Case study · Heating Companies · Ireland
Heating Case Study Ireland: +160% Leads
How an 8-engineer heating company in Cork grew enquiries 160% and cut cost per lead 49% in 6 months with AEO, Local SEO and Google Ads.
Illustrative case study: the business is anonymised and the figures are modelled on typical results for this market.
Heating Companies · Ireland
Heating
An 8-engineer heating company based in Cork, serving the wider Cork area and focused on oil and gas boiler replacements, plus heat pump installations. Before working with us, 71% of enquiries came through trade directories and similar paid platforms, where the same lead often went to three or four competitors. The goal was more exclusive enquiries, a lower cost per booked job and a pipeline the owner controls.
Results After 6 Months
Leads per month
+160%
Cost per lead
-49%
Marketing-sourced revenue
+195%
Return on marketing spend
13.5x
The challenge
Where the business was stuck
- Winter breakdowns create urgent demand, but boiler and heat pump installations are where the margin sits.
- Grants and regulations change the market quickly, and marketing that doesn't keep up falls behind.
- Annual servicing customers are valuable, but few heating businesses market to them systematically.
- Peak season (boiler replacements and servicing peak from september to february; heat pump planning is strongest in spring and summer) was not being planned for, so budget ran out when demand was highest.
The approach
Three services, one goal
We focused on AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation), Local SEO & Google Maps and Google Ads, the three channels with the best cost per booked job for heating businesses in Cork. 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
AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation)
- Rewrote 11 service pages so each opens with a direct 40 to 60 word answer to the question buyers actually search.
- Added FAQPage, HowTo and Service schema and question-led headings to target featured snippets and People Also Ask.
- Built a price and timeline guide for oil and gas boiler replacements with tables that answer engines can lift straight into results.
- Optimised for voice and conversational queries such as "how much does oil and gas boiler replacements cost near me".
Service 2
Local SEO & Google Maps
- Rebuilt the Google Business Profile: primary category corrected, 4 secondary categories added, 9 services with descriptions and a service area matched to the real travel radius.
- Published 20 suburb and area pages across the wider Cork 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 3 to 18 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.
Service 3
Google Ads
- Restructured the account into 26 single-theme ad groups by job type, with exact and phrase match only and a 628-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 50+ conversions a month were flowing.
- Added ad scheduling and location bid adjustments so budget follows the hours and areas that produce booked work.
The numbers
Before and after
| Metric | Before | Month 6 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enquiries per month | 30 | 78 | +160% |
| Cost per lead | €136 | €69 | -49% |
| Cost per booked job | €525 | €234 | -55% |
| Lead-to-job rate | 26% | 30% | +4 pts |
| Website conversion rate | 3.4% | 4.8% | +42% |
| Marketing-sourced revenue / month | €31k | €91k | +195% |
| Share of leads from paid directories | 71% | 12% | -59 pts |
| Featured snippets and PAA answers | 1 | 31 | +30 |
| Keywords in the Maps top 3 | 4 | 18 | +14 |
| Search impression share | 34% | 71% | +37 pts |
Lead growth
Enquiries per month
Marketing-sourced revenue went from €31k to €91k a month, measured from booked boiler and heating jobs in the CRM.
Optimisations That Moved The Numbers
- 01
The business now holds 31 featured snippets and People Also Ask answers, up from 1.
- 02
Direct-answer intros raised organic click-through rate on question searches from 3.1% to 5.7%.
- 03
Adding 4 secondary Google Business Profile categories lifted discovery searches by 28% in six weeks.
- 04
The 628-term negative keyword list cut wasted spend on jobs, DIY and supplier searches by 28%.
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 AEO, Local SEO and Google Ads.
Weeks 3 to 6
Build and launch
AEO, Local SEO and Google Ads live for oil and gas boiler replacements, plus heat pump installations.
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 Kildare 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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