Google Ads for HVAC companies
Let LSA take the 2am call. Buy the replacement instead.
We manage Google Ads for HVAC companies. A no-heat call and a furnace-replacement search are worth very different amounts and cost very different amounts to win. Almost every HVAC account we inherit is paying Search prices for calls Local Services Ads would have delivered cheaper.
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Emergency intent is the most expensive thing you can buy on Search.
Local Services Ads charge per lead and are built for the homeowner who wants a company now. Search charges per click, and emergency clicks are the most contested in the trade. Point Search at no-heat and no-cool terms and you pay the most for the call LSA would have caught cheaper. The fix is not more budget. It is which searches the budget is pointed at.
Three kinds of search, three kinds of budget
HVAC demand does not arrive as one thing, and a single campaign cannot bid correctly for all of it.
Broken, now
No heat, no cooling, unit making a noise. Short queries, phone, decided in under a minute. Proximity and your profile win these, and Local Services Ads reaches them for a fraction of what Search charges. Buying this intent on Search is the single most common way an HVAC budget disappears.
Pricing a replacement
Furnace cost, is a heat pump worth it, high efficiency payback. Long queries, no map pack, read across several sessions and several sites. Nobody is calling from these searches today, which is exactly why they are cheap and exactly what Search is for.
Maintenance plans and commercial
Low volume, high lifetime value, and almost nobody bids on it. A maintenance agreement is worth more over five years than the replacement that triggered it, and the auction is close to empty.
These three do not belong in one campaign and they should not share a budget. Emergency goes to Local Services Ads and the profile. Replacement research goes to Search. Maintenance and commercial get their own small, patient line item that nobody else is fighting you for.
The standing work, on a heating and cooling calendar.
Budget that follows weather, not the month
A February budget and an April budget should not match, and neither should follow the calendar quarter. We shift spend into the shoulder seasons where replacement research happens and pull it back during the spike, when Local Services Ads and the map pack are already saturated and Search is only bidding up its own price.
Conversion values, not conversion counts
Smart Bidding optimizes toward whatever you tell it a lead is worth. Leave every form and call worth the same and it will find you the cheapest one, which is a filter change. Values come off booked revenue in WhatConverts, never off the platform count.
A negative list built from search terms, weekly
Parts, DIY, jobs, and every neighbouring trade you do not do. Google matches on close variants that are not demand, so the search terms report is the real keyword list and it is read every week, not at onboarding.
Impression share read against budget, not as a score
Losing impression share to budget and losing it to Ad Rank are different problems with different fixes. One is money and one is relevance, and treating the second as the first is how accounts get expensive quietly.
What drives an HVAC budget.
Two HVAC contractors in the same town can need very different budgets. These are the reasons why.
How hard your metro and season push back
A cold snap or a heat wave fills the auction with every competitor at once. A mild shoulder season is quieter. The same account costs more to run in a hard winter than in a soft spring, and that is the market, not a mistake.
How wide your job values run
A repair call and a full system replacement are not the same sale. The wider that spread, the more it matters which searches get the money, and the more a flat budget wastes.
How many calls actually get answered
A paid click that reaches voicemail is spend with nothing to show for it. Staffing the phones in peak weather changes what any budget returns.
We price on booked work, not on clicks, and we do not quote a universal number for HVAC. Any figure that ignores your town, your season and your phones would be a guess, and we would rather show you the math from your own account.
How we structure an HVAC account.
The structure follows what the homeowner needs, not how the account happened to grow.
One campaign per intent
Broken-now, replacement research and maintenance or commercial each get their own campaign, budget and bid strategy. Heat pump and furnace searches that read as research sit apart from repair, because the objection and the buyer are different.
Ad schedule and call handling that match
Emergency ads run only when someone can answer or when after-hours handling is set. Replacement research can run around the clock, because a form fill can wait until morning.
A landing page per intent
The no-heat caller gets the phone number and a fast path to dispatch. The replacement researcher gets honest sizing, financing and a quote form. One generic page serves neither. Our HVAC marketing work covers the page side.
Negative keywords for HVAC.
The search terms report is the real keyword list. These are the themes we block first.
Do it yourself
Furnace igniter how to, reset a breaker on the unit, how to clean a condenser. The person asking plans to fix it, not to hire you.
Parts and equipment
Capacitors, thermostat models, filter sizes, wholesale supply houses. These are shoppers for parts, not homeowners with a problem.
Jobs and training
HVAC technician jobs, apprenticeship, school, certification, salary. Job seekers click ads and never book.
We read the search terms report every week, and cold-snap and heat-wave weeks get extra attention, because junk spikes with the auction.
Local Services Ads or Search for HVAC.
They catch different homeowners. The goal is to put each budget where it wins, not to pick a favorite.
| The difference | Local Service Ads | Google Ads Search |
|---|---|---|
| Who it catches | Homeowners with a broken system who want a company now | Researchers, replacement shoppers, maintenance and commercial buyers |
| What it does badly | Cannot reach long research searches or sell a heat pump decision | Emergency clicks are costly in a crowded auction |
| How bidding works | Maximize leads, Target cost per lead or a max per lead, set by Google | Smart Bidding on the values you feed it, or manual control |
Availability depends on your category and market, which is why we check it first.
We run both from one plan through Local Services Ads management and Search. Google has also said it is moving Local Services Ads into Google Ads as Performance Max with pay-per-lead goals for US home service businesses, which is why we watch that change and keep the two budgets separate.
Want campaigns that follow your seasons?
We audit your account against the seasonal shape of HVAC demand, and map the plan. Free either way.
- 01Your homepageMocked up on your brand
- 0260-point auditWhat the current site is losing
- 03Growth planBuilt around your market
No obligation, no pushy sales call. Month to month if you start.
Same-trade result, market named. Figures from the client’s own dashboard and Search Console.
How the work runs
- 01 Split by intent Emergency, replacement and maintenance get separate campaigns before anything else changes.
- 02 Point emergency at LSA The cheapest fix in most accounts is moving 2am intent off Search entirely.
- 03 Value the conversions Booked revenue by lead type, so bidding optimizes toward the work you want.
- 04 Read terms weekly Negatives and close variants, every week, not at setup.
What we track and report.
If a number cannot be tied to booked work, it does not make the report.
Calls by source, recorded
Call tracking ties each call to the campaign and search that produced it, and recordings let us tell a real job from a wrong number or a vendor.
Qualified call, booked job, revenue
We separate a call from a booked job from a replacement install, by job type, so a repair-heavy month is not mistaken for a good one.
Search terms and impression share
We split the impression share you lose to budget from the share you lose to rank. One needs money, the other needs better ads and pages.
We review all of it weekly and report monthly, in plain language, with the page that explains what we changed and why.
How long until you see results.
Judge the account in stages, not on the first day.
Clean up and gather data
We fix tracking, split intents, block junk and see what your market actually does. Results here are noise, so we do not judge them.
Bidding learns from booked jobs
Once real conversions and values flow in, Smart Bidding has something worth learning. Local Services Ads also needs a learning period, per Google.
Judge on cost per booked job
Now the numbers mean something, and the call is simple: it earns its keep or it does not.
Weather can speed this up or slow it down. We are month to month, so if it does not earn its keep, you can leave.
What HVAC contractors ask
Q.01Should we run Search and Local Services Ads at the same time?
Yes, but not against each other. LSA takes the emergency intent because it wins on cost there. Search takes replacement research, which LSA cannot reach at all. Run both, pointed at different searches, and the combined cost per booked job drops.
Q.02Our cost per lead tripled in January. Did something break?
Probably not. Every competitor raises bids into the cold snap at once, so the auction price rises whether or not your account changed. That is the argument for building replacement demand in the shoulder season and easing off Search when the spike does the work for you.
Q.03How much should an HVAC contractor spend on Search specifically?
Less than most accounts do, and pointed differently. There is no useful universal number, because it depends on how much of your emergency intent can move to LSA first. We size Search around replacement and commercial demand, which is far steadier than the seasonal spike.
Q.04Is Performance Max safe for a home service account?
It can be, with tight audience signals, a real negative list and asset control. Turned on loose in a service business it tends to spend into brand and junk placements and report it as success. We do not enable it as a default.
Q.05Do we need a separate campaign for heat pumps?
Usually yes, in a cold climate. The objection is different, the search is longer, and the answer that wins is a page with honest performance numbers rather than a generic replacement page. Sharing a campaign hides both.
Q.06What happens to the account if we pause in spring?
You lose the account history that Ad Rank rewards, and the replacement research window you should have been buying. Pausing is the expensive version of saving money. A small always-on budget in the quiet months is cheaper than restarting cold in October.
Q.07Our phones go to voicemail after hours. Should we still run ads?
Yes, but we set the schedule around it. Emergency ads run when someone can answer, or when after-hours handling is in place. Replacement research can run any time because a form fill can wait. Paying for a click nobody picks up is the waste we cut first.
Q.08Why does the report show fewer leads than the Google Ads screen?
Google counts clicks and form fills, including junk. We count recorded calls and booked jobs. A wrong number, a job seeker and a vendor are all conversions on the platform and none are leads. The lower number is the honest one, and it is the one we manage to.
Get your free growth plan.
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Where to go next
Local Service Ads management
Local Services Ads, what it costs, and why it beats Search on 2am intent.
HVAC SEO services
Rankings you do not rent, built in the shoulder months.
HVAC website design
A replacement researcher and a no-heat caller need different things from the same site.