← Case studies/Case 01 / HVAC

From dead phones to312% more booked calls.

A 22-year-old family HVAC shop replaced their dusty WordPress site, fixed a broken Google Ads account, and grew booked service calls by 312% in five months.

Client
Northside HVAC
Industry
HVAC · Residential & Light Commercial
Location
San Antonio, TX
Year
2024
Engagement
Web rebuild + Google Ads · 5-month sprint, ongoing retainer

+312%

Booked service calls

Month 1 → Month 5

$11.40

Cost per booked job

down from $94

4.2x

Return on ad spend

Google Ads, 90-day avg

[ the situation ]

Where they started.

Northside HVAC has been serving the north side of San Antonio since 2002 — second-generation owners, two trucks, a tight crew of six. Reputation in the neighborhood is excellent. Reputation on the internet was a different story.

Their WordPress site hadn't been touched since 2017. It loaded in 9.2 seconds on 4G, the contact form had been quietly broken for over a year, and Google was indexing a duplicate staging subdomain. They had a Google Ads account running but no one was managing it — it was burning roughly $2,400/month with zero attribution.

[ the problem ]

What was actually broken.

  • Contact form silently failing — leads from organic search were going nowhere
  • Google Ads account had no conversion tracking, broad-match keywords, and zero negative keyword list
  • No mobile click-to-call (78% of HVAC searches are mobile)
  • Service area pages didn't exist — competitors owned every San Antonio neighborhood SERP

[ our approach ]

How we thought about it.

01

Rebuild the foundation first

No ad spend optimization makes a difference if the destination is broken. We rebuilt the site on a fast stack and made the phone number a fixed call-to-action on mobile.

02

Own the neighborhoods, not the city

Generic 'San Antonio HVAC' is brutal. We built 14 neighborhood landing pages (Alamo Heights, Stone Oak, Southtown, etc.) targeting much cheaper, higher-intent local queries.

03

Rip and rebuild the ad account

Paused everything, added phone-call conversion tracking, switched to exact and phrase match, built a 400-word negative keyword list, and rewrote ad copy around emergency intent.

04

Reviews on autopilot

Twilio-powered SMS asking for a Google review 90 minutes after job completion. Took them from 31 reviews to 184 in five months.

[ execution ]

What we actually shipped.

Week 1–2

Discovery & audit

Tech audit, ad account autopsy, competitor SERP analysis, content interviews with both owners and three senior techs.

Week 3–6

Site build

Custom design and build, 14 neighborhood pages, integrated call tracking (CallRail), conversion events wired to GA4 + Google Ads.

Week 7

Launch

DNS swap on a Tuesday at 10 PM, 301 redirects mapped 1:1, staging subdomain de-indexed, Search Console resubmission.

Week 8–20

Optimization

Weekly ad reviews, biweekly landing page tests (3 winning variants shipped), seasonal creative for emergency furnace + AC tune-up campaigns.

[ deliverables ]

  • Custom 18-page website on a modern static stack
  • 14 neighborhood-specific service area pages
  • Google Ads account rebuild (3 campaigns, 11 ad groups)
  • CallRail call tracking with dynamic number insertion
  • Twilio review request automation
  • GA4 + Google Ads conversion tracking
  • Monthly performance dashboard (Looker Studio)

[ the results ]

By the numbers.

MetricBeforeAfter
Booked service calls / mo27111
Cost per booked job (paid)$94$11.40
Avg page load (mobile)9.2s1.1s
Google reviews31184
Star rating4.24.9
Organic local-pack appearances223

[ after launch ]

Still working together.

Status

● Active retainer

Cadence

Monthly retainer

Scope

Ad management, landing page A/B tests, monthly performance review, seasonal creative refreshes.

Our phone literally would not stop ringing in week three. We had to hire two more techs. I tell every contractor I know to call these people.

Mike Petrov

Co-Owner, Northside HVAC

[ keep results compounding ]

Add a Care Plan and we keep the wins coming.

Edits, SEO upkeep, and conversion work — from $50/mo.

See Care Plans →

[ your turn ]

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[ 30-second start ]

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