How should an HVAC company prepare its marketing for a heat wave?
Short answer
An HVAC company should prepare weeks ahead of a heat wave. Map rankings and reviews decide who gets the repair calls, and neither can be built in a few hot days. Before the heat, fix the profile, the repair page and the ad campaigns. During it, adjust only budgets, ad hours, listed hours and who answers the phone.
Preparing an HVAC company’s marketing for a heat wave starts weeks before it arrives, because map rankings and reviews decide who gets the calls, along with a profile showing true hours, and none of them can be changed in the few days the heat lasts. That week you can still change smaller things: ad budgets, ad hours, listed hours, and how the phone is answered.
What has to be in place before the heat
When the temperature climbs in El Cajon, Santee, Poway or Escondido, homeowners search “AC repair” or “AC not cooling” and call from the first screen. Whoever is in the map pack that afternoon earned the place earlier.
- Run a rank grid, the HVAC SEO measurement, for cooling repair searches across the inland part of your service area in spring, while there’s still time to act on what it shows.
- Ask every customer for a review during spring maintenance visits, so the newest reviews on the profile are recent and mention AC work when the rush starts.
- Open the AC repair page on a phone. It should load quickly and show a tap-to-call number without scrolling.
- Build the ad campaigns before you need them. A repair campaign assembled on the first hot morning is easy to get wrong.
What to change in the week itself
Once it’s hot, only the things that take effect the same day are worth touching.
| Item | What to do | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Ad budget | Raise the daily budget on the cooling repair campaign for inland cities | A budget set for a normal week can run out early, and the afternoon calls go elsewhere |
| Ad schedule | Run ads only in the hours a person answers | A click that reaches voicemail is paid for and lost |
| Profile hours | If you’re staffing evenings or the weekend, add those as special hours on your Google Business Profile | Google shows open or closed status, and an “open now” filter can leave a closed business out |
| Capacity | When the schedule is full, lower the budget or pause | Paying for calls you can’t take is money spent on a bad impression |
Local Services Ads (LSA) run on a budget as well, and you pay per lead instead of per click. The controls change from time to time, so find out in your own account how to raise, lower or pause the budget before the week you need to. In Google Ads for HVAC companies, repair and replacement run as separate campaigns.
Be honest about the wait
If you’re booked two days out, say so on the phone and on the site. A homeowner who is told “Thursday morning” can decide. A homeowner who is promised today and waits until tomorrow night writes the review that sits on your profile afterward.
Don’t switch the profile to 24 hours for the week unless someone will answer at 2am. If you do extend your hours for a short period, enter them as holiday and after-hours times on Google.
The coast behaves differently
Many older homes in places like Ocean Beach, Pacific Beach and Encinitas have no central air, so there’s nothing to repair. Those homeowners start asking about ductless mini splits and heat pumps, which is a planned purchase that happens to begin on a hot day. Few of them will decide that week. Give them a clear installation page and a prompt reply to the estimate request, and leave the follow-up for the cooler weeks afterward.
After the heat passes
The gains that last come the week after. Send the review request to every customer you served, with no filtering of who is asked. Follow up on each repair where the technician told the owner the system was near the end of its life, because those are your next replacement estimates.
Return the ad budgets to normal. Then look at what the week cost. With call tracking you can see which campaigns produced booked jobs and which calls went unanswered.