Two ways to get HVAC leads
HVAC lead generation means getting homeowners who need heating or cooling work to contact you. There are two ways to do it. You can buy leads from a lead company, or you can build the channels that bring leads to you directly.
| Buying leads | Your own leads |
|---|
| Who else gets the lead | Often several other contractors, at the same time | Only you |
| What you pay for | Each lead, whether it books or not | A click, a Local Services lead, or nothing at all |
| What you keep if you stop paying | Nothing | Your pages, reviews, and Google Business Profile keep working |
| What you learn | Very little about where the customer came from | Which searches and pages turn into booked jobs |
Bought leads can fill gaps for a new company or a new service area. But the HVAC companies that grow steadily build their own. Here is what that looked like for Bob Boldt HVAC in Eagan, Minnesota, from May to September 2026:
Ads: 139 jobs
Website + Google: 193
Every one of those jobs came from a lead that went to Bob Boldt HVAC alone. Figures from their ServiceTitan job records.
01
Win the map with your Google Business Profile
When someone searches "furnace repair near me", the map with three businesses usually shows up before the regular results. Those three get a large share of the calls, and showing up there costs nothing per click.
- Pick the right primary category (HVAC contractor, or Heating contractor) and add every service you offer.
- Set your service area to the cities you actually drive to.
- Post photos of your own trucks, crews, and installs. Not stock photos.
- Ask for a review after every job, every week. A steady flow of recent reviews beats a burst from two years ago.
- One profile per real location. Bob Boldt HVAC has two, Eagan and Burnsville.
Our review tool sends the ask automatically after each job.
02
Turn on Local Services Ads
Local Services Ads are the listings with the Google Screened badge at the very top of the search page. You pay per lead, like a lead company, with one big difference: the lead goes to you alone.
- Pass Google's background and license checks to get the badge.
- Answer fast. How quickly you respond affects how often you show up.
- Dispute leads that aren't real HVAC work, like wrong numbers or job seekers. Google can credit them back.
03
Run Google Ads that bid on booked jobs
Google Ads put you in front of people searching for repairs, replacements, and tune-ups, in the cities you choose. Most HVAC accounts are set up to get calls. Set yours up to get booked jobs: send every booked job back to Google with its dollar value, and let it bid on those.
139Booked jobs matched to an ad click
$220Ad spend per booked job
4.2xBooked revenue for every ad dollar
$900+Average job the ads booked
Bob Boldt HVAC, May to September 2026. The full account setup, keywords, and negative keyword list are in our HVAC Google Ads guide.
04
Build a page for every city and service
Your website should have a page for each service in each city you serve: "furnace repair in Burnsville", "AC installation in Apple Valley". Each one is another way for a homeowner to find you, and none of them cost anything per click.
- Write each page for that city. Neighborhoods you work in, the age of the homes, reviews from customers there. Swapping the city name on a template doesn't work.
- Put a tracked phone number and a short form at the top of every page.
- Publish seasonal pages before the season. "AC not cooling" pages need to be live in April, not July.
$419kBooked through the website and Google profile, no ad behind it
135New customers found that way
+33%Against the same five months of 2025
$3,880Average organic job that carried a ticket
That is Bob Boldt HVAC's organic side over the same five months. How we build it is on our SEO page.
05
Get leads from customers you already have
Your cheapest leads are people who already trust you. Most HVAC companies have years of past customers in their scheduling software and never contact them again.
- Sell maintenance plans on every service call. Plan members book their tune-ups and call you first when something breaks.
- Send seasonal reminders by email and text: furnace tune-ups in the fall, AC tune-ups in the spring.
- Flag old systems. A customer with a 15-year-old furnace is a replacement lead. Your techs already know who they are.
- Ask for referrals when a customer leaves a good review.
We set these up as email flows that run on their own.
06
Count booked jobs, not leads
A lead count tells you how busy the phone was. It doesn't tell you which channel made money. Grade every source on the same scorecard, including the ones you buy:
| Number | How to get it | Why it matters |
|---|
| Booked jobs by source | Tag every job in your scheduling software with where the lead came from | Shows which channels fill the schedule |
| Cost per booked job | What you spent on a channel ÷ jobs it booked | Compares bought leads, Local Services Ads, and Google Ads fairly |
| Revenue per job | Booked revenue ÷ jobs, by source | A cheap lead that only books tune-ups can cost more than it looks |
| New customers | Accounts created within 45 days of the job | Separates growth from repeat business |
When Bob Boldt HVAC started with us, their ads were costing about $737 per new customer against a $200 target, and nobody could see it, because the reports counted calls. We put these numbers in a live report for every client.
