In paid search you pay for every click, including the ones from people you cannot help. Ad copy has two jobs, and most contractor ads only do the first: attract the right caller, and turn away the wrong one before they cost you anything.
Good ad copy costs you clicks on purpose
Written well, an ad loses clicks you did not want and keeps the ones you did. Your click-through rate falls slightly and your cost per booked job improves, which is the trade worth making.
The people you cannot help still click. Renters ringing about a landlord’s boiler, homeowners forty miles outside your radius, someone shopping a job you do not take, callers expecting a price you do not offer. Each of those clicks was paid for at the same rate as a genuine one, and the call that follows costs your office time on top.
Vague copy attracts everyone. That reads as a strong campaign in the click column and a weak one in the booking column.
The headline has three questions to answer
Someone scanning results is checking three things, usually in under two seconds: do you do the thing I need, do you come to where I am, and can you come when I need you.
An ad leading with the company name answers none of them, and nobody searched for the company name. Lead with the service and the place: the trade, the town, and the timeframe if it matters, and let the brand sit in the display path where it costs you nothing.
Say the disqualifying things out loud
Whatever you would have to explain on the phone is cheaper to say in the ad. It costs a few characters and saves the call.
- A diagnostic or call-out fee. If you charge one, naming it filters out the callers who will hang up when they hear it, and reassures the ones who expected it.
- A job minimum. If you do not take work under a certain size, say so rather than quoting it repeatedly.
- Property types you do not serve. Rentals, mobile homes, commercial only, residential only.
- Your actual radius. Naming the towns you cover does more than a county name, which people read generously.
None of this reads as negative to the right customer. It reads as a business that knows what it does.
Emergency searchers scan, replacement searchers read
The same ad cannot serve both, because the two are not behaving the same way.
Someone with water coming through a ceiling reads almost nothing. They are looking for a number, an indication you are open, and a signal you can come today. Every extra clause is friction between them and the call.
Someone pricing a replacement system reads all of it, and will read your competitors too. Here the detail earns its place: financing, warranty length, how long you have been trading, whether the quote is fixed. Copy that works for the emergency searcher looks thin to this one.
If both run from one ad group with one set of copy, one of the two is being served badly. Splitting them is usually a bigger improvement than any rewrite.
The ad has to make the same promise as the page
An ad promising same-day service that lands on a general homepage has spent your money and lost the caller. So has one advertising a specific repair that lands on a page listing everything you do.
The searcher is checking, in the first second on the page, whether they are in the right place. A headline echoing the words they searched confirms it. A generic welcome does not, and they go back to the results, a click you paid for in full and got nothing from.
This is worth checking before rewriting any headline. A mismatch between ad and page wastes more than weak copy does.
What “free estimate” costs when it is not quite true
Free estimate is the most common phrase in contractor advertising and one of the most abused. If it is free for a replacement quote but not for a repair diagnosis, the ad is making a promise the phone call will have to walk back.
That conversation costs a booking and sometimes a review. Say which one is free. It is a longer sentence and a shorter argument.
Test the offer, not the adjective
The wording changes that get tested: a stronger verb, a different call to action, move numbers far less than a change to what is actually being offered.
Same-day availability, a named price, a waived fee, a longer warranty, financing stated in the ad rather than discovered later: these change who calls. Adjectives rarely do. See what a contractor can realistically test before planning a testing programme around small edits.
Frequently asked questions
Should I put prices in my ads?
A price or a starting figure filters hard, which is useful when your work has a floor most callers do not expect. It costs clicks from people shopping on price alone. If you name one, make sure the landing page and the phone script say the same number.
Will disqualifying language hurt my click-through rate?
Slightly, and that is the point. Watch cost per booked job instead. If the rate falls and booked work holds or rises, the ad is doing what you asked.
How many ads should I run per ad group?
Enough to give the system something to rotate, but every one has to be an ad you would be happy to have shown. Filling slots with weaker copy to reach a number means paying for the weak ones to be served.
Does the ad or the landing page matter more?
The page, in most contractor accounts. The ad decides who arrives; the page decides whether they call. A mismatch between them wastes more money than any headline.
Where to start
Read your current ads as somebody you cannot help. If nothing in them would put that person off, the copy is not filtering, and you are paying for the calls it lets through.
Real Time Marketing has worked with home service contractors since 2016: plumbing, HVAC, roofing, electrical and other trades, nationwide, from our office in Bradenton, Florida. Agreements are month-to-month. See our pay-per-click management or book a strategy call.
