Service · Google Ads
Google Ads for home service businesses
The only channel that can put an enquiry on your phone this week. Also the fastest way to burn two thousand pounds on people searching for a plumbing job rather than a plumber.
- No lock-in contracts
- Month to month after the first 90 days
- You own every account and asset
- Reported in booked jobs, not impressions
In short
Are Google Ads worth it for contractors?
Google Ads works for a home service business when a booked job produces more gross profit than the enquiry costs to generate. The current Home & Home Improvement benchmark is $8.33 per click and $90.92 per lead. At a 30 per cent quote-to-booking rate that is roughly $300 per booked job, which suits boiler installations and roof replacements far better than small call-outs.
Where contractor ad budgets actually go
We have yet to audit a self-managed or cheaply-managed home services account that was not losing at least a quarter of its spend to the same five problems.
Broad match without supervision. Google will happily spend your budget on “plumbing courses”, “plumber salary” and “how to fix a tap yourself”. Every one of those clicks costs you the same as a real one.
No negative keyword list. The single highest-return hour in any contractor account is spent in the search terms report adding negatives. Most accounts have never had it done.
Ads pointing at the homepage. Somebody searching “emergency drain unblocking” lands on a page about your company history and three service categories. They leave. You paid for that.
No call tracking. In this sector most enquiries are phone calls. Without call tracking, Google has no idea which keywords produce work, so its automated bidding is optimising towards form fills from people who were never going to book.
Running at 3am with no answer. If nobody picks up out of hours, either schedule the ads or set up a service that does. Paying $40 for a click that rings an empty office is not a marketing strategy.
What we do
- Account rebuild or takeover. Structured by service and by intent, so emergency, planned and comparison searches get different ads, different pages and different bids.
- Local Services Ads. Where they are available in your country, the Google Guaranteed badge sits above everything else and is billed per lead rather than per click. We set up the licence and insurance verification and manage the lead disputes.
- Call tracking as standard. Dynamic number insertion, call recording where legal in your jurisdiction, and calls over a set duration counted as conversions so bidding optimises towards actual conversations.
- Weekly search term review. Negatives added every week, not quarterly. This is unglamorous and it is where the money is.
- Landing pages built to convert. One page per campaign, above-the-fold phone number, service area named, no navigation to wander off into.
- Budget pacing by season. Heating spend rises in autumn, cooling in spring, roofing after storms. We shift budget ahead of demand rather than reacting a month late.
- Conversion value, not conversion count. A boiler install enquiry is not worth the same as a tap washer. We weight them so the algorithm chases margin instead of volume.
The market you are actually competing in
These are the current Google Ads averages for the Home & Home Improvement category, measured across more than 13,000 search campaigns between April 2025 and March 2026. Beating them is the whole job.
Source: WordStream Google Ads Benchmarks 2026, April 2025 – March 2026.
Google Ads pricing
Management fee only. Your ad spend is paid directly to Google from your own account — we never mark it up or route it through us.
Google Ads management
- Account build or full restructure
- Local Services Ads setup and management
- Call tracking and conversion tracking
- Weekly search term and negative keyword work
- Up to 3 campaign landing pages
- Monthly reporting in cost per booked job
Recommended minimum ad spend £1,000 / $1,250 per month for usable data.
Google Ads questions
How much should I spend on ads?
Work backwards from a job. If your average job is worth £400 in gross profit and one in three enquiries books, you can afford roughly £130 per enquiry before you break even. At the current Home & Home Improvement benchmark of about $91 per lead, that is a workable margin. If your average job is worth £80, Google Ads is probably the wrong channel and we will say so.
Can you take over my existing account?
Yes, and we prefer it. An existing account carries conversion history that a new one does not, which usually means faster results. It stays in your name throughout.
What are Local Services Ads?
Google's pay-per-lead format for local trades, sitting above the normal search ads with a Google Guaranteed badge. You are billed per lead rather than per click and you can dispute leads that are not genuine. Availability varies by country and trade, and we will check yours before promising anything.
Why do I need call tracking?
Because most of your enquiries are calls, and without tracking them Google's bidding is flying blind. Turning on call tracking is routinely the single biggest improvement we make in a contractor account, ahead of anything creative.
Two minutes to find out if we are worth talking to
Our prices are published, our contracts run month to month, and the audit costs nothing. If the numbers do not suit you, you will know today rather than after three calls.
Request your free audit