One campaign, five counties
A single generic campaign aimed at 'Austin' bids blind across Travis, Williamson, and Hays. It can't tell you whether Round Rock or Kyle is actually converting.
GOOGLE ADS · AUSTIN
GOOGLE ADS FOR Austin CONTRACTORS
A hundred-degree week or a cracked slab sends the whole tri-county metro searching at once. Search Ads, Local Services Ads, and call-only campaigns built to put an Austin contractor in front of that call, priced on cost per booked job by a shop running local-service accounts since 2008.
THE CAMPAIGN SPEC
- Campaign typesSearch, LSA, call-only
- LSA badge setupGoogle Guaranteed
- We measureCost per booked job
- MethodSince 2008
Ad spend goes straight to Google, not to us. You keep the account and the login.
- Since 2008
- LSA badge setup
- Tri-county coverage
- You own the account
- Cost-per-job math
QUICK FACTS · GOOGLE ADS IN AUSTIN
At a glance.
The whole engagement on one ticket. Read it in a minute, then bring us the hard questions on the call.
- What it is
- Paid acquisition on Google for Austin-metro contractors: Search Ads, Local Services Ads (Google Guaranteed), and call-only campaigns, built to put your business in front of homeowners searching across Travis, Williamson, and Hays counties, not just the home ZIP.
- Timeline
- Campaigns can go live within days once the account, budget, and service area are set. LSA badge screening (license and insurance checks) runs on Google's clock and can take a few weeks, so we start that process early.
- Investment
- Quoted at the strategy call once we see your trade, your service counties, and target ticket. Ad spend is separate and paid straight to Google. No flat price posted here.
- What you get
- Keyword and negative-keyword lists built for your trade, LSA and call-only setup, a landing page built to convert, budget pacing tuned to Austin's seasonal spikes, and monthly reporting on cost per booked job.
- What's not included
- Organic rankings, on-page SEO, Google Business Profile map-pack work, and AI-search visibility live in other silos. Paid is paid; earned is earned. Those cross-link here, not live here.
- Managed how
- In-house, on a Google Ads and Local Services Ads account you own and can log into. No shared agency account you lose the day you part ways with us.
- Who it's for
- Established Austin-metro contractors (Travis, Williamson, Hays counties and the surrounding suburbs) who need booked calls now, not just a rising organic curve six months out.
- Who it's not for
- Brand-new outfits with no reviews or crew capacity to absorb a call surge, and owners chasing impressions instead of tracked calls. If your crew can't answer the phone when the heat wave hits, paid ads waste money.
PAID ACQUISITION, AUSTIN METRO
Paid search for a metro that sprawls across three counties
Austin does not have one demand season, it has two, and both hit hard. Central Texas summers push cooling systems past their limit for weeks straight, and when a compressor dies in a July heat wave, the homeowner is not scrolling ten results, they are calling whoever answers first. The other season runs quieter but just as steady: Austin's expansive clay soils shift with every wet-dry cycle, cracking slabs and shifting piers, which keeps foundation repair, drainage, and plumbing searches coming year-round, storm season or not.
The trouble for an independent contractor is who else is bidding on those same terms. Austin, Round Rock, and the I-35 corridor down through San Marcos are thick with national franchise consolidators and PE-backed home-service roll-ups running big daily budgets and call centers, not local crews. They can outbid a single-market contractor on generic keywords all day. What they cannot do as well is price a booked job correctly for a five-county sprawl, because their dashboards are built for national reporting, not for telling you what a signed roof or a foundation job cost you in Cedar Park versus Kyle.
That is the wedge. Contractor Google Ads in Austin means Search Ads and Local Services Ads built around your actual service counties (Travis, Williamson, Hays) and the suburbs you run trucks to (Round Rock, Cedar Park, Georgetown, Pflugerville, Leander, Buda, San Marcos), priced on what a booked job cost, not what an impression cost. Same shop, same math, since 2008.
[ 01 ] THE PROBLEM
Why Austin contractors get burned on paid
Most contractors who call us already ran ads once. Here's what usually went wrong in this metro specifically.
Outbid by franchise ad budgets
PE-backed roll-ups and national franchises bid Austin's biggest trade terms hard. An independent competing on raw bid volume alone loses that fight before it starts.
Flat budget through a heat-wave spike
Summer cooling demand and clay-soil foundation calls don't arrive on a steady drip. A flat daily cap caps out by mid-morning on a 105-degree day while a competitor with surge pacing takes the rest of the calls.
No LSA badge, no trust on a big-ticket call
A foundation repair or a full HVAC replacement is a real-money decision. Homeowners lean toward the Google Guaranteed badge on Local Services Ads. Without it, you're competing on price alone against someone who has it.
[ 02 ] THE METHOD
What we actually build for this metro
Every campaign scoped to your trade and the tri-county footprint you actually service.
County-scoped Search campaigns
Separate targeting and reporting across Travis, Williamson, and Hays, so you can see whether Cedar Park or Buda is the county actually converting.
Local Services Ads setup
We stand up your LSA profile, walk the license and insurance screening for the Google Guaranteed badge, and manage lead disputes so you're not paying for junk calls.
Call-only for demand spikes
When a heat wave or a hard freeze sends a whole suburb searching, the ad is the phone number, scheduled to your hours so the surge rings when a crew can answer.
Trade-specific keyword and negative lists
HVAC bids cooling-system replacement and emergency repair intent; foundation and plumbing bid slab-crack and drainage intent. Negatives block DIY and job-seeker searches that never book a job.
Landing pages built to convert
Paid clicks hit a page built for one job and one service area, phone above the fold, loading in under 2 seconds.
Cost-per-job reporting by suburb
Call tracking ties spend to booked jobs by campaign and by suburb, so you know what a signed job actually cost in Georgetown versus Pflugerville.
[ 03 ] THE DIFFERENCE
Run on dispatch math, not a national dashboard
Be Seen, Contractors!
Receipts, scoped to your counties
- Reported on cost per booked job, by county and suburb
- LSA badge screened, budget built to surge on a heat wave
- You own the account and keep it if we part ways
the national ad-management platform
One dashboard for every metro they touch
- Impressions and clicks, no line to a signed job in your county
- One flat budget cap, no Austin-specific surge pacing
- Their agency login, gone the day you cancel
[ 04 ] DELIVERABLES
What ships with a paid engagement
Account audit or clean build
We inherit and fix your existing Google Ads account, or build a fresh one you own outright.
LSA profile and screening
Local Services Ads set up and walked through Google Guaranteed license and insurance verification.
County-scoped keyword and negative lists
Trade-specific bidding built around Travis, Williamson, and Hays search intent, with negatives that block wasted spend.
Ad copy and call extensions
Search ads written in trade language, with your service counties, hours, and phone number wired in.
Conversion landing page
A single-purpose page for paid traffic, phone above the fold, loading in under 2 seconds.
Call tracking setup
Tracking that connects a click or lead to an actual phone call, so we can price the booked job by suburb.
Seasonal budget pacing
Budget rules that surge on a heat wave or freeze event and pull back when demand goes quiet, instead of a flat daily cap.
Monthly cost-per-job report
Plain reporting on spend, calls, and booked-job cost by campaign and county, not vanity metrics.
[ 05 ] THE PROCESS
From plan to booked work.
-
WEEK 1
Account Audit
We map wasted spend, weak landing pages, and the searches actually worth buying.
-
WEEK 1-2
Build
Campaigns, ad groups, call tracking, and Local Services Ads set up to ring the phone, not just get clicks.
-
MONTH 1
Optimize
Search-term pruning, bid tuning, and landing pages that turn clicks into booked jobs.
-
ONGOING
Manage
Weekly hands on the account. We spend your budget like it is ours.
-
MONTHLY
Report
Cost per lead and cost per booked job, in plain numbers, no agency spin.
[ 06 ] THE HONEST CURVE
What to expect from paid in this metro
Paid is the fast lane here, not a slot machine. Calls can come within days of launch; a settled cost-per-job across all three counties takes a few weeks of tuning as bids, negatives, and seasonal pacing find their level.
Days
To first live campaigns
Once account, budget, and counties are set
Weeks
LSA badge screening
License and insurance checks on Google's clock
30-60d
To a settled cost-per-job
As bids and negatives tune across Travis, Williamson, Hays
0
Vanity metrics reported
We report booked-job cost, not impressions
[ 07 ] STRAIGHT ANSWERS
What contractors ask us most.
What Austin-area contractors ask before they hand us a budget.
01Should I run Google Ads across all of Travis, Williamson, and Hays counties, or just Austin proper?
Depends on where your crews actually run trucks. Most established Austin contractors leave real money on the table by targeting only the home ZIP while Round Rock, Cedar Park, Georgetown, and Kyle search the same trade terms with less competition. We scope campaigns to wherever you can actually book and staff a job.
02What's the difference between Search Ads and Local Services Ads for an Austin contractor?
Search Ads charge per click and run as text ads at the top of results. Local Services Ads charge per lead, show the Google Guaranteed badge above the paid ads, and require Google to screen your license and insurance first. On a big-ticket job like a foundation repair or full HVAC replacement, that badge matters to a nervous homeowner. Most Austin contractors run both.
03Can paid ads handle a franchise-heavy market like Austin?
Yes, but not by outbidding them on raw volume. National franchise and PE-backed roll-up budgets can out-spend a single-market contractor on generic terms. The wedge is county-scoped campaigns, LSA badge trust, and cost-per-job math tight enough that your spend goes to calls that book, not impressions that don't.
04How do you handle the summer heat-wave spike for HVAC and the year-round foundation searches?
Different pacing for different demand. HVAC budget surges hard in summer cooling season and pulls back in cooler months. Foundation and drainage searches run flatter year-round because Austin's clay soils move regardless of season, so that budget stays steadier. We build the pacing rules to match, not one flat daily cap for both.
05What does this cost?
It's quoted at the strategy call once we know your trade, your service counties, and your current account condition. Ad spend is separate and goes straight to Google. There's no flat rate we can quote blind.
06I tried Google Ads in Austin before and it didn't work. Why would this be different?
Most burned contractors here were sold one generic Austin campaign, no county-level reporting, and a flat budget that missed the summer surge. We rebuild around county-scoped targeting, negatives, call tracking, and pacing built for this metro's two demand seasons, then report what a booked job actually cost. If the numbers still don't work for your trade, we say so.
07Do I own the ad account or do you?
You do. Campaigns run inside a Google Ads and Local Services Ads account in your name, and you keep the login. If we ever part ways, the account, the history, and the data stay with you.
08Can paid run alongside my Austin SEO or AI-search work?
Yes, and it should. Paid gets calls ringing this week across your counties while SEO and AI-search visibility build over months. We keep the campaigns from competing against your own organic listings for the same clicks and budget.
[ 08 ] WHAT COMES NEXT
What comes next.
The rest of the build works alongside this.
→
Websites in Austin
The hand-coded Austin contractor website your paid clicks land on, built to load under 2 seconds across every service county.
→SEO in Austin
Organic SEO built to lower your cost per lead over time across the Austin metro's trade terms, so paid isn't carrying the whole load.
→Local SEO in Austin
Map-pack focused local SEO built to land an Austin contractor in the top 3 across Travis, Williamson, and Hays county searches.
BOOK YOUR FREE STRATEGY CALL
See if paid pencils? for your Austin market
We'll audit your current Google Ads setup and Austin trade market and deliver it in 1-3 business days, with honest cost-per-booked-job math before you spend a dollar.