We Took a Local Ohio Trades Shop From Invisible to +41% Revenue — Against PE-Backed Competitors. Plumbers Are Next.

No — not yet. We’ll be straight with you: we have case studies across concrete, HVAC, eCommerce, food, and hospitality, but we have not shipped a plumbing client. The reason we’re confident this playbook works for plumbing is that our HVAC case study (Wind Bender — +41% revenue, 7x ROAS, #1 in the map pack against PE-backed competitors) is the closest-possible proof: same urgency-call trade, same LSA-dominant channel mix, same review-compound dynamic, same PE consolidation pressure. If you sign as our first plumbing client, you get priority attention from both principals and a pricing concession acknowledging you’re helping us build the plumbing case study. Ask us about it on the call.

Because LSA looks simple and isn’t. The LSA auction is ranked by response time, review volume, review recency, badge status, license/insurance currency, and your historical conversion rate — not by bid alone. Most plumbers either set LSA up once and never tune it, or they bid aggressively and get throttled because their response time is slow. We actively manage the auction: Google Guaranteed badge compliance monitoring, dispute workflow for bogus leads (Google refunds these, most plumbers never file), response-time coaching for your CSR, and review floor maintenance. Plumbers who do this get $25-$45 LSA leads; plumbers who don’t get $60-$90 leads in the same market.

Ongoing suppression. Plumbers are a top target for Google Maps spam — fake listings, keyword-stuffed business names, UPS-box addresses, duplicate listings. In 2024 alone Google removed 12 million fake profiles. We monitor your service-area map pack weekly, report spam listings via Google’s redress form, and track removal. No agency can promise 100% cleanup (Google’s pace is faster than suppressions can be filed), but we’re measurably more aggressive about it than an agency that checks in quarterly.

That’s our exact Wind Bender case. Yes. The PE rollups have bigger budgets but three weak spots: (a) PE brands often keep the acquired local name but have worse review recency because the corporate team juggles 30+ sub-brands, (b) their ad copy is often templated across markets and doesn’t reflect local realities, (c) their response time on LSA often slips as call volume grows. We build the local review-velocity moat, win the LSA auction on response time and badge status, and run ad copy that names local landmarks, local seasonality, local neighborhoods — the PE team won’t. Wind Bender won his market doing exactly this.

Both — but they’re different funnels. Residential plumbing converts on urgency, reviews, and LSA. Commercial (property managers, facility directors, multifamily, GCs) converts on NDA history, insurance limits, and net-30 terms. If you’re 100% residential, we run the residential plumbing contractor marketing stack. If you’re mixed, we build separate campaigns and often a separate landing page for commercial intake. If you’re 100% commercial, we’ll be honest on the diagnostic call — commercial is more of a relationship + content + ABM motion and less of a Google Ads / LSA motion, and we may not be the best fit.

Honest answer: recruitment marketing is not our core service. If that’s your main need, another agency may be a better primary fit. What we will do: acknowledge on the diagnostic call when your constraint is upstream of leads, tune the retainer down to match what you can actually book, and in some cases run a small recruitment campaign alongside lead-gen. But we’ll never sell you 50 leads a month when your bench caps at 15. The U.S. is projected to be 550,000 plumbers short by 2027 — technician capacity is often the real growth bottleneck and most agencies won’t say that.

That’s the trap. Our ad copy doesn’t just say “24/7 emergency” — it names tracked response-time proof (“Avg 38-minute dispatch, Columbus metro”), named-technician credentials (licensing visible in the ad), and upfront pricing commitments if your business offers them. The goal is to differentiate on the actual decision drivers on an emergency plumbing call — not repeat the same three words every competitor uses.

3-month minimum. After 90 days, month-to-month, 30-day notice to cancel. No exit fees. No “we own your domain” nonsense. If you leave, you leave with your website, your GBP, your CRM data, your Google Ads account, your LSA profile, and your ad history. That’s non-negotiable for us — we won’t hold any client hostage.

Two plans. Growth $2,000/mo — website with hosting and ongoing CRO, Local SEO + citations, Google Business Profile and LSA profile setup, web SEO with monthly publishing, and review velocity on every completed job. Full Department $3,500/mo — everything in Growth plus lead capture automation (speed-to-lead, SMS and email nurture, booking), email marketing, social media management and moderation, and photo and video editing. 3-month minimum then month-to-month. Paid ads management (Google Ads + LSAs) is an add-on scoped to your spend — ad dollars go directly to Google, no markup. Additional sub brands are $750/mo each.

Fair concern. Two things. First, the system is not plumbing-specific — it’s an urgency-call trade system that worked for an HVAC shop against PE competition, which is the closest mirror to plumbing marketing that exists. Second, our first plumbing client gets priority attention from both principals (Marcus and Cole on every weekly call), a case-study pricing concession, and a 90-day clear-exit — if we haven’t moved the needle on LSA slot position, map-pack ranking, or booked calls in 90 days, you walk with no fees. We’d rather earn the plumbing case study than lock a skeptical first client into a year they don’t trust.