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Google Ads for home services · Plumbers & Heating Engineers

Google Ads for plumbers and heating engineers

Senior-led Google Ads management built for the way plumbers actually win work — call tracking, service-level campaign structure, tight local targeting and reporting on jobs rather than clicks. From an independent specialist with ten years' experience.

Cost per job, not per clickCall tracking as standardPublished pricing
Proven in home services
−44% cost per lead

A paid search restructure for a major US plumbing company reduced cost per lead by 44% in five weeks on an unchanged budget, with better lead quality.

Read the case study
The market

Google Ads for plumbers

Plumbing and heating is the home services category where Google Ads works hardest and fails most expensively. Demand is genuine, urgent and high-intent — a burst pipe or a boiler failure in January is not a research-stage search — but that urgency draws every competitor and lead-generation aggregator onto the same terms, and click costs in London reflect it.

The accounts I review from plumbers and heating engineers tend to share the same faults: emergency and planned work bidding from one campaign, no call tracking, location targeting set to a radius that includes half of London, and a landing page that is the company homepage. Each of those is fixable, and together they typically account for the difference between a cost per lead that makes sense and one that does not.

Common faults

What goes wrong in plumbers' accounts

The issues below appear in most of the accounts I review from this trade. Each is specific, and each is fixable.

01

Emergency and planned work in one campaign

An emergency call-out and a bathroom installation are different customers with different values, different urgency and different landing pages. Blending them means bidding the same amount for both and reporting an average that describes neither.

02

No call tracking

Most plumbing enquiries are phone calls. Without call tracking, the account cannot see which keywords produced them, and Smart Bidding optimises toward whatever it can see — usually form fills, which are the minority.

03

Boiler-related search waste

Gas Safe registration, boiler brands, 'boiler not working' — a large share of boiler searches are DIY, warranty or manufacturer queries. Without a thorough negative keyword list, they consume budget quietly.

04

Seasonality ignored

Heating demand triples in the first cold week of autumn. Accounts with static budgets and targets either run out of money in the busiest weeks or overspend in July.

Approach

How I run Google Ads for plumbers

The same principle as every account: commercial context first, then structure, verified tracking and reporting on what produces work.

Services

Three engagement models. Transparent pricing.

Full management, an independent audit of what is already running, or training for your own team.

FAQ

Google Ads for plumbers — common questions

What does a plumbing lead cost on Google Ads in London?

It varies widely by job type and area — an emergency call-out lead and a boiler installation lead are very different — and I would rather review your account than quote an average. The call will give you a realistic figure based on your actual market and setup.

Should I use Local Services Ads instead of Google Ads?

Often both. Local Services Ads appear above search ads for many plumbing terms and charge per lead rather than per click, but they are less controllable. I assess whether they suit your business and, where they do, run them alongside Search rather than instead of it.

Do I need a separate landing page?

Yes. Sending emergency traffic to a homepage with a navigation menu, an about section and a contact form at the bottom is the single most common reason plumbing accounts underperform. A dedicated page with the phone number at the top, the service, the area and trust signals converts several times better.

What is the minimum ad spend?

£2,000 per month for ongoing management. Below that there is rarely enough data to optimise meaningfully. The audit (£399) and coaching (from £99 per hour) have no minimum, and the call is complimentary.

Do you work with businesses outside London?

Yes. Most home services accounts are managed remotely and the approach is identical anywhere in the UK. Being based in Wandsworth simply means South West London businesses can meet in person.

Other trades

Plumbers & Heating Engineers · Electricians · Roofers · Builders & Extensions · Tree Surgeons · Landscapers & Garden Design

Based in South West London? See the local area pages.

Complimentary call · no pressure, no pitch

Google Ads for your plumbers business, run properly

Book a complimentary call. I will review your account live — structure, call tracking, location settings, spend against jobs — and set out what I would change first.

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