Most home service companies think they need more leads. But as you approach $5M, the real problems are often attribution, capacity, booking rates, sales, and fulfillment.

Jack Carr and Sam Preston break down where home service marketing starts to break as a company grows, why cost per lead can be misleading, and how to track marketing all the way to actual revenue.

They also cover Google Ads and Performance Max, AI search, review velocity, and why the next era of home service marketing could extend well beyond Google.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
In This Episode
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
• What breaks in marketing around $5M
• Tracking leads all the way to revenue
• Why cost per lead can be misleading
• Using phone numbers and campaigns for attribution
• Matching marketing spend to technician capacity
• Why booking rate is one of the biggest missed opportunities
• When a “lead problem” is actually a sales problem

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Sponsors
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Big Reputation

Get more from your Google Business Profile with Big Reputation. Automate reviews, improve local visibility, and turn more Google searches into inbound calls. Learn more: https://www.bigreputation.ai/oao?utm_source=oao&utm_medium=paid

Service Scalers

Get more high quality leads with marketing built for home service companies. Book a free strategy call with Service Scalers and see what's driving real jobs: https://os.servicescalers.com/go/oao_podcast/referral/podcast

Avoca

See how Avoca helps home service companies book more jobs with AI that handles calls, texts, follow ups, and dispatching without adding more chaos.
Book a demo: https://www.avoca.ai/partners/oao

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Connect
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Jack Carr
https://x.com/thehvacjack

Sam Preston

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-preston-a682103b6/

Send Us Mail!

More Ways To Connect with OAO

• Start Here
• Owned and Operated Newsletter
• Bonus Videos From John

Leave a Review

John Wilson, CEO of Wilson Companies
Jack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC

📌 Disclaimer: Some links may include UTM parameters or affiliate relationships, meaning we may earn a commission if you make a purchase. Episodes may feature sponsors, but all opinions expressed are our own.

AI search is changing how homeowners find HVAC, plumbing, and home service companies.

John Wilson sits down with Julie Phan of Big Reputation to break down how ChatGPT and other AI platforms decide which contractors to recommend and what home service owners can do to show up more often.

They cover why your Google Business Profile, reviews, website, service pages, local listings, and overall digital footprint are becoming increasingly important as search moves beyond Google.

John and Julie also walk through how AI evaluates things like location, service type, reputation, availability, and customer feedback, plus how operators can test their own AI visibility and start building an advantage before the space gets more competitive.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
In This Episode
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
• How AI search is changing home services
• How ChatGPT chooses which contractors to recommend
• Why reviews matter for AI visibility
• Google Business Profile and AI search
• Building a stronger digital footprint
• Service and location pages that give AI more context
• How to track your visibility in AI search
• Why smaller contractors may have an advantage
• How to start optimizing for AI search today

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Sponsors
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Profit & Grit

Running a $3M–$15M home service business? Profit & Grit helps contractors improve cash flow, pricing, forecasting, and profitability with guidance from an operator who's built and sold a $25M service business. Book your free 20-minute strategy call: https://www.profitandgrit.com

Catalyst | May 3–5 | Akron, Ohio

100+ home service owners and operators. Three days of tactical sessions, real conversations, and learning from great operators.

Grab your seat: https://www.ownedandoperated.com/catalyst

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Connect
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

John Wilson
https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/

Julie Phan/Big Reputation

https://www.bigreputation.ai/

Send Us Mail!

More Ways To Connect with OAO

• Start Here
• Owned and Operated Newsletter
• Bonus Videos From John

Leave a Review

John Wilson, CEO of Wilson Companies
Jack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC

📌 Disclaimer: Some links may include UTM parameters or affiliate relationships, meaning we may earn a commission if you make a purchase. Episodes may feature sponsors, but all opinions expressed are our own.

What’s working in home service marketing in 2026?

John Wilson and Sam Preston break down Meta Ads, Google Ads, LSAs, speed to lead, call centers, and how contractors can find their next growth channel.

They cover why marketing channels eventually level off, the rise of Meta Ads, Google’s shift toward AI and Performance Max, and why your call center is a critical part of your marketing engine.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
IN THIS EPISODE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
• What’s working in home service marketing in 2026
• Why marketing channels eventually level off
• Meta Ads for HVAC, plumbing, and home services
• Why speed to lead matters
• Turning low-intent leads into booked jobs
• Why your call center is part of marketing
• Google Ads, LSA, and Performance Max
• Testing new marketing channels faster
• Growing through new markets and services
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
SPONSOR
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Catalyst | May 3–5 | Akron, Ohio

100+ home service owners and operators. Three days of tactical sessions, real conversations, and learning from great operators.

Grab your seat: https://www.ownedandoperated.com/catalyst

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
CONNECT
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
John Wilson
https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/

Sam Preston
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-preston-a682103b6/

Send Us Mail!

More Ways To Connect with OAO

• Start Here
• Owned and Operated Newsletter
• Bonus Videos From John

Leave a Review

John Wilson, CEO of Wilson Companies
Jack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC

📌 Disclaimer: Some links may include UTM parameters or affiliate relationships, meaning we may earn a commission if you make a purchase. Episodes may feature sponsors, but all opinions expressed are our own.