Taking paint-store searches out of a painter's Google Ads

Summary

What the old campaign was buying

Texora's owner ran his own Google Ads campaign from June 2026. It was paused on Sept 21, the day I took the account on. It used broad match on keywords like “house painters near me” and “drywall repair”, aimed at Delta, Ladner and Tsawwassen.

Broad match lets Google show the ad for searches it decides are related. The campaign had no paint brands as negative keywords, so searches for the paint stores in his own town were in reach: “dulux paint tsawwassen”, “benjamin moore tsawwassen”, “closest sherwin williams to me”.

In the campaign's last three weeks, 81.9% of the spend that came with a visible search term went to searches like those. Someone searching for the Dulux store wants a can of paint, not a painter.

Google does not show the search behind every click. Only 65% of that campaign's spend came with a search term. Count every hidden search as a painter search and paint-store searches still took 53.4% of everything it spent in those three weeks.

The campaign's dashboard does not show any of this. The search terms report does.

Where the clicks went

The other thing the account shows is what people did when they clicked. On the old campaign, 38% of clicks opened a page. The rest were taps on the map, directions and call buttons inside the ad.

38%

of clicks opened a page on the old campaign

Texora Painting, Delta, BC. Google Search, clicks by click type. Sept 2 to 21, 2026. Source: the Google Ads account: 20 of 52 clicks were on the headline or a sitelink; the other 32 were 15 map taps, 9 directions taps, 7 call-button taps and 1 click Google did not classify.

CAD 6.44

per click that opened a page, old campaign

Texora Painting, Delta, BC. Google Search. Sept 2 to 21, 2026. Source: the Google Ads account: CAD 128.82 on 20 headline and sitelink clicks.

A call from the ad can be a real lead, so those taps are not all waste. But none of them reach a page that shows prices, reviews and a form.

The landing page

This is the interior painting page on a phone. Each service has its own page, and the ad's sitelinks jump straight to its sections: the quote form, past work, reviews, how it works and questions.

His main site stays as it is for everyone else. The landing pages are for ad traffic and are kept out of Google's search results.

Paint-store searches after the rebuild

From the first day the new campaigns ran, Sept 24, to Oct 5, not one paint-store or paint-brand search showed up in the search terms, clicked or not. Before, they took 81.9% of visible spend. After, CAD 0.

The same caveat holds. Google shows the search behind 80% of the new campaigns' spend, so this is a count of what can be seen.

What a page visit costs now

81% of clicks on the new non-brand campaign opened a landing page, against 38% before.

Each of those visits costs more. A click that opened a page cost CAD 6.44 on the old campaign and costs CAD 11.01 now.

Several things changed at once: the keywords, the match type, the pages the ads send people to, and the area, which grew from Delta alone to Surrey, Richmond and White Rock as well. So I can't split the rise between them.

What I can say is where the money goes now: to people searching for a painter, not for a paint store. I'd rather pay more for that visit.

Leads so far

Google Ads recorded calls or forms from 3 people in the first twelve days. That is too few to price, so there is no cost per lead on this page.

Two of the three came from Surrey. On Oct 1, at the owner's request, the ads moved to the areas his crews want to work in: Delta, Ladner and Tsawwassen as before, plus Burnaby, New Westminster, East Vancouver and the Tri-Cities. Surrey, Richmond and White Rock came out.

The new area has run since Oct 2. In its first four days, to Oct 5, there was 1 landing-page form, from Coquitlam. Four days is not a rate.

One of the three, on Oct 1, sent the form and called on the same click. It may have been a test of the form and the call tracking. That is not confirmed, and if it was, the count is one lower.

He has also told me about calls and a text that Google Ads did not record. I can't tie those to the ads, so they are not in any number on this page.

What this does not show

This is a wasted-spend result, not a lead-cost result. The old campaign counted calls from the ad's call button. The new campaigns count calls over 30 seconds and sent forms. The definitions differ, so I don't compare cost per lead between them.

It also does not show what a painter's lead costs in your area. That depends on your town, your services and your page, which is what the estimate call works out.

If you run your own campaign, open the search terms report and read the last month of searches before you change anything else.

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 October 6, 2026