Lonta AI blog
How the accounts actually behave
Google Ads, Local Services Ads and CRM tracking for HVAC, plumbing and electrical companies, read from the platforms' own documentation and from accounts we run. Every client figure carries its window and its source.
No post ships without something the top ten search results don't have: a primary source read in full, a verified case figure, or a check you can run yourself. How we write
Your Local Services Ads account is moving to Google Ads. Split your trades before it does.
One target cost per lead for every trade you sell, reports that don't come with you, and a 14-day warning email that may land in your agency's inbox instead of yours.
Aug 19, 2026 · 9 min readLatest
We traced 21 home services marketing statistics to their source. Two hold up as quoted.
Missed-call rates, marketing budgets, cost per lead and review numbers that vendors and agencies repeat, each followed back to who measured it, when, how many, and who paid for it.
Sep 23, 2026 · 20 min readGoogle Local Services Ads, read from Google's own pages: an owner's manual for HVAC, plumbing and electrical shops
What you pay for, what caps the monthly bill, who shows first, what verification takes, what Google stopped refunding, and what the 2026 move to Google Ads changes, each point tied to the Google page that says it.
Sep 16, 2026 · 16 min readWhat a Google Local Services Ads lead costs by trade, and why the published numbers disagree
Pages that rank for this question put an HVAC lead at $42, $51, $70 or $80. They counted different months, different leads and different averages, and some copied each other. What each one measured, what Google says sets your price, and how to get your own number from your lead report.
Sep 9, 2026 · 15 min readFrom October 1, a missed Local Services Ads call can cost you twice
From October 1, as reported, some missed calls during business hours become paid leads, and Google's ranking page says missed calls may hurt your responsiveness. The fix is in your hours, your phone menu and your charged-lead list.
Sep 2, 2026 · 12 min readLocal Services Ads or Google Search ads? Run both, but give each a different job
One charges per lead and picks your searches from a list of job types. The other charges per click on words you choose and sends people to a page you wrote. That difference decides which of your jobs each one should chase.
Aug 26, 2026 · 14 min readGoogle Ads for electricians: price panels, EV chargers and generators on their own tickets
One cost-per-lead target can fill an electrical account with breaker calls, while panel and charger searches ask about price, permits and tax credits, and generator searches about price and installation manuals.
Jul 14, 2026 · 12 min readTwo shops, one Google Ads account: stop letting the account decide which truck gets the call
Two shops on one website don't bid against each other in the auction. Put them in one campaign, though, and they share one budget, one season, one schedule and one phone number, and Ad Rank settles the towns between them.
Jun 16, 2026 · 14 min readWhat a missed call costs you: the arithmetic from your own call log, not a vendor's statistic
The only study we could find behind '62% of calls go unanswered' is a 2016 blog post about 85 businesses, and it counts voicemails as unanswered. Your call log, your booking rate and your job list give you your own number in an afternoon.
Jun 2, 2026 · 14 min readA shared lead can go to five companies. Price it per sold job before you buy more.
Angi matches one homeowner with up to five companies and Thumbtack allows five in the first four hours, pay-per-call vendors bill calls nobody answered, and none of the credit rules we read pays you back for a homeowner who shopped around or hired someone else.
Apr 28, 2026 · 15 min readCall-only ads stop showing in February 2027. The ad that replaces them counts calls differently.
The replacement also shows on desktops and sends some callers to your website before they dial.
Mar 10, 2026 · 12 min readHow HVAC marketing agencies charge, and what each fee model pays them to recommend
On $15,000 a month of ad spend, a 10%–20% fee comes to $1,500–$3,000 a month. Each fee model also pays the agency to recommend something different.
Jan 20, 2026 · 10 min readCustomers still ask if you're Google Guaranteed. The honest answer changed.
Google swapped every Local Services badge for one Google Verified badge and ended the refund that came with the old one. Google describes the same checks behind it. A customer unhappy with the work can no longer ask Google to pay, so that complaint now lands on your office, your reviews and Google's complaint form.
Nov 11, 2025 · 15 min readA trade with few searches punishes broad targeting harder than a crowded one
When a service exists at only some addresses in your metro, broad match and a bid strategy built to spend the whole budget can send much of it to homes that can't use the service, and the search terms report lists only part of that spend.
Oct 14, 2025 · 12 min readA maintenance plan sold only at the kitchen table stops growing. Sell it to your own list first.
Your techs can offer the plan only in houses where something broke. The other signups can come from your customer list and from the tune-up and price searches people already make.
Sep 9, 2025 · 12 min readRed flags in a marketing agency report: what "conversions" count, and the sold-job column that isn't there
Most lines of a typical monthly ad report are defined on a Google help page, and unless your CRM sends sold jobs back, none of them tells you whether a call booked or a job sold.
Aug 12, 2025 · 12 min readYour own customers are clicking your ads. Decide which of them you want to pay for.
A customer with your sticker on the furnace who searches "furnace repair" and taps your ad costs the same as a stranger. A customer list stops part of that. It has holes, and on your own company name you may not want to use it.
Jul 15, 2025 · 13 min readHousecall Pro's lead source says “Google.” It can't tell you which campaign sold the job.
The field is a label someone picks from a list, the ROI Table divides by spend you type in, and the CallRail integration shows who is calling. A once-a-month phone number match turns all three into cost per sold job by campaign.
Jun 10, 2025 · 14 min readGoogle publishes what ranks a Local Services Ad. Proximity and business hours aren't on its list.
Google's page puts two things in the auction: your bid and how likely your ad is to produce a lead. Of the six ranking guides we read, five list proximity, five list business hours, and three leave out the bid.
May 13, 2025 · 13 min readJobber to Google Ads: send the request, the quote or the job?
Zapier can pass any Jobber stage, from a new request to a new invoice, to Google Ads as an offline conversion. The one you bid on becomes what Google spends your budget looking for, and unless the lead is tied to its click, Google can't reliably tell which ads produced it.
Apr 15, 2025 · 14 min readSEO, Google Ads or Local Services Ads? At $10–20k a month, the question is the order
Local Services Ads need a verified Business Profile, and the badge takes weeks of screening. Search ads need a finished landing page, and Smart Bidding needs conversion tracking. SEO runs on the same profile and pages, and Google's own SEO page no longer says how long it takes.
Mar 18, 2025 · 13 min readPublish a price range for your highest-ticket job, then judge it on sold jobs, not calls
Fewer calls, a booked rate that can move either way, and sometimes fewer visits where a tech drives out to hand over an estimate nobody signs: how to read all three.
Feb 11, 2025 · 11 min readLeaving your marketing agency? Your Google Ads history stays. Secure the rest before you give notice.
Leaving an agency keeps your Google Ads history. Unlinking its manager account can also stop your ads at once and stop conversion tracking for new clicks, and a CallRail number it switches off can be gone for good within four weeks.
Jan 14, 2025 · 15 min readHow much should an HVAC company spend on marketing? Start from trucks and tickets, not a percent of revenue
A percent of last year's revenue spends the most in the month the board is already full. How to size the budget from open truck slots, check it against what a sold job is worth, and enter it in Google Ads without the weekday-schedule trap.
Dec 10, 2024 · 13 min readWho owns your Google Ads account? A 15-minute check of seven things your agency may be holding
Six screens to open, two questions to ask your agency, what ownership looks like on each, and what to ask for when it isn't yours.
Nov 5, 2024 · 17 min readWhen the crew is full in July, move the work into October instead of buying more July
Turning off weekends doesn't lower the bill, and the seasonality setting is built for a three-day sale. The lever is which months you buy work in, measured against what your crew can run.
Oct 8, 2024 · 12 min readThere is no dispute button for Local Services Ads anymore. Here is what Google still credits.
Google's old dispute page now redirects to its automatic-credits page. Calls for work you don't do or from towns you don't serve are no longer credited, and a lead rating only occasionally earns a bonus credit, which is capped.
Sep 10, 2024 · 13 min readWhen HVAC and plumbing share one ad budget, the season decides which trade gets the money
Nobody decides to stop selling plumbing in July. One budget decides it for you, and two settings can join the trades again after you split them.
Aug 20, 2024 · 10 min readNo leads from Local Services Ads? Check the settings that switch the ad off before the ones that push it down.
A quiet Local Services Ads account can be switched off or capped by a setting long before it is outbid. Google's help pages document each switch, and a few of them sit where owners don't look.
Jul 16, 2024 · 14 min readAnswer rate and booking rate: the two numbers between your ads and your techs
ServiceTitan's booking rate leaves out every call nobody picked up, and CallRail can count a phone menu as an answer. How to measure both numbers from your call log, and what a point of each is worth per sold job.
Jun 11, 2024 · 13 min readCheck your own Google Ads account in 30 minutes: seven settings, in the order we open them
Where your ads are allowed to show, what Google counts as a lead, which bid adjustments do nothing, and who can lock you out. Each check sits on a screen Google documents, under the name Google gives it.
May 14, 2024 · 12 min readCheap Performance Max leads that never book: spam, bots and the form nobody calls back
Google's own help pages say its traffic filters can't stop a bot from filling in your form, and its two lead-form quality checks don't run in Performance Max. What that does to the leads in your report, and how to count the real ones.
Apr 9, 2024 · 12 min readCost per lead is the number that quietly makes HVAC accounts worse
Two lead sources on the same ad spend, and the one with leads at half the price sells fewer jobs. The arithmetic, and how to pull the real number out of the software you already run.
Mar 12, 2024 · 13 min readNegative keywords for HVAC, plumbing and electrical, and the customers each one can cost you
A negative keyword list for HVAC, plumbing and electrical that shows, next to each entry, the paying searches it would also block, and where each negative should sit when you sell more than one trade.
Feb 13, 2024 · 12 min readGoogle Ads doesn't know how far your trucks drive. Draw the map yourself.
The default setting also reaches people who are merely interested in your area, a radius is a circle when rush hour isn't, and a lower bid for the far towns isn't supported under Smart Bidding.
Jan 16, 2024 · 10 min read