Key takeaways
- The Google Ads account, its billing, the call-tracking numbers and the conversion history should all sit in your business name.
- Emergency, drain, water heater and repipe searches need separate campaigns, ads and landing pages.
- Bids should follow your on-call schedule: strongest when someone can dispatch, lower or paused when no one can.
- A management report ends in booked calls and cost per booked call by service, matched to your field software.
Google Ads management for a plumbing company is the weekly work of putting your ads in front of homeowners with a leak, a clog or no hot water, at the hours your techs can respond, and proving which ads turned into paid jobs. Done properly, it runs in an account you own and reports booked calls, not clicks.
What management includes
- Campaigns split by service. Emergency, drain and sewer, water heaters, and repipe or leak detection each get their own campaign, budget and ads, so a slow-booking service cannot hide inside a busy one.
- An ad schedule tied to dispatch. Full bids when an on-call plumber can roll, lower bids or a pause when nobody can answer.
- Keyword and negative keyword work. Weekly search term reviews that block job seekers, DIYers and services you do not run.
- Landing pages per service. Burst pipe searches go to a call-first emergency page; water heater searches go to a page with repair and replace options.
- Call and form tracking. Tracked numbers on the ads and the site (Google's call tracking setup), recorded where you allow it.
- Booked-job feedback. Booked calls from ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro or Jobber imported as conversions, so bidding learns from paid work (how conversions are measured).
- Local Services Ads alongside search. Job types, area and hours kept clean, and a planned move as Google shifts LSA into Google Ads (the transition).
- Freeze-season planning. Budgets, emergency ads and schedules set before the first hard freeze, not during it.
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 every piece of it. Plumbing companies lose more than most when an agency holds the keys, because the tracking numbers end up printed on vans, door hangers and invoices.
| Asset | Why it must be in your name |
|---|---|
| Google Ads account and billing | Years of search terms, bids and results leave with whoever owns it |
| Conversion actions and history | Bidding relies on that history; rebuilding it costs months of learning |
| Call-tracking numbers | If they are on your vans and an agency owns them, changing agencies means repainting or losing calls |
| Local Services Ads profile | Your reviews and lead history live there, and it is moving into Google Ads |
| Landing pages and the domain | Pages built on an agency's platform disappear when the contract does |
| Analytics and tag manager | Without them, the next team starts blind |
The agency works inside your accounts as a user you can remove. If a current partner says the account cannot be transferred, treat that as the answer to whether to stay.
How we report
Reports start with booked calls and end with cost per booked call by service. Clicks and impressions appear only where they explain a change.
- Booked calls, by campaign and by service
- Cost per booked call, compared with the same month last year
- Emergency calls answered versus missed, by hour
- Leads that did not book, with the reason
- Customers who joined your maintenance plan after an ad-driven first visit
- The work done that month and the next thing we will change
The numbers come from your field software matched to the ad accounts, so you can check every figure yourself.
How it works
- Assess. We audit the account, tracking and landing pages, and match the last few months of ad leads to jobs in your field software.
- Prioritize. We pick the fixes that add the most booked calls first. Usually that means tracking, dispatch-based scheduling and a split by service, each with a date.
- Execute. Changes go into your own account, and each week you get a short list of what changed and why.
- Measure. We report booked calls and cost per booked call, and set budgets for the next peak before it arrives: the first freeze, the holiday drain-clog weeks, or spring water heater season.
For the cost side, see the cost per lead guide. The Google Ads hub covers how this works across trades.
How VETS Growth Marketing helps
We take over Google Ads for plumbing companies as a project with outcomes and dates, not an open-ended retainer. The account, billing and tracking numbers stay in your name, there is no long-term contract, and every report ends in booked calls. Book a growth consultation and we will audit your account and show you the five changes that would add the most booked calls before the next freeze.
Sources
- About conversion measurement, Google Ads Help
- Set up tracking calls to a phone number on a website, Google Ads Help
- Local Services Ads transition to Performance Max campaigns with pay-per-lead goals, Google Ads Help