Many contracting businesses don't know about this, and they really—REALLY should. Google first introduced this feature back in 2017, nearly a decade ago, after spending roughly two years testing and refining it. The rollout was a success, and today it has become one of the most powerful lead-generation channels available to small and medium-sized local service businesses. This one is especially relevant for local service professionals. Traditional Google Ads can be incredibly powerful, but they're also competitive. You need to write good ad copy, set up your campaigns correctly, monitor performance, optimize keywords, and continuously refine the account. On top of that, you're usually paying per click—not per lead. That means if your landing page isn't converting, you can easily spend a significant amount of money on clicks without generating many actual leads. And unfortunately, that's a reality many businesses experience. But what if I told you there's a way for small and medium-sized local businesses to bypass a lot of that complexity? What if you could appear at the very top of Google, pay for leads instead of clicks, and let Google handle much of the heavy lifting for you? Have a look at the picture attached. This is an example search I performed in Decatur, GA. Take a look at the top two results. You'll notice something interesting right away. These businesses aren't appearing through traditional Google Ads. They're showing through Google's Local Services Ads (LSA) platform, which sits above the regular search ads and organic results. This is what's called LSA (Local Services Ads). It's connected to your Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business), which you're probably already familiar with through Google Maps. LSAs are displayed in a way that allows searchers to either call the business directly or send a message with just a few clicks. One of the major advantages is that you don't need a dedicated landing page to generate leads.

In this article, I'm going to show you a real example I recently came across that demonstrates just how easily a Google Ads contractor campaign can become misconfigured and, more importantly, how those mistakes can be fixed. Have a look at the screen shot attached . Google Ads has been around for more than 20 years and is arguably one of the most advanced and robust marketing systems ever created. But that's not all. It's also one of the most documented, taught, and explained marketing platforms in existence. Because of that, what continues to surprise me time and time again is that despite the massive amount of educational material available— advertisers still make mistakes that cost them time, money, and potential customers. You can clearly see that my search term was: "Fix my roof now in Wyoming." The intent is clear, and although the location is statewide, it's still very specific. So you can probably already spot the obvious problem this advertiser has... What it's offering is "Roofing Services in South Dakota." Now, it's true that South Dakota is right next to Wyoming. But if I'm a homeowner searching for someone to fix my roof NOW in Wyoming, I sure as hell want to see a company that serves Wyoming. And even if this roofing contractor is capable of sending a crew into Wyoming quickly, someone searching in Wyoming should still see an ad that's relevant to Wyoming. An honest mistake? Maybe. But the reality is that the ad isn't matching the searcher's location, which can lead to fewer clicks and, even worse, people clicking the ad only to discover it's actually a company based in South Dakota. This creates friction, lowers trust, and ultimately hurts campaign performance. So how should they solve that? The answer is to be diligent with your Google Ads geo-targeting settings. Google provides a reporting section that shows exactly where your ads appeared and where your clicks came from. A savvy advertiser should review this report at least once a week and check whether the campaign is generating traffic from locations that are outside the intended service area.

Honest question for the group across all sectors — residential, commercial, industrial: How do you actually get your leads- p.s. yes this was written with the help of AI! I run a high-end residential Carpentry and aspiring GC outfit based out of North Vancouver (BC), and almost everything for us comes through referrals — past clients, GC’s, realtors, architects, the occasional sub who passes a name along. It works, but it’s unpredictable. Some weeks the phone won’t stop, then it goes quiet and there’s not much I can do to turn it back on. Curious what’s actually working for people. Not sure if there’s a voting function but, at least tell me the story behind it in the comments and we can dive deeper! What’s your #1 lead source? • Word of mouth / referrals • Repeat & commercial clients • Online (website, content, social) • Paid ads (Google, Meta) • Referral partnerships with trades/contractors • Other What I really want to know is whether your pipeline is steady or feast-or-famine like mine. If someone’s figured out the steady part, tell me how you did it. Cheers!

Business owners who rely heavily on traditional marketing methods or word of mouth eventually become interested in transitioning into digital marketing and Google Ads to create a more predictable flow of inbound leads. This is going to be a bit long but that's because I'm literally spilling out how this actually works. The problem is that many of them either decide to do it themselves, end up getting poor advice, or work with people who don’t really understand how Google Ads works beyond the basics. Yeah, I know it sounds a little far-fetched, but I’ve seen it happen time and time again, and that’s exactly where one of our partners was when they came to us. They were already an established home-flipping company in Michigan, generating solid revenue every year. But like many growing businesses, they wanted to build a system that could consistently generate inbound leads without relying entirely on referrals, outbound outreach, or constantly adding more staff. They knew Google Ads had potential, so they made what seemed like a smart move: They hired someone internally to manage the campaigns. Unfortunately, that’s where things started going sideways. The person they hired had very limited real-world Google Ads experience. For nearly a year, the account ran with poor targeting, weak keyword structure, no proper conversion tracking, and no clear optimization process. And worst of all, Google’s automated recommendations were being applied constantly without understanding the consequences. The campaigns started mixing Search and Display traffic together, which is a big No-No and often becomes a massive waste of budget flying under the owner's radar. The result? A glorified money burner. The company started getting flooded with low-quality leads, irrelevant locations, weak inquiries, and traffic that had little to no buying intent. ROI was non existent....... . Eventually, they shut the campaigns down entirely. Things started to turn around when they came across one of our posts about Google Ads audits and campaign troubleshooting.

AI is getting really good. Every day I’m blown away by what you can do in Claude. If you aren't getting good results from it, I believe you are most likely doing one of two things wrong: 1. Insufficient context 2. Poor direction Most people drastically underestimate how much background information you need to do a task well. Writing a scope of work? You need the drawings, project specifications, previous templates, package register and a list of previous variations from past projects. Then you need to define exactly how to do it. What goes into each section, how to populate the pricing schedule, systematically check that all head-contract requirements are transferred to the sub-contractor. Generic AI is generic. It doesn't know construction process, and it knows nothing about your business — your rates, your subbies, your contract positions, how you run a job. An AI Operating System solves this problem. This week, I'll cover what it is, the parts and how to build it. Check out ContractorOS. We have built most of this for you. Pre-built skills, the business brain structure and weekly calls to help you implement it. Purpose-built AI workflows you download and install. We run weekly workshops and offer unlimited one-on-one tech support to ensure you get the most out of AI. What an AI operating system actually is A system that lets you get genuinely useful work out of AI — not a chatbot you ask questions. Out of the box, AI has three limits: it's generic, it doesn't know the construction process, and it has none of your business background. The fix is two things: give it the right process (a workflow) and the right data (context). Fundamentally, an AI OS is data + workflows. Everything else is plumbing to serve those two. One mindset shift before the parts: use AI as a data transformation tool, not a coworker. It doesn't think like a senior estimator. It moves data you already have into the shape you need.