HVAC PPC: how to run Google Ads and Local Services Ads for an HVAC company

HVAC PPC is pay-per-click advertising for heating, ventilation and air conditioning companies, mostly on Google: Search ads, Local Services Ads and some remarketing. The contractor pays when someone clicks an ad or, with Local Services Ads, when a qualifying lead calls or messages. Done well, HVAC PPC fills the schedule with repair calls, replacement estimates and maintenance sign-ups from homeowners inside the service area.

The short answer to "does HVAC PPC work" is yes, when three things are in place: separate campaigns for emergency, repair, replacement and maintenance intent; a budget that follows the weather; and tracking that counts booked jobs instead of clicks. Most accounts that disappoint are missing at least one of those.

How HVAC PPC works: the ad types that matter

An HVAC company has three realistic places to buy clicks or leads on Google. Each one catches a different moment in the homeowner's problem.

Most HVAC contractors in the US should run Search and Local Services Ads together. LSAs sit at the very top of the results page with the Google Guaranteed badge, and Search ads sit beneath them with full control over keywords, ad copy, landing pages and bids. We cover the LSA side in detail in Google Local Services Ads in the US. Performance Max can work for replacement leads once conversion tracking is clean, but it is a poor first campaign because it hides most of what it does.

Emergency, repair, replacement and maintenance: four intents, four campaigns

A homeowner whose furnace died at 10pm in January and a homeowner comparing heat pumps for a spring install are different customers. They search differently, convert differently and are worth different amounts. Putting them in one campaign lets Google spend the budget wherever clicks are cheapest, which is rarely where the profit is.

• Emergency. Searches like "ac not working", "furnace repair near me", "emergency hvac". High urgency, high conversion rate, almost all phone calls. Run call ads and call assets, and schedule this campaign only for the hours someone answers the phone.
• Repair. "AC repair [city]", "heat pump repair", "furnace making noise". Slightly less urgent, still mostly calls and short forms.
• Replacement and installation. "new ac unit cost", "heat pump installation", "furnace replacement". Lower volume, longer research, much higher job value. These leads want an estimate, so the conversion is an estimate request or booked in-home visit.
• Maintenance. "ac tune up", "furnace maintenance", "hvac service plan". Cheaper clicks and smaller tickets, but maintenance customers become repair and replacement customers later, so a membership sign-up is worth more than the first visit suggests.
• Brand. Your company name. Cheap, protective, and kept separate so it does not flatter the numbers of the other campaigns.

Each campaign gets its own budget, ad copy and landing page. The emergency page leads with the phone number and "available now"; the replacement page leads with the estimate form, financing and brands installed. The structure behind this is the same one we describe in how to structure Google Search ads.

Seasonality: planning HVAC PPC budgets around the weather

HVAC demand peaks in the first heat wave of summer and the first cold snap of winter, and drops sharply in spring and autumn. Search volume, click costs and call volume all move together, and they move faster than most budget plans.

• Set budgets by week, not by month. A flat monthly budget runs out mid-heatwave or sits unspent in a mild fortnight. Review weekly in peak months.
• Use the weather. Several bid tools and scripts can raise bids or budgets when local temperatures cross a threshold. Even without automation, checking the ten-day forecast on Monday and moving budget ahead of a heat wave works.
• Know how Google paces spend. Google can spend up to twice the average daily budget on a busy day and balances it across the month, so a sudden hot spell can push spend up quickly. Our budget pacing calculator shows where a month will land.
• Shift intent with the season. In shoulder months, move budget from emergency repair toward maintenance plans and replacement estimates, which homeowners plan in calmer weather.
• Protect capacity. When technicians are booked out for a week, emergency ads produce calls you cannot serve. Pause or cut emergency campaigns and keep replacement estimates running, since those are scheduled further ahead.

Service areas, ad schedules and call handling

Three settings decide whether HVAC PPC spend reaches people you can serve.

Location targeting. Target by ZIP code or radius around the shop, matched to where technicians actually drive. In the location options, choose "Presence: people in or regularly in your included locations". The default also includes people who are merely interested in the area, which sends money to searchers in other states. Exclude ZIP codes with long drive times or low-income rental stock where replacements rarely happen, if your data shows it.

Ad schedule. If nobody answers at 2am, emergency ads at 2am waste money and damage reviews. Either staff an answering service that can dispatch, or schedule emergency campaigns for staffed hours only. Replacement campaigns can run around the clock because the conversion is a form.

Call handling. The fastest way to lose a paid call is to let it ring out. Track missed calls by hour, set a callback rule (within five minutes during business hours), and listen to a sample of recorded calls each week. A large share of "PPC doesn't work" complaints in home services turn out to be answered-call problems, which is why we wrote a full guide to call tracking for home services.

Tracking HVAC PPC by booked jobs, not clicks

Clicks and calls are inputs. The number that matters is the cost per booked job, and for replacement campaigns, the cost per sold install. Getting there takes four layers of tracking.

1. Call tracking with dynamic number insertion. A tracking number on the website that changes by source, so a call from a Google ad is credited to the right campaign and keyword. Google's own call assets and website call conversions cover part of this; a call tracking platform adds recordings and better reporting.
2. A minimum call length. Count calls of, say, 60 seconds or more as conversions, so wrong numbers and hang-ups do not train Smart Bidding.
3. Form tracking. Estimate and booking forms tracked as separate conversion actions, with enhanced conversions switched on.
4. Booked and sold jobs imported back. Field service software such as ServiceTitan or Housecall Pro records which calls became jobs. Importing booked jobs and sold replacements back into Google Ads as offline conversions lets bidding optimise for revenue instead of call volume.

Set only the conversions you want Google to chase as primary. If page views or "clicked phone link" are primary, Smart Bidding will happily buy more of them. The audit steps for this are in how to check your Google Ads conversion tracking.

A worked example: cost per booked job

All numbers here are hypothetical, to show the arithmetic. Say a contractor in Phoenix spends $12,000 on Search ads in July and the average click costs $30. That buys 400 clicks.

• 18% of clicks call or submit a form: 72 leads.
• After removing wrong numbers, existing customers calling about invoices and people outside the service area, 55 are real service requests.
• The office books 60% of those: 33 booked jobs.
• Cost per booked job: $12,000 ÷ 33 = about $364.

Now split by campaign. Say 26 of the 33 jobs were repairs and 7 were replacement estimates, of which 3 sold. If the average gross profit on a repair is $250 and on a replacement is $3,000, the month produced $6,500 from repairs plus $9,000 from replacements, which is $15,500 of gross profit on $12,000 of spend. That is a profitable month. It would look like a loss if the contractor judged it only on repair tickets, and it would look even better than it is if the account counted every 10-second call as a lead.

The same arithmetic tells you where to push. If the office booked 75% of real requests instead of 60%, the same spend would produce 41 jobs and the cost per booked job would drop to about $293, with no change to the ads. Our lead funnel calculator runs these numbers for any account.

Local Services Ads vs Google Search ads for HVAC

The two work together. LSAs reward a contractor who answers fast and collects reviews. Search ads let you reach the replacement and maintenance searches LSAs handle poorly, and send each one to a page built for it. Answer LSA leads quickly: Google tracks responsiveness and it affects how often the ad shows.

Common HVAC PPC mistakes

• One campaign for everything. Budget drifts to cheap maintenance clicks and the replacement searches go unserved.
• Broad match without negatives. HVAC terms attract DIY and job seekers: "how to", "diy", "parts", "manual", "jobs", "salary", "technician training", "school", "certification". Add these on day one and review the search terms report weekly; our negative keywords audit walks through it.
• Sending every click to the home page. An emergency searcher wants a phone number and a promise of same-day service. A replacement researcher wants financing, brands and an estimate form.
• Counting calls instead of jobs. Without booked-job data, the account optimises toward whoever calls most, including existing customers and spam.
• Ignoring missed calls. Paid calls ringing out during lunch or after 5pm are wasted spend that never shows in the ad platform.
• Location set to "presence or interest". Spend leaks to people outside the area.
• Same budget all year. The account starves in peaks and wastes in troughs.

HVAC PPC in Canada, Australia and the UK

Most of this applies outside the US with a few local differences.

• Canada. Heating carries more of the year than cooling in most provinces, and heat pump installations are a growing search category. French-language campaigns are needed for Quebec. Local Services Ads are available in some Canadian markets; check availability for your area.
• Australia. Homeowners search "air conditioning installation", "split system", "ducted air conditioning" and "aircon repair" far more than "HVAC". Summer runs December to February, so the planning calendar flips. Licensing terms (for example refrigerant handling licences) build trust in ad copy.
• UK. Residential air conditioning is a smaller market, and the bigger search categories are boilers, heat pumps and commercial HVAC. Heat pump installers should check what the current government grant schemes allow them to say in ads, and follow the CAP Code on claims about savings.

If you run campaigns in more than one country, keep each in its own campaign with its own budget and schedule; running ads in multiple countries covers the setup.

Running HVAC PPC in-house or with an agency

An owner or office manager can run a small HVAC PPC account if they have three to five hours a week for search terms, bids, budget moves and call reviews. Past a few campaigns, a second service area or a serious replacement push, most contractors bring in a specialist. When you compare agencies, ask how they track booked jobs, how they handle seasonality week to week, and who listens to the calls. The answers matter more than any dashboard.

Our home services lead generation team runs HVAC, plumbing and roofing accounts for contractors in the US, Canada and Australia, with call tracking and booked-job reporting set up in the first month. Fees depend on the number of service areas and campaigns, and we say it on the first call.

Questions people ask before hiring