Key takeaways
- The account, the billing, the tracking numbers and the landing pages should all be in your company's name.
- A contractor's ad history is worth more than most, because it shows which searches turned into signed projects months later.
- A useful monthly report reads like a bid log: qualified bids, bids pending, contracts signed and what each cost.
- Management works on the building calendar: set up in winter, push in spring, pull back when the backlog is full.
Google Ads management for a contractor should produce qualified bids on the projects you want, in an account you own. That means campaigns split by project type, search terms cleaned every week while owners collect bids, landing pages that screen out small jobs, and a monthly report that reads like your bid log instead of a click chart.
What management includes
- Separate campaigns for each line of work. Additions, new homes and commercial build-outs run with their own budget, ads and hours, so the cheapest clicks never starve the most valuable project type.
- Keyword and negative keyword work. Project terms in the words owners use, and a negative list that blocks careers, licensing, 1099 and do-it-yourself searches (negative keywords).
- Ad copy that sets expectations. The project types you take, the areas you build in and how your process starts, so owners with a mismatched project skip the click.
- Landing pages per project type. Real finished projects, your steps from first call to handover, and a short form that asks about plans, timing and budget.
- Call and form tracking. Calls from ads and your site recorded as conversions (call tracking), with the source carried into your construction CRM.
- Qualified bids as the goal. Once your CRM marks the projects your estimator prices, those outcomes become the conversion the bidding works toward (conversion measurement).
- Budget pacing against your backlog. More spend while you have capacity, less when crews are booked into next season.
- Local Services Ads in the same plan, where your category is offered. As LSA moves into Google Ads as Performance Max with pay-per-lead goals, its budget and lead replies will sit next to your search campaigns.
Who owns what in a managed account
| Part | You own | We do |
|---|---|---|
| The account | Opened in your business name | Work in it as a user |
| Billing | Charged to your payment method | Recommend budgets |
| Changes | Every change visible in the account | Build, test and adjust campaigns |
| Results | History that stays with you | Report calls, booked jobs and cost per customer |
Who should own the account
You should own it, and so should every piece of the setup around it. A contractor's ad history is unusually valuable: it is the only record of which searches turned into a signed addition four months after the click. If an agency holds the account, that record leaves with them.
| Item | Whose name it should be in | What you lose if it is not |
|---|---|---|
| Google Ads account and billing | Your company's | Every search term, conversion and bid result since launch |
| Call tracking numbers | Your company's | The numbers on your website, and any you printed on yard signs or truck wraps |
| Landing pages and domain | Your company's | The pages your ads point to, and their form history |
| Analytics and conversion setup | Your company's | The link between ads and qualified bids |
| CRM records | Your company's | Every lead, bid and contract, by source |
Watch for one setup in particular. Some lead sellers run ads in their own account and pass you "exclusive leads". You pay for traffic you never see, and when you stop, you start again from nothing. If you hire us, you add us as a user on your account and can remove us the same day.
How we report
We report the way you already run the business: projects priced, projects pending, projects won. Each month you get one page with these lines, by campaign:
Leads : Calls and forms from ads, after spam and repeat callers are removed.
Qualified bids : Leads your estimator chose to price, and what each one cost.
Bids pending : How many priced projects are still open, and their total value, so a slow month in contracts is not misread.
Signed contracts : Projects won from ads in the period, with cost per signed contract over a rolling season.
Work done : Search terms cut, ads tested, pages changed, and what we will change next month.
Clicks and impressions are in the appendix, where they belong.
How it works for contractors
- Assess. We audit your account, search terms, tracking and landing pages, and pull last season's leads and bids from your CRM to see which campaigns produced projects worth pricing.
- Prioritize. We rank the fixes by the bids they should add: usually tracking first, then negatives and campaign structure, then pages. Each fix gets a date before building season starts.
- Execute. We rebuild inside your account, launch by project type, and read search terms weekly while owners are collecting bids.
- Measure. We report qualified bids and signed contracts each month, and adjust spend to your backlog, so you are not paying peak prices for work you cannot start until next year.
The keyword guide for contractors shows the negative list we start from, and the cost per lead guide explains the numbers in the report.
How VETS Growth Marketing helps
Management starts as a rebuild with a launch date and agreed outcomes, then continues month to month, with no long-term contract to sign. Your company holds the account, the tracking numbers and the landing pages from the first day, and every report reads in qualified bids and signed contracts. Book a growth consultation and we will audit your current account, whoever runs it, and name the five changes we would make first.
Sources
- About conversion measurement, Google Ads Help
- Set up tracking calls to a phone number on a website, Google Ads Help
- About negative keywords, Google Ads Help