Freaking do it. What are you waiting for? Yeah.

31:54 Dan Leibrandt

Mm-hmm. Yeah, well, okay, so for the paid social, should you be using the same creative as organic social, or can it just be something else?

32:05 Mat Rogers

You can, for sure. I believe in indirect marketing, okay? I was a graphic design student, I love the Bauhaus. The Bauhaus is all about creating something with intention that's not exactly what you want, right? And so in my dad's, what that means is, in my dad's mind, he's like, everything's gotta be like that used car salesman with the big red number behind them and call us because we're gonna blah, blah, blah, right? That's what people think when they think of creating that kind of content. When you look at some of the stuff that Tommy's making and you give that like a little boost from time to time, like a hundred bucks a week or something stupid like that, just let it run all week, right? What you're doing is you're creating brand familiarity and you're allowing your humor and we used emotional pulls on our marketing that we created for Killingsworth because it was all about our family. We wanted people to feel like they knew us, they could relate to a grandpa that liked hanging out with his grandkids. But in Tommy's case, he's using humor, right? And humor is another powerful tool. And so yes, I would boost the shit out of something that's funny that's already got a little traction. Man, put some money to it and get in front of more people because you're gonna see the phone ring, I promise. Yeah.

33:12 Dan Leibrandt

Awesome, love that. Another thing I wanted to make sure to cover is GEO, which I know you wanted to cover that as well, is generative engine optimization, which means showing up in LLMs, like mainly ChatGPT, but that could also be Gemini, Claude, Grok, all these other tools. So we talked about this a little bit of optimizing for AI overviews and what that is, but let's get clear and let's get definitive on LLMs. How can you optimize for those and how can you show up in something like ChatGPT?

33:43 Mat Rogers

So I feel really lucky. This is one of the things that stood up with the work that we did with Paul that is standing the test of time. Who knows for how long, right? For our clients specifically, we had, and we've been practicing for several years now, a very unique strategy for SEO that made sure that their business profiles and that their LSAs and now their Gemini is firing on behalf of the information inside of their business profile that's connected to their websites. And we were experimenting. I Lizard is three years old. And I have lunch with my mentor tomorrow, and I cannot wait to see him. Name is Mike Pinckney. Shout out Mike Pinckney, I love you. He took us through that rise, eight million to $28 million, and he was my marketing guy, all for the ride, right? I could call him at two in the morning. I did that one time, because my dad was losing his shit. But... For, we were experimenting when we started Lizard, right? On how we want to think about SEO that we're giving to clients. And I'll be damned if the things that we were doing did not start to ignite lower cost per conversion for our clients. And when you can lower the cost per conversion for your client, you can lower the cost per qualified conversion contingent upon your sales teams, PCOs, please Jesus. Cost per qualified lead is not a responsibility of, solely a responsibility of your marketing team, okay? That's on your sales team. It's on your sales team. That's their closing ratio. Write it in pen. Stop talking to me about CPQLs. I don't care. I can't help you, right? I can fix your lead quality. I can work on your lead quality and I can get you a very cheap cost per lead, but you gotta close them. Anyway, your question. We were doing this SEO work, right? How is that work informed?

35:39 Mat Rogers

The schema of the content that you create is important. It's very important, right? When you create it's not just like creating a couple of paragraphs about where mosquitoes lay their eggs, right? Or how you need to get water out of the tarps to make sure that you can enjoy your backyard living, right? The schema, how your page is structured, matters, okay? Having FAQs on your page triggers authority awareness for AI, right? So make sure when you are that you're working with a digital marketing company that they have highlighted schema and content organization. They have a handle on that. They're talking to you about that and it feels like that one of those sales tactics, smoke screens, hit the button, eject those jokers, because they don't know what they're talking about, okay? They have to know what they're talking about. So schema and page organization is really important. Shorter paragraphs, FAQs, and intent-based answers. The right way to think about it is what is the user searching for? How can my content answer that question with authority? And then thinking about content themes, not just keywords. One of the things that I'm huge on, that I love actually, and I think that that plays the biggest impact, and I'm happy to share this information with all the PCOs that you work with, everybody that's listening to your podcast. When you're creating content, you need to hyperload. It into the market that you're dealing with. It needs to include things like landmarks that are in the area. I live in a real small town on the outskirts of Charlotte, so they need to know about Main Street and the pop-up shops that are down there. That needs to be in there in that blog that has been thoughtfully structured in terms of its schema and its organization about mosquitoes. It doesn't matter that the boutique named Moxie is on Main Street and that has nothing to do with pest control, okay? When the content is created, it has to be hyperlocalized.

37:36 Mat Rogers

And when you do this activity, when you focus on the geo of your content, right, and you link it to your business profile, it's going to help Gemini fire off and reference information that you're publishing. I promise, okay? I promise. What we've seen with our clients is their cost per lead drops and their cost per qualified lead drops drastically, drastically. We've seen...

38:01 Mat Rogers

I mean, you know the bigger companies that work inside the space. We're little guys, right? AI gives us the opportunity to punch up and man, I will swing at a fucking bar fight, okay?

38:10 Dan Leibrandt

Hahaha...

38:11 Mat Rogers

And so, AI is giving us the opportunity to compete with these big players, but these big players aren't moving quick enough to get in front of some of this shit, right? And I've seen the cost per lead for some of the people that are coming to work with us and showing us their reports from their previous companies and bro, bro, bro, some of these companies were paying like $200, $300 for a qualified lead, $400. I saw one that was paying, that paid, before they came with us, I won't name names, but $545 for a qualified lead. At that point, you're underwater. You've got a door-to-door team. No shame door-to-door team. Love you guys too. You guys make us look great. Because you're paying those sales people a shit ton more than you would pay Dan or me. When you've got a $565. Cost per qualified lead on a $750 contract, you're not realizing that money until next year. And so doing what I'm talking about, having a digital marketing company that's focusing on this particular aspect of your SEO structure, okay, for content that they're creating for you is going to, promise you, drop your cost per qualified lead and drop your cost per lead. And this stuff needs to be linked regularly to your business profile. You know, people didn't used to do that shit. They used to think that they could just set up their profile and then it would just be there, right? But updating your business profile with good content that's hyper local, that shows trust and authority is going to make Gemini and make Search reference your profile constantly. And I don't know if people know this. I said it on Paul's episode, though. I think one of them. What it also did, which we didn't even know it was going to do, Google is also offering your LSAs inside the map pack now.

39:59 Mat Rogers

So it used to just be the top row, and I'll Geminize up there. So the next row down is LSA, and then it's the map with your reviews and your Google Business Profiles. And now if you go into the map to look around and maybe click on some of these business profiles, LSA ads are showing up inside of there. So if you do this thing that you and I are talking about now, it's going to bring down your cost per local service ads too, which local service ads are slowly going to replace PPC because of AI, right? Google's already drastically changing that shit. And so we're trying to get our clients to move budgets away from PPC and get it into LSA because they're going to see more traction there and they can get credits back if it doesn't work out anyway. But yeah, that is the trick to making sure the type of content that you create is informed so that AI can reference it and so that search can reference it. Yeah. So much.

40:48 Dan Leibrandt

Awesome. So you need hyper local content. You need to be tying each of these platforms to each other. And yeah, like you said at that last point, this is really interesting. I don't know if people have seen this. So obviously a lot of companies are running local service ads. Now it's not really a secret anymore. But like you said, there's typically the three pack below that. And that will be, that'll consist of Google Business Profiles, but more and more often. It's now a four pack, it's a three pack of organic results and then there's a fourth one on top which is actually like a hidden local service ad and it'll say sponsored and tiny letters and that's actually a local service ad. So they're being kind of sneaky with it, they're trying to make as much money as possible and I thought that was an interesting.

41:19 Mat Rogers

Yep, yep. Yes, exactly. Google makes so much money, so many of our PCOs spend hundreds of thousands of dollars. Some of them that I work with, both of us hope PCOs get onto the PCT Top 100, right? The companies that are on the PCT Top 100 are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars. In some cases, they'll have over a million dollar paid search spend that... And when you can drive down that CPL that CPQL and bring down the cost of your LSAs Which is gonna take over for paid search you can stretch out those ad dollars Much further right and grow your companies all the faster But if you're not that's what we're talking about for all it to kind of loop us back to the very beginning That's the thing that we're talking about right if you're gonna get on these trends You're gonna see rock rapid growth right your your ship is going to sail into the future. You're gonna need to hire fast, okay? If you are not thinking about these things, if you're not taking Dan's word, if you're not taking my word, what's gonna happen is you're gonna be left in the dust so fast wondering why the phone's not ringing. I promise, okay? We see it already. We see it already with clients that work with us and with clients that don't. We're having to talk our clients, not all of our clients use us for SEO because in their mind, paid search is the way, right? Phone book is the way, billboard is the way, right? Lettering the truck up this way is the way, right?

42:45 Mat Rogers

We're having to beg them to get involved in SEO. I would say like 40, 50 % of our clients don't use us for SEO. We're having to beg them to take it seriously because of this, because of what we're talking about. SEO is going to take over because AI is taking over. And SEO is how AI references your company. Period. End of sentence.

43:05 Dan Leibrandt

Well, that organic and paid are tied and they're becoming more and more merged like you were saying. So yeah, even like what I'm doing, you know, I started out just doing SEO. Really actually started out just doing Google business profile stuff. Then I expanded to website stuff. And now I'm actually, I'm actually going to shut down my agency. I don't know how public I've made this, but I'm going,...

43:09 Mat Rogers

Yep. Yep. Like this.

43:25 Mat Rogers

Shut up!

43:26 Dan Leibrandt

Yeah, yeah. I'm going to do a full service agency. Now it's not going to be like a necessarily a direct competitor with you because we're doing more of like a...

43:32 Mat Rogers

No, it's fine. I love competition. I'm spicy as hell.

43:34 Dan Leibrandt

Equity roll-up model. Yeah, no, but the reason I'm doing that is because you can't just do SEO. Like you have to do social. And so...

43:40 Mat Rogers

Bravo. All of it.

43:45 Dan Leibrandt

That's the two organic. And then you have to do paid search and then you have to do paid social. So you need like all of those four boxes. You need to cover everything and ideally have great branding, have these other aspects behind it. So it's really hard to come on as like a lead generation agency when there are so many other factors that tie into it.

44:04 Mat Rogers

Bro, you are preaching to the choir. I freaking love it. You're saying exactly, it makes me feel so good to talk to somebody else who can see it because so often you're talking to PCOs and you're just begging and hoping that they'll understand you. Please listen, Jesus, it'll help you, love it'll help you. Our contracts aren't sticky, so if they don't see the results and we're begging them to make some changes and they don't take it, they're gonna let go of us, right? And so I love everything you're saying, it is all true. I'm so excited for you, man. That's awesome.

44:33 Dan Leibrandt

No, you as well. I talk to a lot of people in SEO and social media and even people that have been in it for 10, 20 years, a lot of them aren't saying this stuff, which it's like, it's so unique. Don't know why it feels like it's just me and you and we're just like pest control marketing guys. But...

44:43 Mat Rogers

What are you doing? Maybe we should start a marketing company. Call me. Call me when this is over. Let's do it.

44:50 Dan Leibrandt

Yeah, no, maybe. Maybe we do some kind of merger at some point, that'd be cool. But yeah, no, so I'm glad we agreed on all those points. I had a few more things to touch on. We don't have too much more time. Let's see, so I want you to cover that AI and tow truck driver story, that one that you were mentioning.

44:58 Mat Rogers

Yeah. Hit me. You're good. Gonna try to shoot from the hip. Bro, yeah. Blue collar is not exempt from AI, okay? So I drive a Tesla. I just got it, I actually got it because I drove Allan's Tesla in Arizona. I like, this shit's awesome. And I'm a monster on the road, okay? I drive my wife crazy, but when you push that pedal down, you can smoke a teenager, and that matters to me in my 40s. I care that I can put that teenager in his place, okay? So, anyway, I got an X, and I love it. But they had to replace the 12-volt battery. There's a battery in the front. There's the battery underneath. The battery in the front does the panel and the doors, right? And so, but what, and I've got a charger in the garage and it's awesome. But what you, what I had to call USAA because when that battery is dead, the car won't open, right? And the car becomes a big heavy brick, right? And I called USAA and they sent out, it took forever, it took four hours. They kept sending out tow trucks to my house and I got my dad's genetic material in me, okay? I'm cantankerous as hell, okay? And so they've got these tow truck drivers coming out and I am like, they can't get the car out because it's not in tow mode. You have to have the, you have to charge the battery to put it in tow mode and you've got to put the wheels on skates so you can back it out of the garage and so I would talk to USAA and I would talk to the dispatcher and I would talk to the tow truck driver do you have something to charge the 12-volt battery do you have skates to get this thing out of here man help me come prepared Jesus fourth company that comes out to the house okay it's late I was supposed to get it over to the Tesla it's over there now the Tesla dealership I get to drive a Cybertruck right now which is my first it's pretty awesome but the drivers come out, it's late, but he gets out of his driver's seat and he's wearing sunglasses.

46:58 Mat Rogers

And I'm nervous because we come from the blue collar industry, so let me just say that might mean that he's on drugs, okay?

47:05 Dan Leibrandt

Ha!

47:06 Mat Rogers

It totally might. All right, I grew up, no offense guys, you guys know how hard it is to hire, all right? It might mean that this guy's on drugs, so great. I've got my family here, everybody's inside eating dinner, and I'm out here with this tow truck driver who's probably on drugs. But he's wearing Ray-Bans. And he gets out and he's got his assistant with him and he gets to the hood of my car and I'm looking at him so suspiciously and I hear him say, hey Meta, give me a tutorial on how to charge the 12 volt battery. And his eyes like got this close to his glasses like from behind him and I could see this video played over his left eye of under the hood of a Tesla X and he is underneath this hood and he is taking apart these components. I had no clue where they were, these panels that came down and this. Plug that you pulled and this wire that you pulled out and this is where you ground the other end and all this stuff and then he just kind of sits back and I was like. What's going on with your glasses man? And he looked at me and he goes, I'm the black Tony Stark. And I was like, what?

48:14 Mat Rogers

That's what he said to me. And I was like, are you watching a video on how to, he goes, yeah, man, this shit's Jarvis. And I was like, are you kidding me? I want that. And so he was using AI technology to figure out how to solve a complex problem that three other tow truck companies could not do. And what's more, he was using AI to improve his marketing on his own. He went from a single truck to four trucks over the course of about six months, he says. He's training his fourth truck driver, okay? He's private guy on his own. And I was blown away at how well he was adopting a technology and allowing it to empower what he was doing. Not being afraid of it and sitting on the back end and being like, my God, blue collar dude, rough around the edges, wearing sunglasses at night, but he jumped my Tesla. He got the skates on the Tesla and he got it over to the Tesla shop and it's fixed and ready for me to pick up after this podcast Because of him and so and I was giving him marketing advice is like bro. Call me. I want to do business with you And so now now we're text homies and we're gonna do business together It was awesome, but it's proof that this thing that we're talking about this revolution doesn't need to make PCOs like my dad afraid right it can empower you it can be rocket fuel in your pest control is so profitable, right? And if you can use this thing that's happening, it is the gold rush that's moving out west. If you can use this thing that's happening, you can grab ahold of it and ride it and you will go from one truck to four trucks, just like that. You really will, but you gotta find the right marketing partner. So, God bless you because there are a dime a dozen out there, that's for damn sure. Yeah, it was crazy.

49:55 Dan Leibrandt

Yeah, no, definitely. Wow, that is a crazy story. That's so funny. He said I'm he said I'm the black Tony Stark...

50:00 Mat Rogers

I'm the black Tony Stark. This shit is Jarvis. And I was like, my god. It was, it was so good.

50:00 Dan Leibrandt

That's hilarious That is insane no, I mean I was like I was feeling skeptical at first while you were saying that but I mean if no one else could figure it out if it's a really complex problem and He's using the technology to empower him not like replace him or anything. But hey, you know, I already know my stuff. I already know my stuff but you know, I'm just gonna use AI to give me a nice like 10, 20 % boost or, you know, just fill in the little bit of information that I don't know. Yeah,...

50:19 Mat Rogers

Yeah, nope, you can't.

50:30 Mat Rogers

For him, a 75 % boost, right?

50:32 Dan Leibrandt

Yeah. So I see nothing wrong with that. And I mean, that's a whole nother conversation to have with the glasses. That's a whole nother thing coming.

50:36 Mat Rogers

No, we'll never, it is. But things like you and I will never go away because PCOs in particular, especially the larger they get, are going to have to find somebody that they trust to do this work. And it is becoming so simple in some ways, but so complex in others, right? And so finding the right marketing partner to track and measure and transparently help you grow your company along with you is what you're looking for, right? And so don't let, to the PCOs, please, don't let AI freak you out. Make sure you're talking to a marketing partner that understands or is trying to understand how to engage it so that they can grow your company. That's what matters.

51:17 Dan Leibrandt

Absolutely. I was gonna ask you for some, like a final message there, but I guess you already gave one. Like, I guess maybe anything else there. What do you wanna leave Pest Control owners off with this podcast? What do they need to do? What action items do they need to take?

51:23 Mat Rogers

Did I do it? Sorry. No, no, I...

51:37 Mat Rogers

Action items, second renaissance of marketing, okay? And it's happening so much faster than the one I lived in 2012, okay? Please, think about it critically. Don't take risks. Don't be the PCO that takes out like a crazy loan and mortgages his house to XYZ. That's scary, right? My dad would always say, don't let your eyes get bigger than your belly, right? Enjoy the ride, because you have a profitable machine underneath you and you deserve, you work hard and you deserve that, right? But this renaissance has the possibility of either bringing your growth to a halt or fast forwarding you into the future. And so you need to give it some thought. And when you're reaching out to someone like Dan or a team like Lizard, make sure that you are confident that they are engaging these things on behalf of your company. That's my call to action. That's what I would plead with any PCO with because I truly do, Dan. I remember how precious the checks were that my family cut to Mike Pinckney and the digital marketing company for them, trusting that these people were gonna bring back results while we were eating at Quincy's, because kids ate free on Tuesdays. Do you know what I mean?

52:46 Mat Rogers

And my stepmom would heat her office in the laundry room by keeping the dryer open, right? I know how precious your money is. And so make sure that you are with a digital marketing partner that you trust. And if you don't have that trust, make a solution. Don't wait till October. I know that's the optimal time to get onboarded and that makes sense but be thinking about it please it really does matter as fast as things are changing it definitely does matter...

53:16 Dan Leibrandt

Amen. And that goes vice versa as well. These pest control owners should be the company that is trusted. So they should choose someone that they trust and they should be the ones that are trusted. I think we are in almost like a trust economy now that that is the rare resource.

53:26 Mat Rogers

Facts. Yeah, what a thought. That's perfect. I'm gonna use that. We are in a trust economy. Authority economy, a trust economy, and a local economy. That's what AI is doing. That's great. Bravo.

53:33 Dan Leibrandt

Hahaha...

53:41 Dan Leibrandt

100%. Awesome. Yeah, appreciate it. Okay, so I think this is a great show, Mat. Where can people connect with you, connect with Lizard and such?

53:45 Mat Rogers

Yeah. Thanks. Lizardmarketing.co Hit us up. Fill out the little form. We'll chat it up. No pressure. I suck at that.

53:57 Dan Leibrandt

Awesome. And then what about connecting with you on social media? What socials are you on?

54:00 Mat Rogers

I'm on Instagram, I'm on LinkedIn, and I'm on Facebook, so track me down. Mat with one T. You put two T's in there and you're never gonna find me.

54:08 Dan Leibrandt

Okay, awesome. Okay, cool. So those links will be in the description anything else you'd like to plug or mention...

54:12 Mat Rogers

No, good luck guys, we're in season, so I know everybody's working hard. Good luck out there and reach out to us, reach out to Dan if you need help.

54:21 Dan Leibrandt

Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Mat. It's been a pleasure.

54:23 Mat Rogers

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Thanks for having me.