Home services ads · HVAC, plumbing, roofing, electrical, cleaning

Google and Meta ads for trades, measured in booked jobs

Home services advertising fails in two predictable ways: the phone rings while the crew is on site and nobody answers, or the ads bring price shoppers instead of the jobs worth doing. I run trades accounts around emergency and planned demand separately, and report cost per booked job by service line.

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Available as an account audit, a rebuild around service lines, or ongoing management for a trades business.

What a trades account has to get right

Emergency and planned demand run as separate campaigns with separate economics
Service area, not a radius around the office, decides where ads show
Calls tracked to the campaign, with answered and missed calls both visible
Cost per booked job by service line, not cost per lead

Why trades campaigns underperform

The account is rarely the problem. The gap between a ringing phone and a booked job usually is.

Emergency and planned demand are not the same buy

Someone with a burst pipe converts within the hour and will pay for speed. Someone planning a bathroom compares for weeks. Run them in one campaign and the urgent job subsidises the browser, while the planned job gets an ad written for an emergency.

The phone is part of the campaign

A missed call at 2pm is a paid click thrown away, and in this category most enquiries are calls. Answer rate, call-back time and after-hours handling change the return more than most bid adjustments do.

What home services ads work covers

Six areas, in the order they usually need attention.

Service line and demand mapping

Each service is separated by job value and urgency, so a full replacement is not bid at the same price as a callout.

Service area targeting

Targeting follows the areas the crew will actually travel to, including the postcodes worth paying more for and the ones to exclude.

Emergency and planned campaigns

Urgent work and considered projects run separately, with their own ad copy, budgets, schedules and acceptable cost per job.

Call tracking and job attribution

Calls are tracked to campaign and keyword, with duration and outcome recorded, so booked work can be separated from price checks and wrong numbers.

Booking flow and response time

The landing page, the quote request, call routing, after-hours cover and time to call back are reviewed as part of the campaign.

Cost per booked job reporting

Reporting shows booked jobs and cost per job by service line, alongside the calls that were missed and what they were likely worth.

How trades accounts are run here

Urgent and planned demand are separated before budget is set, because they are different purchases.
Missed calls are reported, not hidden, since they are the most common cause of a poor return.
Job value is agreed per service line, so acceptable cost per job is a real number rather than an average.
Local Services Ads are run alongside search where available, and reported separately.
The business keeps ownership of the ad accounts, the call tracking and the number.

Is this the right fit?

We discuss the goal, budget and access needed to do the work.

You run a trades or home services business and want more booked jobs in specific service lines.
The phone rings but nobody can say which spend produced the jobs that got booked.
You can tell me which calls turned into work and roughly what a job is worth.

When a different approach may be needed

Calls routinely go unanswered and there is no plan to change that.
You want the cheapest possible leads regardless of job value.
The service area, pricing and availability cannot be pinned down before launch.

Common questions from trades businesses

Should I run Google Ads or Facebook Ads for a trades business?

Google first for anything urgent, because the person is already searching and ready to book. Meta earns its place on planned work — replacements, installs, renovations — where you are creating demand rather than catching it.

What about Local Services Ads?

Where they are available for your trade and area they are usually worth running, since you pay per lead and the Google Guaranteed badge helps. They need their own review and dispute process, so they are reported as a separate line rather than mixed into search.

How do you stop price shoppers?

Ad copy and landing pages that state the service area, the call-out terms and roughly what work costs. Fewer enquiries, better ones. If the ads never mention price, the calls will.

We miss calls when the crew is out. Does that matter?

It is usually the biggest single loss in the account. Call tracking makes it visible, and the fix is operational — after-hours cover, an answering service, or a call-back commitment on the page. No amount of bidding compensates for an unanswered phone.

Can you handle several locations or franchises?

Yes. Locations are structured so each area's budget, service lines and phone routing stay separate, and reporting shows cost per booked job per location.