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Google Ads for construction and industrial companies

One quote is a deck. The next is a four-story job.

Your account scores both the same, so Google goes looking for more of the cheap one. I make a qualified quote or estimator call the conversion, track the calls, and cut the job seekers and DIYers out of the search terms. Where your CRM holds the job size and the closed work, the quotes can carry a value too.

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Who I am and how I work

Read the transcript

I'm Conner Crowe. I help ecommerce and service businesses get more customers from Google, and from AI assistants like ChatGPT. I run the website, the ads and the tracking as one system. Everything between the click and the customer. I started in graphic design, then web design, then in-house marketing, then inside agencies, where I saw the model break. The senior sells the work, and a junior learns on your account. So I went independent. The person on the call does the work. Tracking gets fixed first. You get a written summary every Monday, month to month, and you own everything I build. Ten years, more than $15 million in managed ad spend. A furniture store I built went from $5K in its first month to $56K, five months later. When I'm not working, I'm outdoors. Out there, you never guess when you can measure. I run accounts the same way. Start with a free ads audit. I write it myself, and it's back within 24 hours.

01   The problem

Why construction accounts
buy the wrong leads.

In most of them, the quote form fires a conversion on every submit. Google counts a homeowner pricing a porch the same as a contractor pricing a commercial job, and the homeowner is cheaper to reach, so the budget drifts toward homeowners. The dashboard shows more conversions every month. The estimators see fewer real jobs.

Two things make it worse here than in other lead-gen businesses. The sale is slow: a commercial contract often signs more than 90 days after the first click, and that is when Google stops accepting offline conversions for it. And the buyer is rarely one person. Someone specifies the product, someone else orders it, and both search in different words.

  • 0 difference Google sees by default between a deck quote and a commercial bid
  • 90 d the longest click window Google Ads offers
  • 2+ people in many buying decisions: whoever specs it and whoever orders it
  • 1 conversion that matters: the signed contract or the PO

02   The diagnostic

Six leaks I check
first.

In priority order. The fixes are sequenced, because the later ones depend on the earlier ones being right.

  • Job seekers and DIYers in the search terms

    Trade keywords pull people looking for work, certification classes and weekend projects. "Steel erector jobs" and "how to build a retaining wall" share words with your buyers. Without a hard negative list, a large part of the budget pays for clicks that were never going to order anything.

  • Every quote request scored the same

    A homeowner asking about one porch and a general contractor pricing a four-story job both fire the same conversion. Google has no way to tell them apart, so it finds more of whichever is cheaper to reach. That is almost always the small one.

  • Estimator calls never reach Ads

    Project managers call. They want a person who can talk lead times and load ratings. If the phone is not tracked back to the keyword, the account is optimizing on web forms, which is the smaller and lower-value half of the lead flow in this industry.

  • The contract signs after the window closes

    Google accepts an offline conversion only inside the click window, and the longest window is 90 days. Plenty of commercial jobs take longer than that from first click to signed contract. Import only the signature and most of your best outcomes arrive too late to count.

  • The specifier and the buyer treated as one person

    An architect or engineer writes the product into the spec. A contractor buys it. A procurement desk cuts the PO. Each searches differently and needs a different page. One campaign aimed at all of them reaches none of them well.

  • Geo that ignores where the work is

    A crew-based contractor has a radius it will mobilize to. A supplier ships nationally but wins in the regions with active projects. Default state-wide or country-wide targeting buys clicks from places you will never deliver to.

03   The playbook

What I do for
construction and industrial.

Six moves in the first 90 days, tracking first. The full architecture is in the Lead Quality Stack, and the question-by-question diagnosis is in the Lead Quality library.

  1. 01

    Fix the tracking before touching a bid

    I start with the CLOSE Audit: CRM as source of truth, Lead-source capture, Offline imports, Signal swap to a qualified lead, Enhanced Conversions. Every quote request and every tracked call gets a click ID stored against it, so the outcome can find its way back to the ad later.

  2. 02

    Count the qualified quote, not every request

    The conversion Google bids on is a qualified quote request or an estimator call that a person marked qualified in WhatConverts, not every form fill. Job seekers, DIYers and homeowners stop counting, so the bidding stops buying them.

  3. 03

    Add value and pipeline stages where your CRM holds them

    If your quote form asks for project size and your CRM records the job, each qualified quote can carry an estimated value, and the stages before the signature, a bid sent or a bid won, can go back to Google inside the 90-day window. That layer is optional and comes after the qualified quote is counting cleanly.

  4. 04

    Build the negative list for the trade

    Jobs, training, certification, rental-only where you only sell, residential where you only do commercial, and the DIY phrasing for your product. I build it from your real search terms rather than a template, then review the terms every week until the leaks stop.

  5. 05

    Split campaigns by who is searching

    Specifier, contractor and owner each get their own campaign, keywords and landing page. The spec stage gets technical documents and data sheets. The contractor stage gets lead times, coverage area and a phone number that reaches an estimator.

  6. 06

    Use Meta for proof, not for cold demand

    Nobody orders a steel package from a feed ad. Meta earns its place showing finished jobs and installed product to people who already visited the site or match your customer list. Search carries the demand. Meta keeps you in the room during a long decision.

04   The proof

No borrowed numbers.
One documented method.

I don't publish client numbers from this industry, and I won't put borrowed or invented ones here. What I can show you is the method, documented end to end on another lead-gen business.

The documented transformation

The method is written up on a fence contractor's account I fixed. The only website conversion had died when a form button was renamed, so the bidding only saw phone taps. I rewired it to the form's own success event and cleaned the account. Rank-lost impression share fell from a weekly 27 to 48% range to under 1%.

A fence installer and a concrete sub sell different jobs. The first fix is the same in both: a conversion that means a real lead, so the bidding stops buying the cheap one. Where your CRM records bids and signed work, pipeline-stage imports can add them later.

  • <1%

    Rank-lost impression share after cleanup, from 27 to 48%

  • 86%

    Conversions from two protected keyword themes

  • 42

    Conversions in the 90-day view

Read the contractor case study

05   Where this fits

Four kinds of business,
each with its own buyer.

The lead-quality work is the same in each. Who searches, what they type and what counts as a win is different, and the account has to be built around that.

  • Specialty subcontractors

    Masonry, steel, glazing, mechanical and the other trades general contractors hire in. The buyer is a project manager on a deadline. Call tracking and a fast quote path matter more here than anywhere else.

  • Building-system suppliers

    Products that get specified before they get bought, such as commercial doors and hardware, flooring systems or elevator equipment. The spec stage and the purchase stage need separate campaigns, and the gap between them is the reason pipeline-stage imports exist.

  • Industrial manufacturers

    Pumps and valves, machined parts, fasteners and other products with long order cycles and repeat buyers. Search volume is low and specific, so the negative list and the product-to-page match carry most of the result.

  • Site-work and paving contractors

    Excavation, paving and underground utility work. Public work mostly arrives through bid boards, so the Search budget belongs on private work, and the conversion that counts is an invitation to bid.

06   Engagement levels

Three ways in.
Most start with tracking.

Every account starts with the free audit. The prices below are the published ones; the project quote comes from what the audit finds.

One-time projects

Fixed price, quoted from the free audit. Fixing tracking is typically $2,500. The diagnosis and the plumbing: I run the CLOSE Audit, wire call tracking and make the qualified quote the conversion, then add valued quotes and pipeline-stage imports where your CRM holds the closed work.

$2,500 to $20,000 / project

Fixed price, quoted after the audit

  • →The CLOSE Audit of your account and CRM
  • →Call tracking with dynamic number insertion installed
  • →Quote requests valued by project size at submission
  • →Enhanced Conversions for Leads configured
  • →Pipeline-stage offline imports wired from the CRM
  • →A service-business site, up to about 40 pages, from $10,000
Start with a free ads audit

Monthly

$2,500 a month for ongoing management of Search against valued, qualified quotes. I run the account, keep the negative list current and reconcile leads against signed work every month.

$2,500 to $8,500 / month

Ongoing · month-to-month

  • →Tracking kept healthy and a written report every Monday
  • →Search campaigns split by specifier, contractor and owner
  • →Qualified quotes as the conversion; valued pipeline imports where your CRM holds closed work
  • →Weekly search-term and negative keyword review
  • →Monthly reconciliation of leads against signed work
  • →Add-ons at $1,500/mo each: lead-quality and call scoring, landing pages and site upkeep, a second ad platform
Run the engine

Fractional Marketing Lead

The whole program. Search, Meta retargeting with jobsite proof, landing pages per buyer type and the CRM loop maintained as the sales team and the product line change.

$8,500 / month

Ongoing · month-to-month

  • →Every monthly add-on, capped at $8,500/mo
  • →Meta retargeting built on finished-job proof
  • →Landing pages for each buyer type
  • →Bidding-season budget planning
  • →Direct access. Same person on the call as on the keyboard.
Build the program

What the work looks like

The exact templates I send clients, filled in for a made-up sample store, in the order an engagement runs. Pick a step, or let it play.

Example audit page, marked as sample data, titled The path forward. Phase one, fix the measurement: remove the duplicate purchase action, take add to cart out of bidding, send discounted order value. Phase two, bid control and query control: add a brand exclusion to Performance Max, split it by margin, stop promoting 27 products with clicks and no sales. (opens a larger view)

Week 1

The plan, in writing

  • Phases ordered by dependency, not by calendar. Nothing in phase two gets judged until the measurement in phase one is real.
  • Written down, so you can push back before a single setting changes.

Example page on the real audit template. The store and every number are made up.

07   Fit

Who this is for.
Who it isn't.

Who this is for

  • →Your average job or order is worth thousands, and some are worth hundreds of thousands
  • →You get plenty of quote requests and too few of them are from real buyers
  • →Your estimators or sales team log which quotes turned into work
  • →You want Search run by someone who reads the CRM as well as the dashboard

Who this isn't for

  • ×You sell mostly to homeowners on small, one-visit jobs (the home-services page fits better)
  • ×Nobody records which quotes were won, and nobody will start
  • ×You want lead volume reported and are not interested in what it signs
  • ×You need a cheap set-and-forget vendor

Residential trades like HVAC, plumbing and roofing are on the home-services page.

Ready to talk

Stop bidding on quote requests.
Start bidding on signed work.

I'll run the CLOSE Audit on your account, show you where the spend is leaking and tell you whether the pipeline loop will move the number. Same person on the call as on the keyboard. If it fits, fixing the tracking comes first.

Get a free ads audit Book a strategy call

Or email hi@connercrowe.com.

FAQ

Before you ask.

Does Google Ads work for B2B construction companies?
It works when the account is graded on signed work. Search is where project managers and estimators go when they need a supplier or a sub this week, so the demand is there. What breaks most accounts is that a job seeker, a DIYer and a general contractor all count as the same conversion. Fix that and Search is usually the most predictable channel a construction business has.

How do I track a sale that closes months after the click?
Start with a qualified quote or a qualified estimator call as the conversion, because that arrives within days of the click. If your CRM holds the closed work, it can also store the click ID with the lead and import the stages before the signature, a bid sent or a bid won. Google only accepts offline conversions inside the click window, and the longest window is 90 days, so a contract that signs later than that can't count.

Should I run Meta retargeting ads for a construction or industrial business?
Rarely for cold demand. People do not order commercial products from a feed ad. Meta is useful for retargeting site visitors and customer lists with finished jobs and installed product, which keeps you visible through a decision that can take months. I would set up Search and tracking first and add Meta after.

What do you need from me before this can work?
Read access to the ad account, and a record of which quotes became work. That can be a CRM, a job-tracking system or a spreadsheet your estimators keep. If that record does not exist, I can still clean up the tracking and the search terms, but I cannot close the loop that makes the bidding smarter. Better to know that before the call.

What does it cost?
Three ways in. Every audit is free. One-time projects run $2,500 to $20,000, at a fixed price quoted from the audit before work starts. Monthly runs $2,500 to $8,500 a month, month-to-month: $2,500 for one ad channel and $1,500 for each add-on. At $8,500 it is the Fractional Marketing Lead seat. Ad spend is never marked up.