HVAC in Indianapolis, IN

Fewer $89 diagnostics. More full system replacements.

Ads kept filling the board with $89 diagnostic calls. Repair-or-replace posts in the local groups drew homeowners with old systems who wanted to talk about replacement.

Established HVAC and plumbing company, 30 staff. Told by Tom, general manager.

Leads from the groups: 174; over 10 months
Leads a month, once running: 20.3
Cost per lead: $57; was $96 from ads
Close rate: 45%; 79 jobs closed
Closed revenue: $214k; $9,970 spent
Return on spend: 21x; revenue ÷ fees

The business

Twelve service vans, a separate install crew and a two-person call center. Tom oversees sales and marketing. Replacement jobs make up most of their profit.

In business: 24 years
Average ticket: $2,600
Tracked: May 2025 to Feb 2026
Service area: Carmel, Fishers, Greenwood, Plainfield and Noblesville

Before

The ad reports looked healthy, but replacement sales hadn’t moved in two years. Most paid calls were small repairs and price checks.

Where leads came from: Google Ads; Google Local Services Ads; Radio in the fall
Google Ads and Local Services Ads: $12,000 a month
Typical cost per lead: $96

What we did

We got the owner into 189 local groups and posted about 20 times a week across them: tips, offers and finished jobs, with every comment and message answered the same day. A few of the groups:

Fishers Moms Connect
Carmel Indiana Neighbors
Greenwood Community Board
Noblesville Area Families

What worked for HVAC

“Repair or replace?” posts about 15 to 20 year old systems, with the rough math and a form to request a replacement quote.
Furnace start-up posts in October, before the first cold night.
Photos from finished installs, naming the suburb and the utility rebate that homeowner got on the new heat pump.

Results

Leads per month from group threads, May 2025 to Feb 2026

Leads per month, hvac in Indianapolis, IN
Month	Leads
May	5
Jun	11
Jul	16
Aug	20
Sep	17
Oct	19
Nov	24
Dec	23
Jan	18
Feb	21

September was mild and dipped to 17. The first hard freeze in November pushed the next two months above 20, and most replacement quotes came through the form on the repair-or-replace posts.

Google Ads and Local Services Ads compared with the groups: 40% less per lead
Measure	Before	With the groups
Monthly spend	$12,000	$997
Cost per lead	$96	$57
Leads that became jobs	31%	45%
Cost per closed job	$310	$126

Along the way

Week 3
All 189 groups joined across five suburbs.
Month 4
Three system replacements in one month traced back to a single Fishers post about heat pump rebates.
Month 7
Moved $4,000 a month out of Google Ads.

“The people who fill out that form have a twenty-year-old furnace and they’ve already done the math we posted. That’s the call we want, and we weren’t getting enough of them from ads.”

TomGeneral manager, HVAC in Indianapolis, IN

Is your trade still open where you work?

We take one HVAC company per city, with a 25-mile territory. $997 a month flat, no ad spend, and 15 leads a month by month four, or we work free until you get there.

Check if your city is open