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Case Study
4.98 ★ · 180 Google reviews
Bell Plumbing now takes about 102 phone calls a month from Google Search ads, up from 48 when RTM took over, and it’s paying roughly a third less for each one. At today’s pace, 2026 is on track for around 1,226 calls for the year more than double where 2024 landed.
The Client
Bell Plumbing is a family-owned shop that has looked after homes and businesses across San Mateo and the San Francisco Peninsula for more than twenty years. From water heater installs to leak detection, repiping, and sewer work, they handle the urgent, high-value jobs people search for the moment something goes wrong.
The catch is the market. The Bay Area is one of the most competitive and most expensive places in the country to advertise home services. Every “plumber near me” search puts Bell up against national brands, franchises, and well-funded local competitors, all bidding for the same handful of high-intent clicks.
For a local shop, that makes Google Search a double-edged sword. Run loosely, it quietly burns through budget on clicks that never call. Run well, it becomes the most dependable source of booked work Bell has.
The Challenge
When we took over the account in early 2024, the math was tough. Bell was paying about $282.59 for every call the ads brought in, and Google’s auction only rewards advertisers who can grow volume without letting that number creep up. The goal was never just more calls. It was to grow calls and visibility and bring the cost per call down at the same time.
The early numbers also showed the usual home-services rollercoaster: a spike in March 2024, then a sharp slide into spring. Bell needed a setup that smoothed those swings and kept the phone ringing all year, not just in emergency season.
Our Strategy
We rebuilt Bell’s Google Ads account from the keyword up: campaigns split by service line, Smart Bidding aimed at a lower cost per call, and call tracking on everything so the budget only chased the searches most likely to turn into booked work.
Google Search Ads
Call and Call-Only Ads
Keyword and Match-Type Strategy
Smart Bidding Target CPA
Negative-Keyword Sculpting
Ad Copy and Extensions
Call-Conversion Tracking
Budget Pacing
01
We split the account into tightly themed campaigns and single-intent ad groups: water heaters, leak detection, repiping, drain and sewer, emergency repair. Tighter relevance lifts Quality Scores, and higher Quality Scores lower what Bell pays for every click and call.
02We switched to conversion-based Smart Bidding and fed Google real call data, pointing it at a steadily lower cost-per-call target. That is how we pushed reach hard, with impressions up 176%, while the cost of each call kept falling instead of climbing.
03We added call assets, call-only ads, and sitelink and callout extensions with copy built around what wins these jobs: licensed, local, fast, available now. Dynamic call tracking captures every call from every campaign so decisions ride on jobs booked, not just clicks.
04Ongoing negative-keyword work clears out price-shoppers, DIYers, parts searches, and job hunters. Budget pacing leans into busy season and keeps Bell visible through quiet months. Cost per call dropped from $323.61 in 2025 to $202.71 in 2026 as a direct result.
The Results
Two things happened together: calls and visibility kept climbing, and the cost per call finally turned the right way. Every one of Bell’s busiest months on record has landed in 2026.
Normalized to an average monthly run-rate so the partial 2024 and 2026 years compare fairly, Bell’s core numbers are compounding quickly. The cost of generating each call is compounding the other way.
We build and launch the Google Ads account. Over the first ten months Bell logs 481 calls and 251 call conversions on $70.9K of spend at $282.59 per call. The numbers swing hard month to month a March spike then a steep spring drop and that volatility becomes the first thing to fix.
2025: Scale and reachThe first full year is a breakout for reach: impressions jump 176% to 2.28M and call conversions more than double to 512 (+104%). Calls climb to 773 for the year with a steadier monthly rhythm, and spend scales to $165.7K to meet the demand uncovered.
2026: Efficiency unlockedThrough May, Bell posts its five strongest months on record, including 121 calls in April, for 511 calls and 419 call conversions. Best of all, cost per call drops to $202.71, down 37% from the year before.
Outlook: On pace to double againAt today’s pace, 2026 is on track for about 1,226 calls and 1,000 call conversions, roughly 2.5x where 2024 started. Google Search has become the most dependable source of booked work in Bell’s pipeline.
By the Numbers
Every month of phone-call volume since the account launched.
| Year | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024* | N/A | N/A | 89 | 12 | 33 | 30 | 44 | 52 | 46 | 48 | 58 | 69 | 481 |
| 2025 | 77 | 43 | 75 | 66 | 79 | 70 | 60 | 50 | 47 | 59 | 66 | 81 | 773 |
| 2026** | 86 | 102 | 103 | 121 | 99 | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | 511 |
| Total | 163 | 145 | 267 | 199 | 211 | 100 | 104 | 102 | 93 | 107 | 124 | 150 | 1,765 |
| Metric | 2024* | 2025 | 2026 (Jan-May)** |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total Calls | 481 | 773 | 511 |
| Avg Calls / Month | 48.1 | 64.4 | 102.2 |
| YoY Call Growth | N/A | +53.4% | +43.5% |
| Call Conversions | 251 | 512 | 419 |
| Cost Per Call | $282.59 | $323.61 | $202.71 |
| Ad Spend | $70,930 | $165,694 | $84,933 |
| Search Impressions | 824,622 | 2,278,100 | 936,171 |
| Impression Growth | N/A | +176.3% | +58.9% YTD |
The Takeaway
Bell’s results make a point that matters in expensive, crowded markets: with the right management, you do not have to choose between volume and efficiency. Bell did not simply buy more calls by spending more. It grew monthly calls 112% while cutting cost per call 37%, because every dollar was pointed at qualified, local, ready-to-book demand.
The recipe is easy to name and hard to do well: service-segmented campaigns, call-focused ads, and Smart Bidding guided by real call data. Together they gave Bell both the reach to own its service area and the efficiency to do it affordably. Add steady monthly optimization, and you get a Google Ads account that grows cheaper and more productive over time, which is the opposite of how most home-services accounts age.
If you run a residential or commercial trade up against deeper-pocketed national brands, the lesson is simple. The advertisers who win are not the ones spending the most. They are the ones whose cost per call keeps falling while the phone keeps ringing.
Bell Plumbing went from 48 calls a month to 102 while cutting cost per call 37%. Let us find the same wins hiding in your account.
View More Case Studies Figures sourced from Bell Plumbing’s Google Ads (Search PPC) reporting. 2024 reflects March through December (10 months). 2026 reflects January through May (5 months). Projections are run-rate estimates, not guarantees. Past performance does not guarantee future results.Case Study
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