What should a home services marketing program measure?
Cost per lead is the number most agencies report, and it's the wrong one. A $40 lead that never books costs more than a $90 lead that turns into a $2,000 job. ServiceTitan's own product team has warned that optimizing for lead cost alone brings in low-quality leads.4
Cost per booked job = cost per lead ÷ booking rateAn illustration with plumbing numbers from 2026: at a $57 lead and a 43% booking rate, each booked job costs about $133 before anyone rolls a truck. Raise the booking rate to 55% and the same lead costs about $104 per booked job, with no change in ad spend.5,6
So we report four numbers, by source, every month: calls, booked jobs, revenue from those jobs, and cost per booked job. Clicks and impressions can go in an appendix.
Booking rate is the lever owners most often leave alone. In ServiceTitan's data, shops with fewer than five technicians booked 24% of calls, against 59% for shops with 25 or more.3 Invoca's 2026 benchmarks found that only 52% of callers to home services businesses reach a person.7
How the main lead sources compare
| Source | How you pay | Typical cost | Who owns the demand | What decides it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Business Profile (Maps) | Free, plus the work | $0 per call | You | Distance from the searcher, relevance, prominence8 |
| Local Services Ads | Per lead | $51–$59 per lead (HVAC, plumbing, drain) | You, inside Google | Answering the phone, reviews, budget9 |
| Google Ads (search) | Per click | ~$149 per non-branded lead | You, if the account is in your name | Keywords, bids, landing pages |
| Lead marketplaces (Angi, Thumbtack) | Per lead or subscription | Varies | The marketplace; leads are often shared | Speed and price |
| Referrals and memberships | Your service and follow-up | Lowest | You | How well you treat customers |
Lead costs: SearchLight data across 816 to 888 contractors, January to February 2026.5 Costs vary widely by market and season.
The free row matters most. Calls from your own Business Profile cost nothing per call, and you keep them if you change agencies. It's also where independents can beat bigger, better-funded competitors, because Google's local results weigh distance from the searcher and you can't buy that.8
How do home service companies show up higher on Google Maps?
Google says local results come down to three things: relevance ("how well a Business Profile matches what someone is searching for"), distance ("how far each business is from the customer who's searching") and prominence ("how well-known a business is"). It also says there's no way to pay for a better local ranking.8
Distance is why one company ranks first at the shop and disappears a few miles away. In our October 2026 study of 138 Charlotte-area companies, a typical company showed up in Google's top 3 for 70% of residents near its shop, 25% at 3.3 miles and about 1% at 6.7 miles.2 Reviews helped only up to a point: companies with under 50 reviews held a median of zero top-3 spots, but past about 150, more reviews showed no link to how far a company reached.2
Close to home, the winners had the basics in order. 99% of #1 results had a primary category matching the trade searched, which a 2026 survey of local search experts also ranked as the top factor,10 and 93% of top-3 results were rated 4.5 or higher.2 By six or seven miles the free map rarely carries anyone, so that's where Local Services Ads and search ads targeted by ZIP code earn their keep.
Will ChatGPT and Google's AI answers recommend your company?
Homeowners now ask AI tools who to call. In BrightLocal's 2026 survey, the share of consumers using generative AI for local recommendations rose from 6% to 45% in a year.11 Meanwhile, 80% of home service business leaders say they're unsure how to show up in those answers.1
Google says there are no special requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode: the page has to be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet.12 In our study, ChatGPT named 27 of the 53 Charlotte companies we checked and Gemini named 31, and every ChatGPT check cited Thumbtack, Angi and HomeAdvisor among its sources.2 That makes accurate directory profiles part of showing up in AI answers, along with clear, specific pages for each service and town and consistent business details everywhere. We check where you're named and track it monthly.
How to choose a home services marketing agency
Typical prices in this market run $1,000 to $3,500 a month for SEO, $500 to $2,500 a month to manage paid ads plus the ad spend, and $2,500 to $10,000 a month for a full program, according to Hook Agency's 2026 pricing guide.13 Price matters less than these five questions:
- Are your Google Business Profile and ad accounts in your company's name? They should be; Google's own rules expect it.
- What happens in the first 90 days, and what should you expect to see by the end of them?
- Will the monthly report show booked jobs and revenue by source, pulled from your field software?
- Who works on the account, and do they know the difference between a tune-up call and a change-out lead?
- Are the prices written down? Ours are below.
The trades we work with
Each trade earns its money differently, so each Growth Program includes a program built for that trade:
- HVAC marketing: find the neighborhoods where systems are due and win both the repair and the replacement call there.
- Plumbing marketing: show up for emergency and after-hours searches, and make sure those calls get answered and booked.
- Pest control marketing: add recurring customers inside the routes you already run.
- Garage door marketing: hold your ground against fake listings and lead-gen networks.
What it costs
Questions owners ask
What does a home services marketing agency do?
It brings in calls for your trade from Google Maps, your website, Local Services Ads and Google Ads, and should show you which of those calls became booked, paid jobs. Ours also scores calls and rescans your Google Maps visibility every month.
How much should a home services company spend on marketing?
One agency, Hook, typically sees 5% to 15% of revenue, depending on growth goals and how much work comes from referrals and memberships.13 A better test is cost per booked job against your average ticket and margin.
Are shared leads from marketplaces worth it?
Sometimes, for filling gaps. Shared leads are sold to several companies at once, so speed and price decide who wins them. Calls from your own Business Profile and website aren't shared, and you keep that demand if you change vendors.
What is a good cost per booked job?
It depends on the job. Divide your cost per lead by your booking rate, then compare the result with gross profit on an average ticket. For a $1,200 repair, $150 per booked job is healthy. For a $350 spring replacement, it isn't.
Do you work outside Charlotte?
Yes. We work with companies anywhere in the US. Scans, tracking and fixes are done remotely, and every engagement starts with a map of your own service area.
Sources
About our numbers: The Three-Mile Map, our October 2026 study, scanned 138 Charlotte-area HVAC, plumbing, pest control and garage door companies on 7 × 7 grids with a 10-mile radius (7,056 Google Maps searches on October 15, 2026), weighted each grid point by the residents living there using 2020 Census data, and checked 53 of the companies on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews. Rank and AI-answer data were collected with Local Falcon. The companies lean toward independent shops and 57% of the scans are HVAC, so trade-level figures outside HVAC have wide margins. The full method is in the study. Outside figures are linked below; vendor and platform data are labeled as such.
- Scorpion's new industry report reveals a disconnect between homeowners and local service businesses. Plumbing & Mechanical, 2026. www.pmmag.com/articles/107233-scorpions-new-industry-report-reveals-a-disconnect-between-homeowners-and-local-service-businesses
- The Three-Mile Map: how far 138 Charlotte-area home service companies reach on Google Maps and AI. Isoline Growth, Oct 2026. www.isolinegrowth.com/research/three-mile-map/
- Call booking rates: data from 3,000+ trades businesses. ServiceTitan, Oct 2022. www.servicetitan.com/blog/data-call-booking-rates
- Webinar recap: measuring marketing performance. ServiceTitan, Feb 2023. www.servicetitan.com/blog/webinar-recap-measuring-marketing-performance
- Google LSA vs. Google Ads: contractor cost per lead (SearchLight data, Jan–Feb 2026). The Valley Marketing Group, 2026. thevalleymarketinggroup.com/blog/google-lsa-vs-google-ads-contractor-cost-per-lead-2026/
- Google Local Service Ad benchmarks (SearchLight, 1,011 businesses). The Data-Driven Trades, May 2026. thedatadriventrades.substack.com/p/google-local-service-ad-benchmarks
- Home Services Lead Conversion Benchmarks Report 2026. Invoca, Jul 2026. invoca.com/reports/the-invoca-home-services-lead-conversion-benchmarks-report-2026
- How to improve your local ranking on Google. Google Business Profile Help, accessed Oct 2026. support.google.com/business/answer/7091?hl=en
- How leads work. Google Local Services Ads Help, accessed Oct 2026. support.google.com/localservices/answer/7195435?hl=en
- Local Search Ranking Factors 2026. Whitespark, 2026. whitespark.ca/local-search-ranking-factors/
- Local Consumer Review Survey 2026. BrightLocal, Feb 2026. www.brightlocal.com/research/local-consumer-review-survey/
- AI features and your website. Google Search Central, updated Dec 2025. developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-features
- Digital marketing costs for home service businesses in 2026. Hook Agency, Jul 2026. hookagency.com/blog/digital-marketing-costs-for-home-service-businesses-in-2026/