Marketing for HVAC contractors
Most marketing for HVAC contractors is somebody selling you a lead you're going to pay for twice. Once to the lead service, and once again to beat the two competitors who bought the same homeowner ten seconds later. I'm not an agency and I'm not going to run your Google Ads... I'm the guy who tells you which half of that spend to kill.
The short answer
The best marketing for HVAC contractors isn't more leads. It's answering the phone faster, working the maintenance agreement base you already have, and keeping reviews current so you hold the map pack. Buy traffic after those three are fixed, in the shoulder season, when clicks are cheapest and your schedule has room.
The situation
Angi, Thumbtack, Networx. You pay per lead, and so do the three shops down the road, for the same homeowner. The lead was never yours. It's a footrace, and the prize is a job you had to discount to win.
So you raise the spend to get more at-bats. Lead count goes up, close rate goes down, cost per install climbs, and somebody sends you a report congratulating you on the lead count. Then the season ends and you start at zero again, because none of it built anything you own.
That's most HVAC contractor marketing in one paragraph: renting attention every summer and owning nothing in October.
Common symptoms
The part nobody sells you
Nobody selling HVAC marketing wants to say this out loud, so I will. If your schedule is four weeks out in July, more leads isn't growth. It's a longer list of homeowners who called somebody else while they waited.
I've watched companies buy their way straight into that wall and then blame the marketing. The marketing worked fine. That was the problem.
Which means recruiting techs is marketing. Same muscle, different audience. Almost nobody treats it that way.
At Stanbrooke Custom Homes we were pouring foundations we couldn't frame. No crews available. Every job stalled, and you can't bill for a house that isn't going up.
So we ran it as a campaign instead of a hiring problem. Positioned the company as the preferred general contractor to work for, and the flier said it plainly: quality framing contractors wanted, free nails with every job, and pizza delivered by our project superintendents on Friday.
Crews mobilized in 45 days. Free nails and pizza. Not exactly a brand campaign, but it was aimed at the right person with something they actually wanted. The whole story is here. Point your recruiting at techs the same way and the ceiling moves.
Before you spend another dollar
No cooling in Phoenix in July and the homeowner calls three companies in a row. First human voice wins, and it isn't close. If your after-hours calls land in voicemail, you are funding your competitor's summer.
Every maintenance agreement on that list is a system with an age on it. That's your install pipeline, already paid for, and most shops never touch it until the unit dies on the hottest day of the year. Sort by install date, not by who complains loudest.
"AC repair near me" resolves in the map pack, and the map pack runs on proximity and recent reviews. Not on your website. Ask at the end of every completed call, and know that recency beats total count.
What we'd do first
Who runs it
Not first, no. HVAC marketing companies make the ads and manage the spend, and some of them are good at it. None of them will decide what to spend, which vendor to fire, whether leads are becoming installs, or what you stand for when a homeowner is holding three bids. Right now that somebody is you, at nine at night, between a callback and a warranty claim.
That's the seat I fill. A senior marketing person on a set number of hours a month, with your agency and lead vendors reporting to me instead of to you. For most shops in the $2M to $30M range that's a fractional marketing director. When the question is strategy rather than running the plan, it's a fractional CMO.
Run new construction or commercial work too? Marketing for construction companies covers that side. Before you renew a lead contract, read contractor leads: buy them, earn them, or build the machine. And if you want the admin hours back, AI for contractors lays out what saves time and what's a waste of money.
Timing
First heat wave hits and every HVAC company in the valley switches the ads on the same week. Clicks cost the most they'll cost all year, your schedule is already full, and you're paying a premium to book work into September. What were you thinking?
April and October are cheap, and your crews have room. That's when you buy the replacement conversations that turn into July installs. Same money, different month, and you're not bidding against every competitor at once.
Common questions
Work backward from installs. Decide how many replacements you want next year, divide by your close rate to get booked estimates, then price what a booked estimate costs in your market. Multiply. That gives you a budget tied to crew capacity instead of a percentage of revenue, which tells you nothing about whether you can actually install the work you sell.
They work the way renting works. You get at-bats today and own nothing tomorrow, and the same homeowner is sold to three of your competitors. Use them to fill a soft month if the cost per install holds up. Just do not let them become the pipeline, because the day you stop paying, it stops.
Different jobs. An agency produces the ads and manages the spend. A marketing director decides what to spend it on, which channel to cut, and whether leads are turning into installs. Plenty of shops have three vendors and nobody holding the number. Hire the director first, and the agency answers to them.
Call your maintenance agreement list, sorted by system age. Those are homeowners who already pay you, already trust you, and are sitting on equipment with a known install date. It costs nothing but phone time and it books work this month. Most shops go buy leads instead.
