Sample layout. Not a real client.
Trade, city: the problem in one line
- Starting point
- Rank grid before any change
- What changed
- The one or two changes that moved it
- Result
- Rank grid after, and the change in calls
Plumbing lead generation without shared leads.
A shared lead is a homeowner's request sold to you and to other plumbers at the same moment. I work on the sources where the caller dialed your company only, and I measure what each source costs per booked job.
No long contracts. You talk to Simon.
Map pack: drain cleaning La Mesa
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- 17 years in SEO
- Engineering degrees
- 85% of clients in San Diego County
- No long contracts
What shared leads cost a plumbing company
- The same homeowner hears from several plumbers at once
- You pay per lead, not per booked job
- Nobody tracks which source produced the booked jobs
How I replace shared plumbing leads
Scientific SEO
- 1 Measure I tally booked jobs and calls for each source: marketplace, ads, map pack, website.
- 2 Change one thing I make one change to a source you own, such as a drain cleaning page.
- 3 Measure again I tally again about two weeks later, source by source.
- 4 Keep what works You bring marketplace spend down only where your own calls have replaced it.
What the work covers
- Call tracking by lead source
- Map pack rankings by city
- Pages for each plumbing job
- Ads where the lead is yours
- Cost per booked job by source
- A paced exit from marketplaces
Where a plumbing company's own calls come from
Plumbing lead generation without shared leads means the caller found your company directly, through your Google Business Profile, your website or your own ads, and nobody else was sold the same job. It’s slower to build than buying leads, and the number of calls it brings can’t be promised in advance.
Many lead marketplaces send one homeowner’s request to several companies. In plumbing the request is often urgent, so the job tends to go to whoever calls back first, and a homeowner with a flooded bathroom may take several calls within minutes. Your office has to drop what it’s doing to compete for a job it has already paid to hear about.
For planned work the effect is different. The homeowner collects a quote from every company that received the lead, and the comparison turns to price.
Rented calls and owned calls
Sort the sources by who else receives the lead, and by what happens when you stop paying.
| Source | Who else gets the lead | If you stop paying |
|---|---|---|
| Lead marketplace | Often several companies | Leads stop |
| Local Services Ads (LSA) | Nobody. Each lead goes to one business | Leads stop |
| Search ads | Nobody. The click lands on your page | Clicks stop |
| Map pack and your website | Nobody. The customer called you | Calls continue while rankings hold |
Paid ads are still rented, but the lead is yours alone, which makes Google Ads and Local Services Ads a reasonable bridge.
Where owned plumbing calls come from
Emergencies tend to arrive through the map pack, and inquiries for planned work through pages on your site. A person with no hot water searches, sees a few plumbers on the map and calls one. Being among them in the cities you serve is map pack ranking, and it depends on your profile, your reviews and how far the searcher is from your base. A person planning a water heater replacement or a repipe reads first. They reach you through a page about that job, and they get in touch already knowing how you work.
Owning the lead doesn’t mean owning the job
You still have to answer an owned call and win the job. A call from your profile at 9pm that goes unanswered is as wasted as any purchased lead. A repipe customer who found you directly may still get two other quotes. You paid no fee for the introduction, though, and the reviews and pages that brought that customer are still there for the next one.
I start by counting booked jobs by source, which takes call tracking and a note from your office on what each call became. That puts cost per booked job for the marketplace, the ads and the map pack side by side. If the numbers show the marketplace is still your cheapest source of booked jobs, keep it.
Otherwise I work on one owned source at a time and measure again about two weeks after each change. You bring marketplace spend down in steps, and only where your own calls have replaced it. The pace varies with the city and the competition, for the same reasons that decide how long local SEO takes.
What a result looks like
Every engagement starts and ends with the same measurement.
Plumbing lead generation across San Diego County
Should I cancel my lead marketplace account now?
I'd wait. If those leads are filling trucks today, cutting them before anything has replaced them leaves a gap. First I'd measure what a booked job costs from each source. Then, as calls from your own profile, pages or ads grow, reduce the marketplace spend in steps and watch whether total booked jobs hold. If the marketplace turns out to be your cheapest source, keep it.
How many calls will SEO bring my plumbing company?
I can't give you a number before measuring, because any call volume quoted at that point is a guess. It depends on where you're based, how many plumbers compete in each city, your reviews and how your phones are answered. I measure where you rank now, change one thing, and show you what happened to rankings and calls.
Are Local Services Ads leads shared with other plumbers?
No. Each Local Services Ads (LSA) lead goes to one business, unlike a marketplace request sent to several. You still pay per lead, and the leads stop when the budget does, so I count them as rented.
Do owned leads work for big jobs like repipes, or only for emergencies?
They work for both, in different ways. An emergency caller who found you in the map pack often calls one plumber and books. A homeowner planning a repipe or a sewer line replacement will probably get several quotes even after finding you directly, so owning the lead doesn't remove the competition. It does mean you paid no fee for the introduction, the customer chose to contact you, and the reviews and pages that brought that customer are still there for the next one.
Find out what each plumbing lead source really costs you.
Start with where your leads come from today. From there I measure what your own profile and pages are contributing.
- A rank grid showing where you appear, and where you don't
- The technical and Google Business Profile issues that matter most
- What I'd change first, in plain English
Prefer to talk? Call (619) 675-7678, 9am to 6pm.