Case study · Plumbers · Australia
Plumber Case Study Australia: +119% Leads
How a 13-van plumbing business in Perth grew calls and enquiries 119% and cut cost per lead 45% in 6 months with Google Ads and Local SEO.
Illustrative case study: the business is anonymised and the figures are modelled on typical results for this market.
Plumbers · Australia
Plumbing
A 13-van plumbing business based in Perth, serving the wider Perth area and focused on hot water system replacement and blocked drains. Before working with us, 55% of enquiries came through hipages and similar paid platforms, where the same lead often went to three or four competitors. The goal was more exclusive calls and enquiries, a lower cost per booked job and a pipeline the owner controls.
Results After 6 Months
Leads per month
+119%
Cost per lead
-45%
Marketing-sourced revenue
+144%
Return on marketing spend
4.2x
The challenge
Where the business was stuck
- Emergency jobs go to whoever answers first, so missed calls after 5pm quietly hand revenue to competitors.
- Lead marketplaces sell the same enquiry to three or four plumbers, which drives prices down and win rates with them.
- Low-value tap and toilet jobs fill the diary while hot water, re-pipe and bathroom work, the jobs that pay, go elsewhere.
- Campaigns were not planned around peak season, so budget ran out when demand was highest.
The approach
Two services, one goal
We focused on Google Ads and Local SEO & Google Maps, the two channels with the best cost per booked job for plumbing businesses in Perth. Every call, form and chat was tracked to a booked outcome from week one, so every decision was based on revenue, not clicks.
What we did
The technical work behind the numbers, service by service.
Service 1
Google Ads
- Restructured the account into 15 single-theme ad groups by job type, with exact and phrase match only and a 390-term negative keyword list.
- Installed call tracking and imported booked jobs from the CRM as offline conversions, so bidding optimised for revenue, not form fills.
- Moved from manual CPC to Maximize Conversion Value with a target ROAS once 30+ conversions a month were flowing.
- Added ad scheduling and location bid adjustments so budget follows the hours and areas that produce booked work.
Service 2
Local SEO & Google Maps
- Rebuilt the Google Business Profile: primary category corrected, 6 secondary categories added, 18 services with descriptions and a service area matched to the real travel radius.
- Published 21 suburb and area pages across the wider Perth area, each with local job photos, travel times and area-specific FAQs.
- Launched a review request flow by SMS after every completed job, lifting review velocity from 1 to 25 new reviews a month.
- Tracked rankings on a 7x7 geo-grid around the office to see Maps visibility street by street, not just from one location.
The numbers
Before and after
| Metric | Before | Month 6 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calls and enquiries per month | 53 | 116 | +119% |
| Cost per lead | A$130 | A$72 | -45% |
| Cost per booked job | A$339 | A$168 | -50% |
| Lead-to-job rate | 38% | 43% | +4 pts |
| Website conversion rate | 2.7% | 3.4% | +27% |
| Marketing-sourced revenue / month | A$20k | A$49k | +144% |
| Share of leads from paid directories | 55% | 20% | -35 pts |
| Search impression share | 30% | 55% | +25 pts |
| Keywords in the Maps top 3 | 3 | 18 | +15 |
Lead growth
Calls and enquiries per month
Marketing-sourced revenue went from A$20k to A$49k a month, measured from booked booked jobs in the CRM.
Optimisations That Moved The Numbers
- 01
The 390-term negative keyword list cut wasted spend on jobs, DIY and supplier searches by 35%.
- 02
Offline conversion import let bidding favour hot water system replacement searches, raising average lead value by 38%.
- 03
Adding 6 secondary Google Business Profile categories lifted discovery searches by 35% in six weeks.
- 04
Area pages for Melbourne moved the business from outside the top 20 to position 3 in the Maps pack for its main service there.
The 6-month timeline
From tracking to scale.
Weeks 1 to 2
Audit, tracking and baseline
Call tracking, conversion tracking, CRM connection and a full audit covering Google Ads and Local SEO.
Weeks 3 to 6
Build and launch
Google Ads and Local SEO live for hot water system replacement and blocked drains.
Months 2 to 4
Optimise
Weekly search term, call and landing page reviews. Budget and effort moved to the jobs that close.
Months 5 to 6
Scale
Expansion into Melbourne and nearby areas, plus new services with proven demand.
Illustrative case study: the business is anonymised and the figures are modelled on typical results for this market. Your results depend on your market, budget, capacity and follow-up. We share realistic forecasts in your free audit.
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