Contractors run two businesses through one phone number. One is the emergency: a leak, a failed furnace, a tree on a roof, where the customer calls the first company that answers and price barely matters. The other is the planned project: a remodel, a new roof, a system replacement, researched over weeks with three quotes. Put both in one campaign with one budget and one conversion definition, and the emergency side will consume everything because it converts faster.
Split emergency from planned before anything else
They want different words, different hours, different landing pages and different budgets. Emergency campaigns should run when you can actually respond and should send people to a page with a phone number and a promise about response time. Planned-project campaigns should run in evenings and weekends when people research, and should lead to pricing information, past work and a way to book a visit. One campaign doing both does the planned side badly.
Local service ads and search ads are separate purchases
The guaranteed-badge local service placements above search results are bought differently, are priced per lead rather than per click, and require background and licence verification to enter. For many contractor categories they take a large share of the urgent calls. Ask any prospective agency which of the two they manage, because plenty run only one and will not say so unprompted.
The phone is part of the media buy
In this trade the click ends in a call, and a call that rings out is the entire cost of the click wasted. Before increasing budget, count unanswered calls for a week, including evenings and weekends if the ads run then. Contractors routinely discover that the largest available improvement is an answering service costing a fraction of the media budget, and an agency that does not check has not been looking.
Target by drive time and by the jobs you want
A radius includes places your crews will not cross town for, and broad trade keywords bring jobs you do not want at prices you cannot charge. Set geography from where work actually comes from, and use negative keywords aggressively against the job types you do not do, the free-quote-seekers and the do-it-yourself research queries. Both are settings and both are usually the first real saving in an inherited account.
Seasonality is knowable, so the budget should not be flat
Roofing after storms, heating in the first cold week, cooling in the first hot one, exteriors in the dry months. These are predictable in any given market and they move click prices as well as demand. Agree the shape of the year in advance, including the months that are deliberately small, rather than paying the same amount in the week nobody is searching.
Questions people ask about ppc for contractors
Why separate emergency and planned work?
Because the emergency converts in minutes and the project converts in weeks, so a shared budget and a shared conversion target will always favour the emergency. Separating them is the single most useful change in most contractor accounts.
Are local service ads worth it for contractors?
For urgent call-out categories, usually yes, because they sit above the search results and are priced per lead. They require verification to enter and they are a separate purchase from search ads, so check which your agency actually manages.
What is the fastest saving in a contractor account?
Geography and negative keywords, followed by answering the phone. All three are cheaper than any creative work and in this trade they usually recover more budget than anything else.
How much should a contractor spend?
Work back from the value of a job and how many enquiries become jobs. Budgets set as a round monthly figure with no reference to those two numbers are guesses, and in a seasonal trade they are guesses spread across the wrong months.