How Ad Boost turned a feast-or-famine HVAC Google Ads account into a consistent, year-round lead engine for a Phoenix heating and cooling company.
Precision Comfort HVAC had survived for years on referrals and a modest Google Ads budget that performed well in summer and died in winter. When summer AC season hit, they were overspending on broad keywords and still missing calls to faster-responding competitors. When temperatures dropped, budget sat largely unspent with no off-season strategy.
They had no call tracking in place, which meant they could not tell which campaigns were generating real booked appointments versus people who called, heard hold music, and hung up. Their campaigns counted every outbound call as a conversion, artificially inflating numbers and hiding the actual cost per booked job.
Emergency service searches like "AC not working" and "HVAC emergency near me" were lumped into the same ad groups as installation searches like "new AC unit cost." These two audiences have completely different purchase intent and require separate bidding logic, messaging, and landing pages to convert efficiently.
We rebuilt the account around HVAC buyer behavior rather than keyword volume, creating distinct campaign types for each job category and deploying bidding logic calibrated to when Phoenix homeowners actually call for help.
Analyzed call data to find peak emergency intent windows. Raised bids 45% during weekday mornings and evenings when AC failures spike. Reduced spend overnight when no one answers calls.
Applied bid multipliers tied to drive time from dispatch. Higher bids within 15 miles where techs respond under an hour. Reduced bids at service area edges where response time hurt close rates.
Launched dedicated call-only campaigns for emergency keywords. Removed the landing page entirely, putting a tap-to-call button directly in search results. Required 60-second minimum call duration for conversion credit.
Built a 12-month budget calendar with pre-planned increases in March and August ahead of peak seasons. Shifted off-peak savings into maintenance plan awareness campaigns to smooth off-season revenue.
Because HVAC results are tied to seasons, reporting tracked against the same month the prior year. Every month outperformed the prior year comparison from month two onward.
Discovered that only 38% of counted conversions were actually booked jobs. Real cost per booked job was $89, not the $34 their previous reporting showed. Reset all benchmarks from verified data.
Emergency repair, installation, and maintenance tune-up campaigns each received separate budgets and ad groups. Dayparting activated on emergency campaigns. Cost per booked job dropped to $67 within 30 days.
Call-only campaign launched for emergency keywords. Emergency call volume increased 94% versus same period prior year. Cost per booked emergency job reached $44. Install inquiries up 18%.
Pre-planned budget increase executed in April. Emergency call volume hit 218% above prior year during peak summer months. Geo-radius bidding kept technician dispatch profitable at higher volume. Install jobs up 44%.
Cost per booked job stable at $31 across all job types in the account second year. Maintenance plan campaign added a recurring revenue stream reducing off-season revenue volatility by 31%.
Real conversion tracking changes everything. Precision Comfort thought their cost per job was $34. It was $89. Once we installed call tracking with a duration filter, we could optimize toward actual booked revenue instead of meaningless call counts. Never run HVAC ads without verified call tracking in place.
Emergency and installation searchers must be in separate campaigns. Someone searching "AC not cooling" needs a phone number in the next 10 seconds. Someone searching "new HVAC system cost" needs pricing and financing information on a dedicated landing page. Combining them optimizes for the wrong buyer at every moment.
Seasonal budget planning must happen before the season, not during it. By the time Phoenix hits peak summer, competitor bids are already elevated and CPCs are at their highest. Loading budget increases 4 to 6 weeks before season captures intent at lower CPCs and builds campaign history before competition intensifies.
Every HVAC client goes through the same structured onboarding before a single dollar is spent.
Full account teardown: campaigns, call tracking, conversion setup, seasonal history, and competitor analysis.
12-month campaign calendar built around your seasonal demand curve, service mix, and dispatch capacity.
Campaign buildout with job-type segmentation, dayparting schedules, geo-radius multipliers, and verified call tracking.
Staged launch with manual CPC control and daily budget monitoring through the first 30-day data window.
Seasonal budget execution, monthly reporting tied to booked jobs, and creative refresh each quarter to maintain CTR.
HVAC campaigns need pre-planned seasonal scaling rather than reactive adjustments. In Phoenix, AC repair demand spikes from April through September. Pre-loading budget increases 4 to 6 weeks before peak season captures intent at lower CPCs before competitor bids escalate. During off-season months, shifting budget toward maintenance plan keywords smooths revenue and keeps campaign history active for the algorithm.
For emergency service calls, call-only campaigns outperform standard search ads because they remove the landing page step and put a dial button directly in front of someone whose AC is broken right now. For installation and maintenance bookings where the customer needs pricing before committing, standard search ads with dedicated landing pages produce better close rates and higher average job value.
HVAC companies waste budget on DIY intent keywords like how to fix AC, AC troubleshooting, and HVAC parts. Broad match terms like "air conditioner" or "heating system" pull in appliance shopping and informational searches with no service intent. Competitor brand names without a strong differentiating offer also produce low conversion rates. A thorough negative keyword list built before launch prevents this waste from day one.
Emergency HVAC calls cluster in predictable windows: weekday mornings when people wake to a broken system, and evenings when they come home to an overheated house. Raising bids 40 to 50% during these windows while reducing overnight spend, when calls go to voicemail anyway, improves efficiency without sacrificing overall call volume or reach.
Both matter, but calls must be the primary conversion event for emergency service campaigns. Set a minimum 60-second call duration filter to eliminate accidental dials and robocalls from your conversion count. For installation and maintenance campaigns, form submissions integrated with a CRM that records booked appointments provide the cleanest signal for Google to optimize toward actual revenue.
We will audit your HVAC Google Ads account, map your seasonal demand curve, and show you exactly where budget is going that is not generating booked jobs.
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