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Case study · Google Search Ads · Septic services

From zero paid search to 63 booked calls

A septic services contractor with high-ticket jobs had built its business on referrals and had never run paid ads. We built and managed a Google Search campaign and turned it into a steady source of booked appointments.

Booked calls
63
Cost per booked call
$57.45
Click-through rate
8.42%
Cost per click
$8.01

452 clicks · 5,370 impressions · $3,619.55 ad spend · Nov 2025 – Jul 2026

Booked calls from paid search
0
At the start no paid search
63
Now Nov 2025 – Jul 2026

The account ran no paid search before this campaign — Google logged the change as an increase from zero.

Booked calls from paid search rose from 0 before the campaign to 63 during it, an increase of 63 from zero.

From search to booked call
  1. 5,370 Impressions
    People who saw the ad
  2. 452 Clicks
    8.42% click-through rate
  3. 63 Booked calls
    13.9% of clicks · $57.45 each

Of 5,370 impressions, 452 were clicks (an 8.42% click-through rate), and 63 of those clicks became booked calls — 13.9% of clicks, at $57.45 per booked call.

For a home-services business, cost per booked call — not cost per click — is the number that tells you whether a channel pays.

The situation

The company had grown on referrals and repeat customers, with no paid search presence at all. But the searches that matter most in septic — “septic service near me,” “septic tank pumping,” “septic installation” — are urgent and local, and whoever shows up first tends to get the call.

What we did

  • Built the account around a focused set of high-intent septic keywords — installation, pumping, and “near me” service searches — instead of paying for broad, low-value traffic.
  • Structured every ad for a phone-first audience: roughly nine in ten clicks and calls came from mobile, so the tap-to-call path had to be immediate.
  • Sculpted negative keywords continuously to keep spend off DIY, parts, and out-of-area queries, keeping the click-through rate high at 8.42%.
  • Counted a booked call as the only conversion that matters, so every optimization chased appointments rather than clicks — landing 63 booked calls at $57.45 each.

Figures from the client’s Google Ads account, Nov 13, 2025 – Jul 24, 2026, covering the single campaign under management. Client name withheld by agreement. A conversion is a booked call. Click-through rate and cost per booked call are as reported by Google Ads; cost per click is derived from account totals (spend ÷ clicks). One account in one market; not a projection of typical results.

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