Many HVAC companies struggle to run successful ad campaigns that attract new customers and retain existing ones, especially when their day-to-day focus is on delivering great HVAC services.
At ServiceTitan, we’ve helped thousands of HVAC businesses grow using our contractor business software, which gives you tools to implement and manage your HVAC advertising and marketing and, importantly, track the ROI of every campaign.
In this guide, we’ll share 15 tips to help you create consistent, effective HVAC ad campaigns and marketing strategies that generate leads, drive repeat business, and boost profitability.
We’ll also explain how ServiceTitan helps you automate direct mail and hyper-targeted email campaigns, easily manage your online reviews, and track and optimize your ad campaigns all from one place. (You can skip straight to the ServiceTitan section here.)
15 Effective HVAC Ad Campaigns & Marketing Strategies (with Examples)
Schedule a free demo to learn how ServiceTitan can help your HVAC business manage your advertising and marketing campaigns and generate more revenue.
1. Optimize Your HVAC Website to Attract New Customers
Include the services you offer, testimonials, and contact information.
Make your HVAC website mobile-friendly.
Ensure your website is secure, fast, and provides a great user experience.
90% of consumers use the internet to find local businesses, so every HVAC business needs an online presence if they want to grow. You don’t need an ultra-sophisticated website, but you should cover these basics:
Good Website Design & Content
Your website should let potential customers know what specific HVAC services you offer. It should include credibility-boosting information such as customer testimonials or certifications you or your company holds. It should also list your service area.
Most visitors form an immediate opinion of a website. It should be user-friendly, provide easy access to contact information and be visually appealing to potential HVAC customers.
Make Your Website Mobile-Friendly
Your website needs to be mobile-friendly, as many customers search for HVAC services keywords on their phone, and won’t recommend a business with a poorly designed mobile site.
Compared to a desktop version, a mobile-friendly site should be uncluttered, without too many images or excessive text blocks, and have a responsive, dynamic design that adapts to any screen size.
Make Sure Your HVAC Website is Secure & Fast
Ensure your website uses HTTPS, not HTTP.
HTTPS is a security standard that protects against data breaches and hackers. It's essential to have a secure site, especially if your website collects personal information from customers.
Site speed should be a high priority because 40% of people will leave your site and go to another one if yours doesn’t load in under three seconds.
2. Create Quality Content to Increase SEO
Quality content creates a bond and helps build trust with customers.
Optimize your content for SEO so potential customers can find it.
Nearly three out of four companies report that their lead numbers and quality of leads went up after they implemented a content marketing strategy.
Anything written about your company — from your HVAC services and pricing to the people behind the work and their everyday stories — is valuable to your business.
Use blog posts, seasonal tips, or other educational information to provide new, quality content on your web pages.
Source: Arctic Air blog homepage
One of the most powerful ways to generate more leads is to appear in Google when potential customers search for HVAC services online. This is known as search engine optimization (SEO).
To create a successful SEO strategy, you need to include top keywords (like “HVAC repair” or “fix air conditioner”) on your website landing pages, social media posts, digital advertising, and all your online content.
To attract local customers in your specific service area, you should also include your city or neighborhood, for example, “New York HVAC companies” or “HVAC Services Chicago” (as we cover below).
When your potential customers search for these terms, Google’s algorithm finds the most relevant results by topic and geographical location and displays them in the results.
On the advertising side, Google reserves a few of the top results as paid ad results. You get listed here by paying for Google Ads (more on this later).
Read our full guide on HVAC SEO.
4. Geo-Target Local Businesses & Service Areas
Customers look for businesses that are close to where they live.
Ads should be specific in describing what part of a town your company services.
In the commercial and home services trades, geographic location is critical for attracting HVAC clients. If a homeowner or business is looking for a repair service, they’re much more likely to call on an HVAC company within a 3-mile radius, rather than one that’s farther away.
Your digital advertising campaigns should target local SEO keywords based on specific locations — the city where your company is based, as well as the county, town, or neighborhoods that are nearest to your business.
Your competitors are also attempting to get business within your area, so be crystal clear and drill down into the location keywords you use. If you don’t, customers are likely to skip over your ad if they see a competitor’s ad that has the location they’re looking for.
5. Utilize Online Review Sites
A huge majority of potential customers read review sites.
There are positive and negative ways to encourage reviews by customers.
Research local review sites in your area.
Consider lead generation sites.
Source: Anderson Plumbing Heating & Air
Nearly nine out of 10 customers say they look at review sites. This indicates they are a customer ready to spend money on a service.
Most sites discourage businesses from incentivizing reviews from customers, for example, by offering discounts. It can be awkward to ask for a review, but you can be creative about how you do this. Let customers know reviews are important to your business, and promote your presence on review sites in your ads.
Everyone knows about Yelp.com, but there are almost always local review sites in your area, too. A great way to find these is to do a Google search with the terms “HVAC in [your city]” and see what sites pop up. It’s also worth considering online directories like HomeAdvisor (powered by Angi) and Thumbtack. Some small businesses use these for lead generation, although it’s not clear how effective these lead-buying services are.
6. Leverage Yelp Ads
Use Yelp to display positive review snippets.
Switch ads on when your business needs a boost.
Once you receive several 5-star online reviews, make sure potential customers see them by advertising on Yelp. Yelp ads show your company information and snippets of positive reviews when a customer searches for HVAC services in your area. These ads appear at the top of the local search results, giving your company premium real estate and brand awareness.
Yelp ads use a PPC (pay-per-click) model, so you only pay for users showing true intent. You can even set a per-day budget. Overall, Yelp ads are simple to set up and manage, and there’s no cancellation fee. Simply turn them on when you hit the slow months, and turn them off when your books fill up.
7. Invest In PPC & Google Local Services Ads
Paid search ads on Google and elsewhere work well for HVAC companies.
Google has an algorithm that determines how ads rank in their search engine.
Google Local Services Ads are a cost-effective method of attracting leads.
The top part of a search results page includes the Google Local Services ads. If you qualify for the Google Guarantee, you are eligible to buy these ads, which can be the first thing consumers see when they search for an HVAC company in their area.
Unlike other types of Google PPC ads where you pay per click, with Google Local Services Ads, you only pay for actual leads — people who contact you through Google by message or phone. It’s worth testing both, but LSAs can be a more cost-effective way to attract HVAC leads.
Some factors that will affect how an HVAC services ad ranks include: your company’s proximity to a searcher, your company’s Google My Business profile and number of reviews, your responsiveness, and even your hours of business.
Focus on Google when it comes to online HVAC advertising, says ServiceTitan user Tommy Mello. He advises spending at least half of your marketing dollars on SEO, PPC digital ads, Google My Business, Google Local Services, and getting more positive customer reviews.
8. Use Unique Phone Numbers to Track Leads
Unique phone numbers for each ad campaign allow tracking.
Domain extensions, coupon codes, and unique offers work, too.
This inexpensive tactic provides immediate feedback.
Call and lead tracking is an effective marketing tool that can be implemented through dedicated call-tracking phone numbers (local area codes), internet domain extensions, coupon codes, unique offers, and more. All of your marketing should utilize tracking to make sure you are reaching the right target audience.
Call tracking numbers or codes are cheap and allow you to immediately know which form of advertising is bringing in real leads. Be sure to use them.
9. Network Locally & Leverage Direct Mail
Look for new construction projects that might be a fit.
Connect with homeowners associations to establish yourself.
Network with your peers for ideas and business leads.
Utilize direct mail campaigns to attract business.
Knowing who your potential customers are — and where to find them — is half the battle when you’re trying to grow your HVAC business. Reach out to contractors and architects in your service area. Get to know the facility managers by going to events they regularly attend.
What have they liked or disliked about HVAC technicians they’ve worked with in the past? Even if facility managers don’t currently have a business opportunity, you can make an impression on them so they remember you when they do have HVAC needs.
Is your company most focused on home repairs and maintenance? If so, look to meet and stay in touch with homeowners associations.
Network with other HVAC business owners. Join the local chapter of a professional organization. Having a good relationship with a competitor could lead to a referral when they have too much business.
Another way of contacting potential customers more directly is through direct mail campaigns that capture customers’ attention with catchy advertising slogans or unusual HVAC company names.
Postcards and flyers delivered to commercial premises and homeowners in your area are still a proven way of bringing in leads and starting relationships with potential customers who keep hold of your details for future reference.
10. Retain Existing Customers with Smart Email Marketing
Send a short text or email as a follow-up to personalize the experience.
Offer a free yearly checkup to retain customers.
Send relevant emails to the right customers.
It’s common knowledge that it costs more to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one. It’s easy to do an HVAC job and take the attitude of “call us when you need us” or to send blanket marketing emails to all your customers that may not be relevant to them.
But you can adopt a smarter approach by sending contextually relevant, personalized emails to the right customers based on their situation.
After you complete an HVAC repair, maintenance, or installation job, check in with your customers. Send them a follow-up email or text. Ask them if everything is running smoothly, or if they have any questions.
Another way to create a happy customer for life is to offer a free, yearly checkup to repeat customers. It’s a sign of goodwill. It also allows you to screen for other maintenance work that the customer might need but not yet know about.
Pro tip: Always include a call to action (CTA) with clear instructions about what you want customers to do next, for example, “Call us today to book your annual service.” And don’t forget to include an unsubscribe button on every email so customers can opt-out if they don’t want to hear from you.
11. Launch Seasonal Ad Campaigns
Advertise seasonal HVAC services
Plan campaigns for the slow season
HVAC is a seasonal business with air conditioner tune-ups in the spring and furnace inspections in the fall. And, of course, repairs increase in the heat of summer and cold winter months.
Advertise seasonal services across digital and mainstream channels (such as email and direct mail) to capture more customers and make the most of the industry’s seasonality.
Likewise, the HVAC industry sees dips in calls during the spring and fall. Year-round service plans work well to keep business running at a steady level all year, so focus on this in your HVAC advertising message to attract business during quiet times.
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12. Track & Quantify Your HVAC Advertising Results
Know which of your advertising strategies are working.
Accurately categorize leads.
Never guess about effectiveness.
Whatever HVAC marketing strategy you adopt, remember to track and quantify your success. This valuable information will inform your future HVAC marketing plan.
Chris Yano, CEO of Ryno Strategic Solutions and co-host of “To the Point” podcast, says that if you have a marketing agency, you should insist they do this for you. Decisions on how your business spends marketing money depend on lead tracking and reporting.
That includes fairly defining HVAC leads, classifying every call correctly, accurately reporting your cost per lead, and charging you for only those that are “real.”
“I get sick of hearing, ‘my cost per lead is $28,’” Yano says. “Is it like a contact form that is submitted or a call that’s submitted, regardless of whether it was a new customer or a repeat customer? That’s not how we determine a lead.”
"Whatever you do, never guess", Yano says.
“I need to know from search to sale how we’re doing if I’m going to truly know how my team is doing,” Yano says. “This is what you should expect from your agency. It will allow you to make very good decisions. You need facts down to the dollar.”
13. Ensure Your Company Branding Stands Out
Know your brand, and emphasize it in the logo.
Pick colors and fonts carefully.
Keep your logo simple, so you don’t confuse the message.
Source: Western Heating and Air
An HVAC service company’s logo and branding must be on point. The best logos establish a rapport with customers. A poorly designed logo can turn off potential clients.
Knowing the culture and your services will help inform what your logo should be. Logo colors send subliminal messages. For example, red sends the message of a brand being aggressive and energetic. Blue evokes feelings of intelligence. Bright colors grab people’s attention.
Keep your logo simple with one or two colors and a limited number of fonts. A simple logo is more memorable than one overloaded with messages. Complex logos can be confusing and forgettable.
Although a logo is important and a big part of your brand, Dan Antonelli, President and Creative Director of Kickcharge Creative, says it’s so much more.
From your van wraps to employee uniforms, branding defines how your company is perceived to the world. According to Antonelli, “branding is how people feel about your company, what they say about your company behind your back.”
14. Follow Best Practices for HVAC Advertisement Design
The best HVAC ads will stand out from the crowd.
Make your ad visual to make it memorable.
Convey only one message per ad campaign.
To get a potential customer to hire you for HVAC services, your ads need to catch your target audience’s attention and keep your HVAC company name top of mind.
The primary means of catching the eye with an ad is with pictures and images. Visual storytelling is the best way for people to easily grasp concepts and data. Use too many images and the story gets confusing. The best ads feature one strong, easy-to-understand image.
While you’re designing an ad that contains a primary image, use the same approach with the ad copy that goes with your image. Some HVAC marketers think there are more benefits to including all the services they offer in ads. Nope. A jumbled message doesn’t attract attention; it repels it. Less is more.
15. Implement First-Class HVAC Contractor Software
Trying to manage advertising and marketing for your commercial and home services business using multiple apps, websites, and software tools is needlessly complicated, time-consuming, and potentially error-prone.
Implementing first-class HVAC contractor software that helps you execute and manage your advertising and marketing campaigns (and integrates with the rest of your business operations) makes tasks easier, quicker, and more effective.
Manage & Track Your HVAC Advertising Effectively with ServiceTitan
Knowing which of your ad campaigns are working is essential if you want to be successful with your HVAC ads and marketing strategy.
Not all ads will be profitable. The businesses that succeed are the ones that track and measure conversion rates by campaign, location, and advertising channel. This allows them to cut what isn’t working and double down on what is — minimizing wasted ad spend.
ServiceTitan’s HVAC software helps you run your ad campaigns professionally and efficiently by giving you the tools to execute, track, and measure your marketing activities all from one place so you don’t waste money on digital marketing strategies that don’t work.
Here’s how.
Geo-Target and Track ROI in Specific Locations
If you have operations in multiple locations, with ServiceTitan’s Marketing Pro you can use location-specific targeting to create separate ad campaigns for each location.
The ServiceTitan heat map gives you the information you need to decide the geographical areas where you should focus your advertising. The bigger the circle on the heatmap, the more revenue your business is generating in that area.
Drawing on contact information from current leads from within the software, HVAC contractors can use ServiceTitan to set up new ad campaigns that focus specifically on the most profitable areas and give you the best return on investment.
Let Customers Book Appointments Online via Google Local Services Ads
ServiceTitan integrates with Google Local Services Ads, allowing homeowners to book appointments directly with your company.
This direct booking option enhances the customer experience and boosts conversion rates, as customers are more likely to schedule an appointment when it’s convenient for them.
Our Google Ads integration syncs with your job availability and all your capacity planning parameters, so there’s no chance of double booking, booking jobs that you can’t deal with, or assigning HVAC techs without the right skills for the job.
As with all ad campaigns, our software provides business owners with ROI metrics on every Google Local Services Ads campaign so you can track what’s working and what’s not.
Read more about HVAC Google Ads.
Use ServiceTitan’s Unique Trackable Phone Numbers
We’ve discussed the importance of being able to track specific marketing activities so you can measure the performance of individual ad campaigns.
With ServiceTitan, you can create and assign a unique phone number to each of your ads. When that number is used to book new jobs, ServiceTitan's system tracks the revenue generated by that specific ad. You can view the revenue brought in by each of your ad campaigns in real-time, drill down into the details of your advertising performance, and make quick decisions about where to invest.
For additional features, ServiceTitan Phones Pro automatically reviews and flags unbooked calls, which may be saved with a quick follow-up call and provides metrics on how your customer service reps are performing so they can improve their call-handling skills.
Easily Create Direct Mail Campaigns
With ServiceTitan you can automate direct mail campaigns to current customers and prospects.
Choose from our library of postcard templates, adjust the text, and then print and mail your postcards to your chosen audience in just a few minutes. Direct mail campaigns have a set fee per postcard, so you only pay for the number that you send.
Our software lets you build target audience lists based on your existing customer data — such as unsold estimates or aging equipment — to target the right customers at the right time. You can also filter by geographical location for new prospects.
The best direct mail campaigns coincide with seasonality to offer targeted offers, like furnace tuneups in the fall. But direct mail can also be used for customer acquisition, a tactic that’s proved fruitful for Griffin Brothers Companies, a parent company to several home service businesses.
Griffin Brothers Marketing Director Ann Collias has been using ServiceTitan’s property data to target the right homeowners and demographics.
“We're not just doing a blanket over an entire neighborhood,” Collias says. “We can say we want houses that are between $300 and $500K to receive this direct mail. Or we want houses that are 30 years old and might need a new HVAC system. It allows us to be a little bit more strategic in that sense of who we're sending it to.”
ServiceTitan tracks the performance of every postcard campaign so you can see exactly which ones are driving revenue.
Optimize Existing Customers with Hyper-Targeted Email Marketing
Segmenting your customers and sending the right emails to the right customers is easy with ServiceTitan’s Marketing Pro. With our software, you can reach existing customers and generate more opportunities with automated, hyper-targeted email marketing campaigns and track true ROI all from one place.
Our email marketing features allow you to filter for specific audiences based on customer information you already have in ServiceTitan — such as unsold estimates or maintenance agreements that are about to expire. This information automatically updates in real-time, so you can set your email campaigns once, and emails will be automatically sent out whenever a customer meets the criteria to receive them.
We have a selection of email templates and automations to make your emails feel professional, eye-catching, and timely. These hyper-targeted campaigns will truly resonate with your customers, making it more likely that they will open the email, read it, and call you to book an appointment. The more targeted your audiences and campaigns are, the bigger ROI you can expect.
As with direct mail, ServiceTitan lets you track the ROI for each email or other marketing campaign.
HVAC Advertising Example: How a ServiceTitan Email Campaign Brought In an Extra $4,000 in One Week
Previous A/C customers remembered Jupiter-Tequesta Air Conditioning, Plumbing & Electric when the company sent email marketing using ServiceTitan’s Marketing Pro.
The company’s one-time, “We Miss You!” email marketing message triggered a flood of leads.
“After one week, the revenue on that one email brought in about $4,000,” says Bill Highsmith, the company’s Process & Procedure Manager.
Learn more HVAC email marketing tips.
Automate and Manage Online Reviews
We’ve established that positive online reviews are critical for attracting customers in addition to running effective ad campaigns.
To help you maximize your online reviews, ServiceTitan automatically sends survey requests after each job has been completed. This makes it easy for customers to share their experience on an online review site (Google, Yelp, etc.) while it’s still top-of-mind.
When an HVAC technician completes a job, that triggers an automatic email to the customer, requesting a review that provides an easy-to-follow link that sends them directly to where you want them to leave the review.
In addition, ServiceTitan’s Marketing Pro also offers a reputation management tool that lets you manage and respond to reviews from multiple websites, all in one easy-to-use dashboard. It also provides insights into which technicians or jobs relate to which reviews.
Track ROI to Optimize Your Advertising Budget
Many marketing tools allow you to track the number of incoming calls your HVAC ads have generated — but fail to let you know which calls actually result in income for your business.
With ServiceTitan, you can track key metrics and monitor performance from any source. You can then boost spending on campaigns with higher returns, and drop channels with poor performance.
Our marketing scorecards show you leads, bookings, sales, and revenue in just a few clicks. It can break down business whether it comes from Yelp, local media, Google, the ServiceTitan web scheduler, or a postcard campaign.
Marketing Pro presents detailed marketing figures in a single interface. It can tell you within a few clicks how many calls were received as a result of a specific marketing or advertising campaign.
"What Marketing Pro has allowed us to do is know what’s working and what’s not working, and if something is not working, I can cut it and keep our budget tight," says Vanessa Gonzalez, co-founder and co-owner of Albuquerque Plumbing, Heating & Cooling.
“To say that this has saved me hours upon hours of work, and weeks of extra work, is an understatement,” Gonzales said.
Try ServiceTitan to Execute & Manage Your HVAC Ad Campaigns
Using top-notch software like ServiceTitan to automate and manage your HVAC advertising and track ROI will help you get the most out of your ad campaigns and the rest of your marketing efforts, too.
ServiceTitan helps you easily manage your Google reviews, automate direct mail campaigns, lower your cost-per-lead with targeted email marketing, and more. Our software also helps you improve your overall business performance with powerful, fully integrated features that facilitate:
Dynamic data reporting
Mobile app for technicians
And more
Schedule a free demo to learn how ServiceTitan can help your HVAC business generate more revenue through marketing and advertising.
ServiceTitan HVAC Software
ServiceTitan is a comprehensive HVAC business software solution built specifically to help service companies streamline their operations, boost revenue, and achieve growth. Our award-winning, cloud-based platform is trusted by more than 100,000+ contractors across the country.
