47.66° N 117.43° W Summit · Profitable Growth
Google Ads for construction and industrial companies
Your account scores both the same, so Google goes looking for more of the cheap one. I value every quote request by the size of the job, track the estimator calls, and send your pipeline back to Google before the 90-day click window closes. Then Smart Bidding can tell a general contractor from a weekend project.
01 The problem
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.
02 The diagnostic
In priority order. The fixes are sequenced, because the later ones depend on the earlier ones being right.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Most quote forms already ask for project size, square footage or quantity. I use that to give each request an estimated value at the moment it arrives, so Google learns that a 40,000 square foot job is worth more than a deck. Calls get the same treatment once an estimator logs the job size.
Because the signature often lands after 90 days, I import the stages that happen earlier: a qualified quote, a bid sent, a bid won. Each carries its own value. Google gets a usable signal within weeks, and the signed contract still lands as the final number when it arrives in time.
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.
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.
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
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 closed-loop method is written up on a real-estate law firm I run. I cut ad spend by 50%, doubled qualified signups, and brought cost per lead down by more than 60%, inside 90 days.
A law firm and a concrete sub look nothing alike. The engine underneath is the same: a call or a form, a CRM that knows which leads became paying work, and that outcome sent back to Google. Pipeline-stage imports are the construction version of the signup loop behind those numbers.
50%
Law-firm ad spend cut
2×
Law-firm qualified leads
60%+
Law-firm CPL reduction
05 Where this fits
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.
Concrete, 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.
Products that get specified before they get bought, such as structural panels, roofing systems or engineered lumber. The spec stage and the purchase stage need separate campaigns, and the gap between them is the reason pipeline-stage imports exist.
Safety equipment, fabricated 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.
The person who searches is often a foreman, and the person who pays is a purchasing desk working off a PO. The copy that wins is the labor math: hours saved per job, priced against a crew day. Spec sheets lose to that.
06 Engagement levels
Every account starts with a 30-minute call where I tell you which one fits. Pricing here is directional. The real quote comes on the call.
Tracking Sprint
The diagnosis and the plumbing. I run the CLOSE Audit, wire call tracking, value the quote requests and set up the pipeline-stage imports, so the account finally measures work that signs.
One-time project
Lead Quality + Channels
The Sprint plus 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.
Ongoing · month-to-month
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.
Ongoing · month-to-month
07 Fit
Who this is for
Who this isn't for
Residential trades like HVAC, plumbing and roofing are on the home-services page.
Ready to talk
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, the Sprint comes first.
Or email hi@connercrowe.com.
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