Marketing problems HVAC companies face: data, causes and fixes

HVAC companies are paying more for every lead while homeowners have changed how they search, who they trust and what they expect before they call. Shipments of central air conditioners and heat pumps fell 20.0 percent in 2025 [3], the federal 25C heat pump credit ended for equipment placed in service after December 31, 2025 [14], consumer use of ChatGPT and similar tools for local recommendations went from 6 percent to 45 percent in a year [23], and Google is migrating Local Services Ads into Performance Max from August 2026 [32]. None of those is a tactic problem; they are structural.

This guide collects the public evidence on nine marketing problems, the cause of each and the fix we would apply. Every figure carries a numbered reference, Ahrefs data is labeled as a directional estimate, and nothing comes from client accounts. For the service rather than the evidence, see our HVAC marketing page.

By Mahfuz Alam and Emily Catan, One House Marketing. Last fact-checked October 29, 2026.

Key findings

• US shipments of central air conditioners and air-source heat pumps fell 20.0 percent in 2025, to 7,749,529 units [3].
• HVAC search ads cost an average $127.74 per lead for air conditioning and $129.02 for heating, against a $90.92 average for all home services [38].
• Use of generative AI tools for local business recommendations rose from 6 percent to 45 percent of consumers in a year [23].
• Only 37.9 percent of URLs cited in Google AI Overviews also appear in the first 10 blocks of the same page, down from about 76 percent [53].
• 47 percent of consumers will not use a business with fewer than 20 reviews, and 68 percent require at least four stars [23].
• Repairs were about 88 percent of HVAC jobs on the Housecall Pro platform in the quarter covered by its May 2026 report [24].
• BLS projects about 40,600 openings a year for HVACR mechanics and installers from 2025 to 2035 [1].

What is the state of the HVAC industry?

Indicator	Figure	Source
Central AC and heat pump shipments, 2025	7,749,529 units, down 20.0%	AHRI [3]
Same shipments, January to August 2026	6.39 million, up 6.2%	ACHR News [4]
Home improvement and repair spending, 2023	$609 billion	Harvard JCHS [5]
HVACR mechanics and installers, 2025	440,900 jobs; 11% growth to 2035	BLS [1]
Private equity HVAC deals, 2024	55, up 72%	PitchBook [7]
A2L share of distributor sales, September 2025	91%	HARDI [13]
Section 232 tariff, residential HVAC products	25% to 15%, June 8, 2026	ACHR News [22]
Section 25C heat pump credit	Ended after December 31, 2025	IRS [14]

Market and demand: shipments fell, then recovered

AHRI reports combined shipments of central air conditioners and air-source heat pumps fell 20.0 percent in 2025, against a 2024 base inflated by pre-buying ahead of the refrigerant change [3]; through August 2026 they were up 6.2 percent year to date [4]. Harvard JCHS puts home improvement and repair spending at $609 billion in 2023 [5], and BLS counts 440,900 HVACR mechanics and installers [1].

Consolidation: private equity keeps buying

PitchBook counted 55 private equity HVAC deals in 2024, up 72 percent [7], and the PHCC 2026 scan expects buyers to keep pursuing firms with recurring service revenue and scale [8]. Consolidators buy what lets them outspend you for leads and technicians, so your defensible advantages are the ones that cannot be bought quickly: a review profile, a maintenance base and a known name.

Refrigerant transition: A2L is now the market

Under EPA’s rule, residential AC and heat pump products using refrigerants with a GWP of 700 or more could not be made or imported after January 1, 2025 [9]. The original January 1, 2026 installation deadline for pre-2025 inventory [10] was removed in May 2026 after R-454B cylinder shortages [11]. The substitutes are R-454B and HFC-32, both A2L [12], and A2L equipment was 91 percent of distributor sales by September 2025 [13].

Incentives: the federal credits ended, rebates narrowed

The 25C credit is not allowed for property placed in service after December 31, 2025, so a heat pump installed in 2026 does not qualify even if sold in 2025 [14]; it had paid 30 percent of costs, up to $2,000 a year for heat pumps [15], and the 25D credit for geothermal ends on the same date [14]. DOE’s Program Notice 26-2, effective May 29, 2026, removed HEEHR rebates for fuel-switching [16], while DOE still lists up to $14,000 for HEEHR in select states [17].

Cost pressure: price letters, metals and tariffs

Lennox raised its 2025 cost inflation outlook to 9 percent from 3 percent, citing tariffs, per ACHR News [18]; Trane announced increases of up to 5 percent on April 1 and July 1, 2026 [19], and August 2026 price letters include up to 7 percent at Daikin, Goodman and Amana [20]. Copper wire and cable producer prices were up 27.2 percent year over year in August 2026 [21], offset partly by the Section 232 tariff cut to 15 percent on June 8, 2026 [22]. Rising tickets raise the bar for every lead you buy.

How do homeowners find and choose an HVAC company?

What homeowners do	Figure	Source
Found their HVAC contractor by word of mouth	67%	ACHR News [80]
Went back to a contractor used before	73%	ACHR News [80]
Use generative AI for local recommendations	45%, up from 6%	BrightLocal [23]
Used Google to read reviews	71%, down from 83%	BrightLocal [23]
Will not use a business with fewer than 20 reviews	47%	BrightLocal [23]
Prefer to book by phone	42% of Gen Z and millennials; 54% of Gen X and older	Tinuiti [36]
Calls answered by a person	52%	Invoca [37]
Deceived by a service provider	41%	Leaf Home [26]

Where they search: AI arrived, Google slipped, referrals held

In the BrightLocal Local Consumer Review Survey 2026, use of generative AI tools for local recommendations rose from 6 percent to 45 percent of consumers in a year, while the share using Google to read reviews fell from 83 percent to 71 percent [23]. HVAC-specific data still points to people: in a 2024 survey for ACHR News, 67 percent of homeowners found their contractor through word of mouth and 73 percent went back to one they had used before [80]. A homeowner who hears a name still checks it, now in an AI tool as well.

How many reviews: thresholds are rising

Consumers state minimums: 47 percent will not use a business with fewer than 20 reviews, 68 percent require at least four stars, and 74 percent look for reviews from the last three months [23]. These are stated preferences across all local businesses, but an HVAC profile below those lines fails the test most consumers say they apply [23].

Phone versus online: the phone still wins, if someone answers

Tinuiti found phone is the preferred booking method for 42 percent of Gen Z and millennials and 54 percent of Gen X and older [36]. The leak is on the receiving end: Invoca’s 2026 data shows 52 percent of home services calls answered by a person, with 38 percent of answered calls being leads [37].

What builds trust: a market that expects to be let down

In a Leaf Home survey fielded in November 2024, 41 percent of homeowners said a service provider had deceived them, and trust ran 61 percent for word of mouth against 14 percent for third-party platforms [26]. The BBB ranks home improvement the fifth riskiest scam type of 2025, with a $1,405 median loss [35]. Answer the trust question before the price question: license, insurance, named technicians and dated reviews belong above the fold.

Problem 1: why are HVAC lead costs rising and lead quality falling?

Channel	You pay for	Benchmark	Trade, source
Google Search Ads	Clicks	AC: $9.68 CPC, 6.56% conversion, $127.74 per lead. Heating: $9.30, 7.48%, $129.02	HVAC, LocaliQ [38]
Google Search Ads, all home services	Clicks	$90.92 per lead	LocaliQ [38]
Google Search Ads, per customer	Clicks	18.4% of leads became customers; about $333 each	Plumbing, Contractor Magazine [40]
Local Services Ads	Valid leads	About $57 per lead; roughly 44% booked; about $263 per paying customer	Plumbing, Contractor Magazine [40]
Shared-lead marketplaces	Each match; one request can yield multiple paid leads	4,775 thousand leads from 3,476 thousand requests, Q4 2025	All trades, Angi [45]
Google Business Profile	Nothing; no way to pay for ranking	Relevance, distance, prominence	Google [27]

Search ad benchmarks: HVAC pays more than the rest of home services

LocaliQ’s 2025 benchmarks, from 3,211 US home services campaigns, put air conditioning at $127.74 per lead and heating at $129.02 against a $90.92 all-home-services average, with cost per lead up for 69 percent of advertisers [38]. Its 2026 report says cost per lead fell across all industries, but it has no HVAC rows [39]. Google’s auction lets more relevant keywords and ads win a higher position at a lower price than a higher bidder [46], which is why our Google Ads management starts from relevance rather than budget.

Local Services Ads: the product changed under you

Local Services Ads charge per valid lead [49] and rank on bid, likelihood of a lead and profile quality [48]. Four changes landed in a year, tracked in Local Services Ads changed: a single Google Verified badge replaced the old badges and the Money Back Guarantee was discontinued, with reimbursement requests accepted only for services booked before December 7, 2025 [30]; lead credits became automated, with none for job type or geo not serviced [31]; from August 2026 US HVAC advertisers move into Performance Max with pay-per-lead goals [32]; and Google is retiring call ads, which stop serving in February 2027 [47]. Our Local Services Ads management now assumes the Performance Max version.

Shared-lead marketplaces: you are buying a match, not a customer

Angi states that one service request can result in multiple leads, reported 111 thousand active pros in Q4 2025, down 23 percent, and says lead fees are paid for matches whether or not the pro gets the job [45], the dynamic in Shared leads are a bidding war. The FTC’s 2023 order required HomeAdvisor to pay up to $7.2 million over deceptive lead marketing [41] and bars it from misrepresenting that leads concern people who intend to hire soon [42]; the FTC returned more than $3 million in 110,372 checks to pros [43].

Cost per booked job: the only number that compares channels

Contractor Magazine’s 2026 plumbing analysis found a Local Services Ads lead at about $57 with roughly 44 percent booked, for about $263 per paying customer, while search ads turned 18.4 percent of leads into customers at about $333 each on a $1,680 ticket [40]. The two figures come from different samples, so read them as a range for one trade rather than a head-to-head test, and note that a booked appointment and a paying customer are different steps.

Problem 2: what decides local search visibility for HVAC companies?

Query	US monthly volume (directional)	Local pack	AI Overview
ac repair near me	161,000	Yes	No
furnace repair near me	128,000	Yes	No
hvac near me	126,000	Yes	No
hvac repair near me	114,000	Yes	No
ac installation near me	41,000	No	Yes
ac tune up	22,000	Yes	No
ac not cooling	6,400	No	Yes
heat pump vs furnace	6,000	No	Yes
hvac maintenance plan	2,400	Yes	Yes
how much does a new hvac system cost	1,100	No	Yes
heat pump rebate	700	No	Yes

The queries with money in them are near-me queries, and every one shows a local pack and no AI Overview: “ac repair near me” at about 161,000 US searches a month and “furnace repair near me” at 128,000, both Ahrefs directional estimates [81]. The queries that trigger an AI Overview, such as “ac not cooling” at 6,400, have a fraction of the volume [81]. For an HVAC company, local visibility is mostly a question of who is in the local pack.

Google says local results are based mainly on relevance, distance and prominence, that more reviews and positive ratings can help, and that there is no way to pay for a better local ranking [27]. For service-area businesses, its guidelines require one profile per staffed location, a service area within about 2 hours of driving, and a name with no added keywords [28]. Whitespark’s 2026 survey of 47 experts found review and behavioral signals gaining importance, with primary category, proximity and keywords in the business title the top-scored factors [51]. Add the 47 percent of consumers who will not use a business with fewer than 20 reviews [23], and ranking input and conversion input are the same thing, which is what our local SEO service works on.

Problem 3: how do AI Overviews and zero-click results change HVAC searches?

Finding	Figure	Source
AI Overview cited URLs also in the first 10 blocks of the same page	37.9%, down from about 76%	Ahrefs [53]
Local-intent queries with an AI Overview	7.9%, versus 20.5% of all SERPs	Ahrefs [56]
Top-ranking page clickthrough with an AI Overview present	34.5% lower	Ahrefs [58]
Visits where the user clicked a traditional result	8% with an AI summary, 15% without	Pew [60]
US Google searches ending without a click	58.5% in 2024; 68.01% in January to April 2026, from a different panel	SparkToro [61], [62]
Correlation with AI Overview brand mentions	Web mentions 0.664; backlinks 0.218	Ahrefs [54]
Strongest correlation with AI visibility	YouTube mentions, about 0.737	Ahrefs [55]

AI Overviews take clicks from informational searches but mostly do not appear on the emergency searches that book HVAC jobs. Ahrefs found them on 20.5 percent of SERPs in September 2025 but on only 7.9 percent of local-intent queries versus 22.8 percent of non-local ones [56]. Where they appear, the top-ranking page’s clickthrough was 34.5 percent lower in Ahrefs’ correlational study of informational keywords on desktop [58], and Pew found users clicked a traditional result in 8 percent of visits with an AI summary versus 15 percent without [60]. SparkToro put US zero-click searches at 58.5 percent in 2024 [61] and 68.01 percent for January to April 2026, measured on a different panel [62]; a zero-click search that ends in a tap on a local pack phone number is still a lead, and neither study measures calls [61].

What gets cited has moved away from rankings: 76.1 percent of AI Overview citations ranked in the top 10 in July 2025 [52], against 37.9 percent by March 2026 [53]. Branded web mentions correlated with AI Overview brand mentions at 0.664 versus 0.218 for backlinks [54], and YouTube mentions correlated strongest across ChatGPT, AI Mode and AI Overviews at about 0.737 [55]. Google says no special requirements or schema are needed; a page must be indexed and eligible for a snippet [59]. With 45 percent of consumers now using AI tools for local recommendations [23], this matters beyond Google.

Who Google’s AI Overview actually cites for HVAC searches

Because the Ahrefs plan we use has no Brand Radar add-on, we took two single-day SERP snapshots, both directional [81]. For “hvac marketing” on October 6, 2026, the AI Overview cited agency pages from Scorpion, Blue Corona and Thrive, two YouTube videos and guides from Optsy, Simpro, GoHighLevel, BDR and PowerChord [81]. For “how much does a new hvac system cost” on October 19, 2026, it cited Carrier, Bryant, Trane, CBS News and three local contractors by domain: poormansheating.com in Fort Wayne, genzryan.com and hvacprecisionexperts.com [81]. Those contractors sit beside Carrier because they published a specific, priced answer; the mechanics are in Google AI Overviews are eating your clicks, and our AI search optimization service exists to get a contractor’s answers cited.

Problem 4: how do HVAC companies earn trust, reviews and reputation?

Reviews are regulated. In August 2024 the FTC finalized a rule banning fake reviews, including AI-generated ones, and prohibiting incentives conditioned on a review’s sentiment, undisclosed insider reviews and legal threats used to suppress negative reviews [33]. Google’s policy goes further: no incentive of any kind for a review, no discouraging negative reviews or selectively soliciting positive ones, and no pressuring customers on the premises [29]. That ends review gating and the “review for a tune-up discount” coupon [29].

What is allowed is asking everyone and answering everyone. In BrightLocal’s 2026 survey, 80 percent of consumers are likely to use a business that responds to all its reviews, 42 percent are unlikely to use one that never replies, 81 percent expect a reply within a week, and templated replies put off 50 percent [23]. The BBB logged more than 146,000 scam reports in 2025 [35] and Leaf Home found 41 percent of homeowners had been deceived by a provider [26], so proof that you are a real, licensed, insured company with named people answers a question the homeowner is already asking. The system is in Reviews are your cheapest marketing.

Problem 5: how do you market through HVAC seasonality?

Month	“ac repair near me”	“furnace repair near me”
October 2024	36,367	65,229
November 2024	27,874	74,352
December 2024	26,312	82,029
January 2025	39,057	118,665
February 2025	120,877	135,548
March 2025	148,856	126,810
April 2025	132,412	80,086
May 2025	142,503	65,452
June 2025	207,024	74,735
July 2025	236,197	137,729
August 2025	195,643	130,206
September 2025	165,794	157,044
October 2025	149,691	189,431
November 2025	108,773	160,691
December 2025	104,570	173,935
January 2026	113,318	193,536
February 2026	151,073	190,120
March 2026	147,949	132,586
April 2026	153,272	107,018
May 2026	185,991	69,968
June 2026	216,648	67,630
July 2026	233,766	77,719
August 2026	201,065	69,871
September 2026	162,978	103,635
Peak month, 2024	July: 173,364	January: 125,819
Peak month, 2023	July: 159,672	December: 82,389
Peak month, 2022	July: 165,736	December: 105,829

HVAC demand is two offset waves. In Ahrefs’ five-year history, “ac repair near me” peaked in July in every year from 2022 to 2026, while “furnace repair near me” peaked in December in 2022 and 2023, January in 2024 and October in 2025, each at its floor in the opposite season [81]. The waves are made of repairs: on the Housecall Pro platform, repairs were about 88 percent of HVAC jobs [24], and 41 percent of homeowners have postponed a repair that later cost more [25]. The shoulder months are when the maintenance plan and the replacement conversation have to be sold, the calendar in Slow season is not a season problem, carried by email marketing to existing customers the month before each wave.

Problem 6: how do you measure which channel books jobs?

KPI	Formula	Worked example (trade labeled)	Source
Cost per lead	Channel spend divided by leads	Local Services Ads about $57 (plumbing); search ads $127.74 for AC, $129.02 for heating (HVAC)	[40], [38]
Booking rate	Booked jobs divided by leads	Roughly 44% for Local Services Ads; 18.4% of search ad leads became customers (plumbing)	[40]
Cost per booked job	Spend divided by jobs booked, or cost per lead divided by booking rate	About $263 per paying customer from Local Services Ads versus about $333 from search ads (plumbing)	[40]
Average ticket	Revenue divided by completed jobs, by job type	HVAC repair $1,205 (Housecall Pro); HVAC install $17,040 (ServiceTitan); plumbing search ad customer $1,680	[66], [67], [40]
Revenue per lead	Booking rate multiplied by average ticket	Plumbing search ads: 18.4% multiplied by $1,680 is about $309 (computed)	[40]

Each channel reports its own number in its own interface, with no shared key between Google Ads conversions, Local Services Ads charged leads, Angi matches and CRM jobs. The Contractor Magazine plumbing analysis shows why that matters: Local Services Ads at about $263 per paying customer against search ads at about $333, a difference no platform would have reported [40]. The phone is the leak in the middle, with 52 percent of home services calls answered by a person [37], so a booking rate computed on unanswered leads measures your front desk. The fix is a shared key: every lead gets a source when it arrives and that source travels on the job record to the invoice, including follow-up revenue, since 47 percent of contractors with $10 million or more in revenue say unsold-estimate follow-up produces 11 to 15 percent of income [72]; the full argument is in Cost per lead is the wrong number.

Problem 7: why do HVAC websites fail to convert?

Google indexes and ranks the mobile version of your site [76], and Core Web Vitals are used by its ranking systems, with no single page experience signal [74]. The thresholds are a Largest Contentful Paint within 2.5 seconds, an Interaction to Next Paint under 200 milliseconds and a Cumulative Layout Shift under 0.1 [75], against a median mobile home page of 2.56 MB in the Web Almanac [77]. The often-quoted figure that 53 percent of mobile visitors leave after three seconds is Google data from 2016 and 2017, cited only to flag its age [78].

Conversion is the second failure. Unbounce’s 2024 benchmark gives home improvement landing pages a median conversion rate of 2.6 percent, where a conversion is a form fill or click, not a booked job [79]. With 64 percent of residential contractors relying on phone calls as their dominant channel [72], the phone number, not the form, is the primary conversion element and has to be tappable on every mobile screen. Here is the checklist behind our website design service.

• Phone number tappable in the mobile header, on a tracking number so the call is attributed to its source.
• Core Web Vitals measured on real mobile visits against 2.5 seconds, 200 milliseconds and 0.1 [75], heaviest images and scripts removed first.
• License, insurance and a named owner or technician visible without scrolling, because 41 percent of homeowners report having been deceived by a provider [26].
• Google reviews shown with dates, since 74 percent of consumers look for reviews from the last three months [23].
• One page per service and per staffed city, answering the cost and refrigerant questions homeowners ask, so it is eligible as an AI Overview source [59].
• Financing stated on install pages, because 62 percent of homeowners are more likely to proceed when it is offered [24].
• Domain, hosting and analytics owned in the company’s name, not the agency’s.

Problem 8: is the technician shortage a marketing problem?

It is, because the same company is competing for two audiences with one reputation. The BLS projects HVACR mechanic and installer employment to grow 11 percent from 2025 to 2035, with about 40,600 openings a year, many from replacing workers who leave or retire, and a median wage of $61,010 in May 2025 [1]. In the 2026 AGC and NCCER survey of construction firms, directional for HVAC, 87 percent had hourly craft openings [63] and 42 percent said new hires fail to show up or quit shortly after starting [64].

The retention numbers are the marketing numbers: 83 percent of firms reported turnover among new field employees in their first 90 days, and the leading reason was a mismatch between expectations and the reality of the job at 69 percent [65]. That is a messaging failure; the job post told a story the first month did not match. More than eight in ten firms raised base pay at least as much as the year before [63], so money alone is not closing the gap, which is why we treat hiring as marketing in Recruit techs the way you recruit customers.

Problem 9: how much is a customer worth over time?

Line	Input or arithmetic	Value	Source
A. Window	Illustrative assumption: 10 years, the age at which ENERGY STAR says to consider replacing a heat pump or AC	10 years	ENERGY STAR [68]
B. Maintenance plan price	Price charged by the largest group of contractors (44%) surveyed	$200 per year	ACHR News [69]
C. Maintenance revenue	B multiplied by A: $200 multiplied by 10, assuming annual renewal	$2,000	Computed
D. Repair ticket	Average repair revenue per job, 2025; assumes one repair in the window	$1,205	Housecall Pro [66]
E. Replacement invoice	National average installation invoice, 2025; assumes one replacement at the end of the window	$17,040	ServiceTitan [67]
F. Illustrative lifetime value	C plus D plus E: $2,000 plus $1,205 plus $17,040	$20,245	Computed

Hold the repair ticket and the install invoice side by side. On the Housecall Pro platform, average repair revenue per job rose from $818 in 2021 to $1,205 in 2025 [66]; on the ServiceTitan platform, the national average residential installation invoice was $17,040 in 2025 [67]. ENERGY STAR tells homeowners to consider replacement when a heat pump or AC is more than 10 years old [68], so this year’s repair customer is a later year’s replacement customer, if you are still the company they call.

The maintenance plan keeps you that company. In the Clear Seas Research survey for ACHR News, 72 percent of contractors offered agreements, with 8 percent charging $100 a year, 44 percent $200, 29 percent $300 and 19 percent $400 or more, while 87 percent of homeowners were willing to pay $100 or $200 [69], and a later survey found 57 percent expected to spend about $100 [70], so the gap is a packaging problem, not a demand problem. Owners know it: 53 percent prioritize retention against 31 percent focused on acquisition [71], and 73 percent of homeowners went back to a contractor they had used before [80]. Table 8 is a reminder that a budget spent only on the first contact prices the customer at one repair ticket.

HVAC-specific marketing problems

Heat pump rebates and incentives: what ended, what remains

From 2023 through 2025 the 25C credit was the easiest sales line in HVAC, at 30 percent of costs up to $2,000 a year for a heat pump [15]. It is not allowed for property placed in service after December 31, 2025, so any page or ad still mentioning it is a compliance problem [14], while “heat pump rebate” still draws about 700 US searches a month with an AI Overview, by Ahrefs’ directional estimate [81]. What remains is state-run and narrower: Program Notice 26-2 removed HEEHR rebates for fuel-switching from May 29, 2026, so a gas-to-heat-pump replacement no longer qualifies [16]. The opening is accuracy: a dated page explaining exactly what is available in your state is what homeowners and AI tools are both looking for.

Maintenance plans as recurring revenue

Private equity and strategic buyers are pursuing firms with recurring service revenue [8], and an independent owner can build the same asset: 87 percent of homeowners say they will pay $100 or $200 a year for an agreement [69], and “hvac maintenance plan” draws about 2,400 US searches a month with both a local pack and an AI Overview [81]. Most companies sell the plan once, after a repair, and never market it again. With repairs at about 88 percent of HVAC jobs on the Housecall Pro platform [24], the repair visit is the most common moment you have with a homeowner, and the plan belongs on the invoice, in the pre-season email and on the site as a priced page.

The refrigerant change is a conversation homeowners are already having

Homeowners collecting replacement quotes in 2026 hear about A2L refrigerants, R-454B shortages and leftover R-410A systems, often from a competitor. The facts are settled enough to publish: equipment above 700 GWP could not be made or imported after January 1, 2025 [9], the replacements are R-454B and HFC-32, both A2L [12], and in May 2026 EPA removed the installation deadline for pre-2025 R-410A inventory, calling it a potentially lower cost option for consumers [11]. That creates a real choice between a legal, cheaper R-410A system and a current A2L system, and a contractor page that explains it plainly is the kind of specific local content that got three contractors cited beside Carrier.

A 90-day action plan for HVAC marketing

Month	Owner	Task	KPI
Month 1	Owner and office manager	Call tracking per channel, a required source field on every CRM job, a monthly spend-to-invoice export; export Local Services Ads history before the migration	Share of jobs with a recorded source; cost per booked job by channel
Month 1	Owner	Audit the Google Business Profile against Google’s service-area rules [28]; start same-day review requests from the office, every review answered within a week	Profile compliant; local pack baseline; reviews per month
Month 2	Marketing lead	Remove every mention of the expired 25C credit; publish a dated state rebate page, a refrigerant choice page and a priced maintenance plan page	Pages live; monthly AI Overview and ChatGPT citation check logged
Month 2	Marketing lead	Measure mobile Core Web Vitals; cut page weight; make the header phone number a tracking number	Mobile visits passing Core Web Vitals; calls attributed to the site
Month 2	Owner	Rewrite the careers page to describe a real week, the pay structure and the schedule	Applications per month; new hires still employed at 90 days
Month 3	Owner and marketing lead	Compare cost per booked job by channel from Month 1 data and move budget off the worst channel by that measure; build the email calendar one season ahead of each wave in Table 6; listen to a sample of missed calls	Cost per booked job by channel; maintenance plan members; call answer rate

The order matters. Measurement comes first because every later decision depends on cost per booked job by channel, and because Google says Local Services Ads performance reports will not transition to Google Ads after the migration [32]. Profile and review work comes next because it is the cheapest visibility available and the one Google says cannot be bought [27]. Month three is the first point at which a budget decision can rest on your own evidence rather than the ad platforms’ numbers.

Methodology

Sources were gathered in October 2026 in three tiers: government and regulatory primary sources (BLS, EPA, IRS, DOE, FTC, Google’s own help pages); industry associations and filings (AHRI, HARDI, PitchBook, Angi’s SEC filings, Harvard JCHS, AGC and NCCER); and trade press and vendor research with a stated method and sample. Search volume and SERP data come from Ahrefs Keywords Explorer and SERP overview, US, exported October 29, 2026, labeled throughout as directional estimates [81]. Every figure was checked against its source on October 29, 2026 in a separate fact-check pass; figures that could not be confirmed were left out. No One House Marketing client data appears in this article.

Limitations

Several surveys cover all local businesses or all home services rather than HVAC: BrightLocal [23], Housecall Pro’s homeowner survey [25], Tinuiti [36], Invoca [37] and Leaf Home [26]. The Contractor Magazine cost-per-booked-job analysis is plumbing [40], and the AGC and NCCER data is from construction firms [64]. Ahrefs volumes are estimates with a baseline shift from early 2025 that makes cross-year comparisons directional, and the plan used has no Brand Radar, so AI citation evidence is single-day SERP snapshots plus Ahrefs’ published studies [81]. The Leaf Home survey was fielded in November 2024 [26], the ACHR News maintenance pricing survey dates from December 2023 [69], and the Think with Google speed figure is 2016 and 2017 data [78].

Frequently asked questions

Glossary

LSA (Local Services Ads). Google’s pay-per-lead ads for service businesses, charged per valid lead such as an answered call [49]; being migrated into Performance Max from August 2026 [32].

CPL (cost per lead). Channel spend divided by the leads it produced, whether or not they book. LocaliQ’s 2025 HVAC averages were $127.74 and $129.02 [38].

CPA (cost per acquisition). Spend divided by a defined action, which in HVAC should be a booked job rather than a form fill. Google is dropping industry-level target CPA bidding for Local Services Ads [32].

Cost per booked job. Channel spend divided by the jobs that channel booked, or cost per lead divided by booking rate; the only basis for comparing pay-per-click, pay-per-lead and shared-lead channels [40].

LTV (lifetime value). Revenue a customer produces across every job over the relationship. Table 8 builds an illustrative figure over the 10-year window at which ENERGY STAR says to consider replacement [68].

GBP (Google Business Profile). The listing that feeds the local pack, ranked mainly on relevance, distance and prominence, with no way to pay for a better position [27].

NAP (name, address, phone). Your identity fields across site, profile and directories. Google requires the profile name to match the real-world name, with no added keywords or locations [28].

SAB (service-area business). A business that serves customers at their location, which describes most HVAC companies. Google’s rules: one profile for the central office, address hidden, service area within about 2 hours of driving [28].

Core Web Vitals. Google’s page experience metrics: Largest Contentful Paint within 2.5 seconds, Interaction to Next Paint under 200 milliseconds, Cumulative Layout Shift under 0.1 [75].

A2L. The ASHRAE safety class of the lower-GWP refrigerants replacing R-410A. EPA lists R-454B at 470 GWP and HFC-32 at 675 GWP, both A2L [12].

AI Overview. Google’s generative summary at the top of some results, with source links. No special requirements or schema are needed; a page must be indexed and eligible for a snippet [59].

Performance Max. Google Ads’ automated campaign type with machine-set bids. Local Services Ads are moving into a Performance Max type with pay-per-lead goals from August 2026 [32].

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