The 14-Point Google Ads Audit
for Home Service Businesses
The exact checklist we use to audit Google Ads accounts for HVAC, plumbing, roofing, and electrical contractors — including the 7 most expensive mistakes wasting your budget right now.
- 14 audit points covering campaign structure, targeting, ad copy & landing pages
- The 7 most common (and costly) mistakes
- Industry benchmarks for CPC, CTR, and conversion rate
- Action items you can implement this week
Why This Guide Exists
Home service businesses spend more per click on Google Ads than almost any other industry. "Emergency plumber near me" costs $40-80 per click in major US markets. "AC repair" hits $25-50. With this kind of spend, the difference between a well-optimized account and a poorly-optimized one is the difference between profit and bleeding cash.
After analyzing hundreds of home service Google Ads accounts, we noticed the same 14 issues come up repeatedly. This guide is the exact framework we use during audits — share it with your current agency, audit yourself, or use it to evaluate ad accounts before investing more.
Part 1 — Campaign Structure (Points 1-4)
Are campaigns separated by service type?
Most accounts run one big campaign for "All Services" — which means emergency repair, new installs, and maintenance all share the same budget and bidding strategy. They shouldn't. Each service has a different customer, intent, and value per lead. Separate them.
Quick fix: Create one campaign per major service (Repair, Installation, Maintenance). Set separate budgets based on revenue value.
Are ad groups tightly themed?
An ad group with 50 keywords is too broad. Google can't serve a relevant ad to every search, so Quality Score drops and CPC rises. Best practice: 5-15 closely-related keywords per ad group, each with a custom ad.
Quick fix: Pull your top 10 keywords by spend. Each one should be in its own tightly-themed ad group.
Are you using Local Service Ads (LSAs)?
For most home service categories, LSAs deliver lower cost per lead than traditional Search Ads. They also build review velocity. If you're not running LSAs alongside Search, you're leaving qualified leads on the table.
Quick fix: Apply for Google Local Services Ads. Most home service categories qualify. Pair LSAs with Search Ads for full coverage.
Is geographic targeting precise?
"Targeting my city" isn't enough. Are you bidding higher in your most profitable ZIP codes? Excluding areas where you don't service or where lead quality is poor? Are you using radius targeting from your service hubs?
Quick fix: Pull your last 6 months of jobs by ZIP code. Bid higher in your top 20%, exclude your bottom 20%.
Part 2 — Keywords & Negative Keywords (Points 5-8)
Are you using broad match without negatives?
This is the #1 budget killer in home service Google Ads. Broad match keywords like "plumber" will trigger your ads for searches like "plumber jobs," "plumber salary," and "plumber license" — none of which will ever call you. Without a strong negative keyword list, you're paying for these clicks.
Quick fix: Add these negatives now: jobs, salary, license, school, course, training, free, DIY, how to.
Are competitor names blocked?
Unless you're intentionally bidding on competitor names, they should be in your negative keyword list. Otherwise, you'll waste budget on searches where the user is specifically looking for a different company.
Quick fix: Add your top 10 competitors' brand names as negative keywords across all campaigns.
Are you targeting commercial intent?
"Plumber" is a broad search. "Emergency plumber near me," "plumber open now," and "24/7 plumber" are commercial intent. The second group converts at 3-5x the rate of the first. Bid higher on commercial intent keywords.
Quick fix: Add modifiers like "near me," "emergency," "24 hour," "today," "now" to your top keywords. Bid 30-50% higher on these.
Are you running a search terms report weekly?
The search terms report shows you exactly what people searched before clicking your ad. Most accounts never review this. It's the goldmine of negative keyword discovery and new keyword opportunities.
Quick fix: Block 30 minutes every Friday to review the past week's search terms. Add new negatives. Find new keyword opportunities.
Part 3 — Ad Copy & Extensions (Points 9-11)
Do ads lead with the value, not the service name?
"ABC Plumbing — Local Plumber" is a weak ad. "Emergency Plumber, On-Site in 60 Minutes — Licensed & Insured" is strong. Lead with what the customer actually wants (speed, trust, certainty), not what you do.
Quick fix: Audit your top 10 ads. Each headline should hit one of: speed, trust, price certainty, or social proof.
Are all ad extensions in use?
Every ad extension is free real estate. Most accounts use 2-3 out of 10+ available extensions. Add: call extensions, location extensions, sitelinks, callouts, structured snippets, price extensions, and image extensions where applicable.
Quick fix: Audit which extensions are active. Add the missing ones — especially call & location for service businesses.
Are you A/B testing ad copy?
Best practice: 3 ads per ad group, rotating. Pause the worst-performing ad every 30 days and replace with a new variation. This compounds — over 6 months, this discipline alone can drop CPC by 20-30%.
Quick fix: Make sure every ad group has at least 3 active ads. Set a monthly reminder to review and rotate.
Part 4 — Landing Pages & Tracking (Points 12-14)
Do ads send traffic to service-specific landing pages?
If "emergency plumber" ads send traffic to your homepage, you're losing money. Each high-spend campaign needs a dedicated landing page focused on that specific service — with the form, click-to-call button, and trust elements that convert.
Quick fix: Identify your top 3 campaigns by spend. Build a dedicated landing page for each.
Is call tracking installed?
If you don't have CallRail (or equivalent), you can't tie phone calls back to keywords, ads, or campaigns. For home services where 60-80% of conversions happen by phone, this is non-negotiable. You're flying blind without it.
Quick fix: Install CallRail. $45/month. It will pay for itself in the first week through better optimization decisions.
Are conversion actions set up correctly?
Your conversion tracking should fire on: form submissions, phone calls (over 60 seconds), click-to-call taps on mobile, and any chat conversations. If only form submissions are tracked, Google's algorithm is optimizing for the wrong thing.
Quick fix: Audit Google Ads conversion settings. Set up all four conversion actions with appropriate values.
Need Help Implementing This?
This audit framework is what we run for every new home service client. If you'd like us to run it on your account directly — free, no obligation — book a 30-minute call below.
We'll review your account, walk through each of these 14 points, and give you a prioritized list of what to fix first. Most calls reveal $1,000-$3,000/month in wasted ad spend within the first 15 minutes.
No commitment · No sales pressure · Typically responds within 24 hours