Field guide · growth for the trades 4.9 on Google · 30+ reviews Superior, Wis. · est. 2018
Bear North Digital

Home services marketing agency

Home services marketing that counts the second visit.

Search, ads and websites for home services businesses. The economics here run on repeat work and agreements, which means the cost of a new customer is the wrong number to optimize on its own.

4.9 on Google30+ verified reviews
4.930+ Google reviews
125+Contractors served
8+Years in home services
$0Setup fees, month to month
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A customer is not a transaction.

Home services businesses see the same household repeatedly: seasonal maintenance, an agreement, a repair, eventually a replacement. Marketing judged purely on cost per lead ignores the part of the relationship where the money actually is.

Consequence 01

You can pay more to acquire

If a household is worth several visits and an eventual replacement, the acceptable cost of winning it is far higher than a single job would justify. Competitors optimizing against one transaction will consistently underbid you into the wrong customers and then wonder why growth stalls.

Consequence 02

Agreements are a marketing asset

A maintenance plan is recurring revenue, a scheduled reason to be in the house, and a large advantage when the replacement conversation arrives. Most sites bury the plan on a page nobody visits instead of selling it properly with a real sign up.

Consequence 03

Retention is cheaper than search

The email and reminder that brings an existing customer back costs a fraction of winning a stranger. Businesses in this category routinely spend on acquisition while neglecting a list that would produce more work for almost nothing.

What to measure instead of leads

Lead count is the most misleading number in this category, because it treats a one off drain clear and a household that will spend five figures over a decade as the same event.

01

Booked jobs, not form fills

A submitted form is not revenue. We tie calls and forms through to what actually got scheduled, because the gap between the two is where most agency reporting quietly flatters itself.

02

Agreement conversion rate

What share of new customers end up on a plan. This single number predicts next year better than any traffic figure, and almost nobody tracks it against marketing source.

03

Repeat rate by channel

Customers from different sources behave differently. A channel producing cheap one off calls can look excellent on cost per lead and be worth less than a pricier channel producing households that stay.

04

Cancellation rate on agreements

Plans that churn quietly are worse than no plans, because the business books the revenue mentally and then loses it without noticing. Tracking cancellations alongside sign ups is the only way to know whether the plan is genuinely valued or merely sold well.

05

Revenue per household over time

The number that should set your acquisition budget. Once you know it, most arguments about whether marketing is too expensive resolve themselves in a single conversation.

One warning about the model. Recurring economics justify a higher acquisition cost only if the retention is actually real. We have seen businesses assume a multi year customer value and then discover that most households never book a second visit, usually because nobody followed up and no plan was ever offered. Before we recommend spending against lifetime value, we check that the lifetime exists. If it does not, the cheaper fix is fixing retention, not buying more strangers.

We report these because they change decisions. Impressions and sessions are context, never the headline.

Want the second visit counted, not just the first call?

Tell us how your book actually runs: agreements, repeat visits, replacements. We audit what your marketing is really producing, mock up your new site, and map the plan. Free either way.

Free growth plan · 30 seconds
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No obligation, no pushy sales call. Month to month if you start.

Proof · from live accounts, trades named

Real campaigns. On the record.

Leads are tracked calls plus submitted forms, from the client’s own dashboard. Trades are named because a figure from one trade is not a forecast for another.

Published pricing · the same list everyone sees

What this costs, on the page.

The same standard we push on you, applied to us: the plan, the terms, and the price, in the open.

The four plansTrailheadCompassTimberlinePolaris
Monthly price$1,750$3,250$4,995$9,500
Built forSolo · under $1.25MEstablished · $1.25M to $6MGrowth mode · $6M to $12MMulti-market · $12M+
Google AdsSearchFull managementAggressive, weekly tuningPremium budgets
Google LSASetup + monitoringManaged + disputesFull managementFull management
Local SEO + contentFoundational + 2 blogs/moMonthly programMulti-market + 6 blogs/moMulti-market
Setup fee$0$0$0$0
ContractMonth to monthMonth to monthMonth to monthMonth to month

These are the same published prices as our pricing page, because there is only one price list. $0 setup, month to month, and you own everything we build.

Drawing the line

What we would not do for a home services business.

What an agency refuses tells you more than another promise would. Two things we have turned down, on the record.

01

Budget against a lifetime value nobody verified

Recurring economics justify a higher acquisition cost only if the retention is actually real. We have seen businesses assume a multi-year customer value and then discover most households never book a second visit, usually because nobody followed up and no plan was ever offered. Before we recommend spending against lifetime value, we check that the lifetime exists. If it does not, the cheaper fix is fixing retention, not buying more strangers.

02

Headline the report with impressions and sessions

Lead count is already the most misleading number in this category, and traffic numbers are worse. The reporting leads with booked jobs, agreement conversion, repeat rate by channel, and cancellations, because those change decisions. Impressions and sessions are context, never the headline.

Selected home services builds

Sites we put our own name on.

CORE Advantage website built by Bear North Digital CORE Advantage · home services · Superior

Live client builds, captured 2026-08-27. Trades and markets named; a build from another trade shows the standard, not your forecast.

Home services questions, answered straight

The questions home services owners actually ask.

Q.01Why is cost per lead the wrong number here?

Because it treats a one-off drain clear and a household that will spend five figures over a decade as the same event. A channel producing cheap one-off calls can look excellent on cost per lead and be worth less than a pricier channel producing households that stay.

Q.02What is a maintenance agreement actually worth?

A household on a plan is worth several times a household that calls when something breaks, and the gap compounds every year: recurring revenue, a scheduled reason to be in the house, and a head start on the eventual replacement conversation. That is why the plan gets a real page with a real sign-up, not a footer link.

Q.03What do you report every month?

Booked jobs rather than form fills, agreement conversion rate, repeat rate by channel, cancellation rate on agreements, and revenue per household over time. Those are the numbers that change decisions.

Q.04What does it cost?

The four plans are published above and on the pricing page: $1,750 to $9,500 a month depending on size and ambition, $0 setup, month to month. No quote-on-request theater.

Q.05Do we own the site and the accounts?

Yes. Website, ad accounts, Business Profile, and data are all in your name from day one. Month to month, no hostages, and clean offboarding if you ever go.

Before you spend a dollar

Get your free growth plan.

A free website mockup, a 60-point audit of your current marketing, and a custom growth plan built for your market. No obligation. No pushy sales call.

125+ contractors served · month to month · you own everything

The agreement is the whole game

Everything above points at one thing. A household on a maintenance plan is worth several times a household that calls when something breaks, and the gap compounds every year.

01

Sell it on the site, not only at the door

Most plans are sold by a technician standing in a basement. That works and it does not scale. A real page with the visit schedule, the priority terms, the discount and a sign up that takes a card converts people who were never going to be asked in person.

02

Price it so the math is obvious

If the plan costs less than the two visits it includes, say that with numbers. Homeowners are not resistant to agreements, they are resistant to not understanding what they are buying.

03

Then actually use the list

A seasonal reminder to existing customers is the cheapest revenue available to a home services business, and it is the thing that gets skipped in every busy season. We build it into the calendar so it survives the weeks when nobody has time.

Where to go next

01

HVAC

The clearest example of the model: maintenance agreements feeding eventual replacements.

02

Plumbing

High emergency volume that most businesses never convert into a recurring relationship.

03

Electrical

Service work that quietly leads to panel and generator projects years later.

04

What it costs

Plans and real ranges, published rather than quoted on request.

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