Plumbwell Plumbing's first 14 days of Google Ads returned 5.5 times the ad spend in won work. Over three weeks, about 1 in 3 ad enquiries became a won job. The work behind those figures is simple to describe: one ad group for each job, one page for each ad group, and every enquiry followed through to the job it became.
The business
Plumbwell Plumbing is a plumbing business based in Marrickville, working across the Inner West and greater Sydney. Its plumbers handle hot water, gas, drains, leaks, bathrooms and everyday plumbing. The business leads with a plain promise to the customer: you see the price before anyone starts.
What we set out to do
Plumbwell's Google Ads account was new, so there was no history to steer by. The aim was to learn quickly which services win work, and to judge every part of the account on the jobs Plumbwell marks as won, not on clicks or calls. That meant tracing each call and web form back to the ad behind it and matching it to the job in the client's records.
What we built
The account has two parts. A service campaign gives each job its own ad group: hot water systems, hot water replacement, gas hot water repair, shower resealing without retiling, shower membrane failure, toilet installation, gas heaters, gas plumbing, gutters and emergency work. Each ad group sends people to the matching service page, so the page answers the search that brought them there. A second campaign covers suburbs and regions across the Inner West and greater Sydney.
The website does the rest. Every page carries the phone number and a button to get a price, the callback form asks what has gone wrong alongside a name and number, and the price is set out before work starts. See the pages in the Plumbwell Plumbing website case study.
What happened
Enquiries from the first 14 days of ads returned 5.5 times the ad spend in won work, and the result does not hang on a single large job. Across the first three weeks the figure is 4.3 times, with the newest enquiries still being quoted. About one in three Google Ads enquiries has become a won job.
Hot water led. It earned 42% of the won value, and more than half of hot water enquiries became won jobs. Add bathroom, shower and waterproofing work and the share reaches 71%.
What the numbers taught us
Searches that ask what a job costs are often written off as people shopping around. For Plumbwell, those searches and searches that described a problem in plain words were some of the best enquiries. Together they were under a fifth of enquiries but earned 32% of the won value, and more than half of them became won jobs. A website that sets out the price before work starts gives the people checking prices a reason to book.
Timing mattered too. In the first fortnight, enquiries made before 10am were 43% of the total and earned 60% of the won value, and nearly two in three became won jobs. And while most people phoned, web form enquiries became won jobs at 2.1 times the rate of calls, with an average job 2.1 times larger.
For a plumber starting Google Ads, the lesson is to measure won work from the first week and to put the budget behind the services that win. See how we run Google Ads management for trade businesses, or read more about marketing for plumbing businesses.
