Google Ads for Home Service Contractors

What does Google Ads management for contractors include?

Everything between a homeowner typing a search and your phone ringing. I build it, I run it, and it sits in accounts that are in your name.

What is not included: the ad spend itself, which you pay to Google, the per-lead charges on Local Services, earning reviews, answering the phone, and the rest of your website.

How is the account structured?

Around the jobs you sell, not around a keyword list. A replacement, a repair and an inspection are different jobs with different values, different search volume and different close rates, whether the trade is roofing, HVAC or plumbing. So each gets its own ad group, its own ads and its own budget line. When one job is worth ten times another, the account should know that.

• Google Search only. No Display network and no search partners. Money meant for people searching for a contractor should not go to banner ads.
• Exact match to start, so every dollar goes to a search I chose. Phrase match comes back one theme at a time once the search terms are clean; broad match later, if ever.
• People in your area, not people interested in it. Location targeting is set to people who are physically there, so a search from three states away does not spend your budget.
• A bid ceiling in month one. Maximize Clicks with a cap, nothing smarter yet. Smart bidding needs conversions to learn from, and a new account has none.

Auto-applied recommendations stay off. Nobody should be editing your account without deciding to.

What that looks like on a new account, with its first 8 days counted the conservative way: the Elite Diesel Solutions case study.

Which searches do you avoid paying for?

Most wasted spend in a contractor's account is searches that were never going to become a job: people looking for work, people fixing it themselves, people shopping for materials, and people searching for another company by name.

The mistake I see most often looks like a good keyword. On one of my roofing accounts, a single phrase-match keyword, the trade word plus a city, had taken 52 percent of the campaign's spend over a summer and produced a fifth of a lead.

Phrase match on a city term also matches every competitor's brand search in that city, because their names contain the trade word too. Trade plus city now goes on exact match, and local competitor names go in as negatives before the campaign runs.

What does the landing page do?

Ads do not close jobs. The page after the ad does.

I build every client a landing page as part of the setup, because sending paid clicks to a homepage is paying for a visitor and then asking them to go looking.

Blue Bird Roofing, a page I built

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1. Proof firstWarranty and a free estimate in the first inch.
2. The rating, in viewStars and review count above the headline.
3. Their county in the headlineThe place they searched, not the company name.
4. The form above the foldName and phone without scrolling.
5. A phone that follows themSticky, tappable, tracked.

How are leads counted?

Calls and form submissions from real people, and nothing else. A page view is not a lead, and neither is a click on a phone number that never connects.

It matters more than it sounds. Here is what Charlotte Premier Roofing's account reported, next to what a lead cost once it only counted people:

The number on the dashboard got thirteen times worse and the business got its first booked appointments. A real number you can plan around beats a flattering one you can't. The full case study.

Every call is recorded, so when a lead turns out to be a tire kicker you can hear it, and the account can learn from it.

Search, Local Services and your Business Profile: what each one does

Three different things show up when a homeowner searches for your trade, and they are bought and limited in different ways.

Local Services will be your cheapest leads and you will run out of them.

The budget field is a cap, not a dial:

That is why every Google Ads engagement runs both. Local Services first, because it is cheap while it lasts, and Search for the volume it cannot supply. More on that in Google Ads or Local Services.

What does it cost?

$1,000 once to build. From $1,500 a month, which covers ad spend up to $10,000 a month, and the price steps up above that. Ad spend is separate, at least $2,000 a month, paid straight to Google on your card and never marked up. Local Services leads are billed by Google per lead.

Month to month. The ad account, the Local Services profile, the Business Profile, the landing page and the tracking numbers are in your name, and they stay yours if you leave. The worked totals are on the pricing page.

How soon does it start?

The estimate call comes first, before you pay anything. After you sign, I build the campaigns, the page and the tracking from the onboarding items you send. It goes live inside a week.

I don't promise a number of leads or a date for them. What moves your result most is how fast you call leads back, and your phone isn't mine.

Who is this not for?

Businesses whose jobs are mostly small service calls, commercial-led companies, and anyone who needs a guaranteed number of leads. Below about $2,000 a month of ad spend, Search usually cannot gather enough clicks to learn in most counties, and I'll tell you that on the call instead of taking the money. When Google Ads is not worth it.

Elijah Nawrot, founder of Red Orca Digital. Three years on roofs, four running paid ads for roofing companies. Red Orca is a Google Partner. More about me.
Last updated September 24, 2026