Case study · Pest control
62 booked jobs in 10 weeks. The ads only cost $337 - because the ads weren't doing most of the work.
That's the account. Every number below comes off that screen.
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June 20 - August 28, 2026
Read this before the numbers
His average job is $158. Yours is $300-500.
This ran in Europe, where a click costs about 95 cents. In US pest control it's $8-9 - so don't expect his cost per lead. That number doesn't travel and I won't pretend it does.
What travels is the structure. And the structure pays better here: same system, three times the ticket - and a quarterly contract is worth multiples of a single job.
One of these you can compare to your own account directly. The rest you can't.
| His market | Your market (US) | |
|---|---|---|
| Click-through rate | 10.66% | This one travels. 3-5% is typical on Search. |
| Cost per click | $0.95 | $8-9 |
| Cost per tracked lead | $4.68 | Roughly 10x his |
| Average job value | $158 | $300-500 |
June 20 - August 28, 2026
The story
A one-man pest control operator serving a cluster of towns. Every job he got came from word of mouth or a repeat customer, which meant no pipeline, and when someone in his area searched for help he simply wasn't there. In this trade the customer is urgent. A wasp nest appears, they search on their phone, and they call whoever shows up first and looks trustworthy.
I built the search visibility first - Google Business Profile, local rankings - then layered a tightly geo-fenced Search campaign across 8 towns on top of it, with the negative keyword list built before launch rather than after the money was gone.
The page came out of real customer research. Every review mined, real buyers interviewed, and the page built around the objections they actually raised: hidden fees, whether he'd even show up, pesticide safety around kids and pets.
The ads were the smallest piece.
31 conversions came through paid search at about $11 each. The rest came through Google search and Maps. Customers who click an ad still tell you they found you "on Google," so paid and organic blur together in any intake log. That's exactly why every lead gets source-tagged the moment it comes in, and why referral and repeat work is left out of these numbers entirely.
Of that $9,797, $4,686 came from the eight towns the ads actually reached. $5,111 came from towns where no ad ever ran - that's the Business Profile and the organic work, not the ad account. Ads alone: $4,686 on $337.
Layer 1 - What the ads did
From the Google Ads account
- 3,340 impressions · 356 clicks · 10.66% click-through rate
- $337 spend · $0.95 average cost per click
- 31 conversions · $10.87 per tracked conversion · 8.71% conversion rate
Google counted 31. The job log below counts 72, because it also captures the calls that came in through Maps and organic search.
Layer 2 - What the whole system did
From the client's job log
| Source | Leads | Jobs | Revenue |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google search | 53 | 44 | $6,920 |
| Google Maps | 15 | 14 | $2,194 |
| Form | 4 | 4 | $683 |
| Total attributed | 72 | 62 | $9,797 |
| Referral / repeat (excluded) | 21 | 21 | $2,635 |
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The obvious question
"Maybe it was just a good wasp season."
Fair. I asked him for his own invoice counts from previous years. June 21 to August 5 is the only stretch I have all three years for, so that's the comparison:
- 2024 - 34 jobs
- 2025 - 25 jobs
- 2026 - 54 jobs
All his jobs each year, not only the ones through me. That's 59% more than 2024. He told me 2025 was a weak wasp year across the trade, so 2024 is the honest comparison and it's the one I'm using.
His entire 2024 season - May through October, six months - was 84 jobs and $10,159. By August 28 this year he was at 83 jobs and $12,432, with September still to run.
“I already have far more work than I did last year.”
Recorded in Hungarian. English voiceover added.
What's different here
Two things. Both of them are on this page.
Google counted 31. His job log counted 62 paid jobs.
Both numbers are printed above, because they disagree. Plenty of those wasp calls came off Maps and the ad account never saw them. Every agency reports the platform number and calls that revenue tracking. I put the platform number next to your invoice book, and when the two don't match I tell you which one to trust.
The objections on his page came from his customers, not from me.
Hidden fees. Whether he'd actually show up. Pesticide around kids and pets. I got those from reading every review he had and talking to people who had already paid him, then the page answered them in that order. Knowing the pest industry is not the same as knowing what the woman with the nest above her back door is afraid of.
Contact
Let's look at your numbers.
Tell me your city and the service you want more of. I'll search what your customers are actually typing, see who's showing up above you and what their ads say, look at what happens when someone lands on your page, and send back what I'd change, in what order, and what it would take.
You'll know from the breakdown whether I'd be any good at this before you've spent anything or booked a call. If you'd rather take the list and hand it to whoever runs your ads now, do that instead.