Plumbing is one of the most expensive categories on Google. A single click on “emergency plumber” can run $30 to $60 in a lot of markets, and “water heater replacement” isn’t far behind. That’s not a reason to avoid ads. A water heater job is worth $1,500 to $3,000, so a $40 click that turns into a call is a good trade. But it does mean sloppy campaigns get expensive fast, and it’s why a lot of plumbers try Google Ads once, lose a few thousand dollars, and decide it doesn’t work.
This guide covers what to expect and how to spend the money where it comes back.
Local Services Ads first
Before you touch regular Google Ads, turn on Local Services Ads. These are the listings that show up at the very top of the results with a green “Google Guaranteed” badge, above the map and above every other ad.
They work differently from normal ads. You don’t pay per click. You pay per lead, meaning a phone call or message from a homeowner, and you can dispute leads that weren’t real. Plumbing leads through LSAs typically run somewhere between $25 and $75 depending on the market, and they’re exclusive to you. Nobody else got that call.
The setup takes a couple of weeks because Google verifies your license, insurance and background checks. Do it anyway. For most plumbers this is the single best-performing ad channel, and the cost per lead is usually a third of what regular search ads produce.
Two things affect how often you show: your review count on your Google Business Profile and how fast you answer the phone. Google tracks whether you pick up. If you don’t, you show less. That’s another reason the phone has to be handled before you spend money on traffic.
Search ads for the high-ticket jobs
Regular Google Search ads are the text ads under the LSAs. Here you’re paying per click, and every click is a homeowner who might or might not call. This is where the budget gets burned if you’re not careful, and it’s also where the big jobs come from.
The rule we use: only pay for searches where the job is worth the click. That means:
- Water heater replacement and installation. High ticket, clear intent, worth $20 to $40 a click.
- Sewer line repair and replacement. Same story. Big jobs, homeowners who need a solution.
- Repiping. Lower volume, very high value.
- Emergency plumber, in your town by name. Expensive clicks, but the homeowner is calling someone in the next ten minutes.
Searches to leave alone unless you have budget to spare: “plumber” on its own (too broad, lots of people looking for jobs or DIY info), “how to fix a leaky faucet” (that’s someone fixing it themselves), and anything with “cheap” in it.
Set the campaign up so it can’t run away
A few settings decide whether the money works or vanishes:
Location targeting. Set it to the towns you actually serve and nothing else. Google’s default will happily show your ad to someone 40 miles away who searched for your city once.
Match types. Use phrase match and exact match. Broad match tells Google “show this for anything you think is related,” which is how a plumber ends up paying for clicks on “plumbing supply store.”
Negative keywords. A list of words you never want to show for: jobs, salary, training, supply, DIY, how to, free. Add to it every week based on what’s actually triggering your ads.
Landing pages. Send water heater clicks to a water heater page, not the homepage. The page needs the phone number up top, a few sentences about the job, and a form. That’s it. Half the clicks are on a phone, so the number has to be tappable.
Call tracking. Use a tracking number on the ads so you know which calls came from which search. Without this you’re guessing, and the guesses are usually wrong.
Schedule. If nobody answers the phone after 6pm, don’t run emergency ads after 6pm. Or fix the phone first, which is the better answer.
What a reasonable budget looks like
A plumber in a mid-sized market can run LSAs plus a tight search campaign on $1,500 to $3,000 a month and expect somewhere around 20 to 40 leads from it, more in busy season. That’s a rough range and it moves a lot by market, but it’s the ballpark. Cost per lead usually lands between $50 and $120 blended across both channels, which is fine when the average job is several hundred dollars and the water heater jobs are several thousand.
If you’re spending that and getting five leads, something in the setup is wrong. Usually it’s broad match, no negatives, and a homepage landing page.
The part most plumbers skip
Ads produce calls. They don’t produce jobs. What happens after the call is what decides whether the ad money came back.
If a third of your calls hit voicemail, a third of your ad spend went to your competitor. If your estimates for water heater replacements don’t get followed up on, the expensive clicks that turned into quotes are going quiet. Before you scale the budget, make sure missed calls get a text back and estimates get an automated follow-up. That’s the difference between ads that “don’t work” and ads that pay for the truck.
When ads aren’t the answer yet
If your Google Business Profile has 12 reviews and your website is a template from 2018, spend the first month fixing those instead. LSAs show less without reviews, search ads convert worse on a slow site, and both of those are cheaper to fix than the ad spend you’d waste. Our plumbing website page covers what the site needs, and local SEO for contractors covers the profile and the map pack.
Once those are in place, ads are the fastest way to turn up the volume. We run them for plumbers with call tracking on every campaign so you see exactly what each lead cost. If you want to know whether your setup is ready, the free growth audit is the place to start.