A Google Ads agency that writes down the prediction first.
Most tint shop ad accounts cannot tell a real lead from a tap on the phone number, so nobody knows which campaign pays. Most ad management is unfalsifiable. Something changes, the numbers move, and the agency explains afterward why that was the plan. We log the hypothesis and the expected result before touching the account, then grade ourselves against it in writing, including the times we were wrong.
Google Ads for window tint shops
At Tint Guy LLC, a Ceramic Pro Elite shop in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, cost per real form lead fell from $31.77 to $13.32 in three months on the same budget, and calls plus forms came to about $8.50 a lead. The first fix was counting: eight phone-call conversions had been switched on at once.
Most agencies get paid more when you spend more.
The standard pricing model in this industry is a percentage of ad spend, usually 10 to 20 percent. Sit with what that means. Your agency’s income rises when your budget rises, whether or not the extra money produced anything. When they recommend increasing spend, they are recommending a raise for themselves.
Nobody says this out loud because everybody does it. It does not make those agencies dishonest, and plenty of good ones work this way. But it is a real conflict sitting inside the most common arrangement in the category, and you deserve to know it exists before you sign.
Our pricing is published on this site as flat monthly figures, and you can read all of it without speaking to anybody. Whatever you decide about us, ask any agency you are considering how they are compensated and whether their fee rises with your budget. The answer tells you a lot.
Lead prices roughly doubled in four years.
From a paid media vendor’s own campaign data across 3,211 US home services campaigns:
| Trade | Median cost per lead | 4-year change |
|---|---|---|
| Roofing | $228 | +125% |
| Plumbing | $129 | +164% |
| Heating | $129 | +107% |
| Air conditioning | $128 | +132% |
| Landscaping | $118 | +207% |
| Electrical | $94 |
Two honest conclusions follow. First, Google Ads still works, because a $128 lead against a multi-thousand-dollar job is good arithmetic. Second, it works less well every year, and any plan that treats paid as the permanent whole strategy is planning to pay more forever for the same result.
That is why we generally run ads alongside local SEO rather than instead of it. Ads buy you this month. Ranking compounds and you keep it.
The discipline, written down.
This is our actual internal process, not a sales description of one.
Hypothesis before the change
Every structural change logs what we expect to happen at 72 hours and 30 days, with a specific measurable prediction, before the change is made.
FalsifiableCited sources, no invented numbers
Any predicted improvement cites where the number comes from. No “expect a 15 to 25 percent lift” pulled out of the air, which is the standard currency of this industry.
No folkloreGraded afterward, including losses
At 72 hours and 30 days each decision gets marked right, partial, wrong or inconclusive. You see the wrong ones.
On the recordA stop rule
If we get the same category of change wrong twice on your account, that lever is off limits until we have new evidence. It stops the thrash that burns budgets.
Rare, and it mattersThis exists because we did it badly once. A week in June 2026 we changed budgets, geo and bid strategy on five to seven days of data with no auction insights and no written predictions. Two of four structural changes were wrong and had to be reverted. The rules above are the direct result.
Things we will tell you that cost us money.
You may not need ads at all. If you are already at capacity, and most local service owners are closer to full than empty, more leads is not your problem. What happens when the phone rings usually is.
Your budget may be too small to work. Below a certain daily spend, Google cannot gather enough conversion data to optimize and you spend the whole month in learning. We would rather tell you that than take a management fee to run a campaign that cannot succeed.
Your landing page is usually the problem, not the ads. We found this on our own funnel: 460 landing page views produced 4 leads, under one percent, while the ads were performing fine. Doubling ad spend would have doubled the waste. We fixed the page instead.
Some trades are bad fits for paid search. If your average ticket is a few hundred dollars and clicks cost $10, the arithmetic does not work no matter who manages it.
A tight campaign can change that math. For one automotive window tint shop we took cost per lead from $31.77 to $13.32 in three months on the same budget. The case study shows the numbers, and our window tint marketing page covers which tint jobs are worth advertising.
What owners ask about Google Ads.
How much should I spend on Google Ads?
Work backward from a job, not from a percentage of revenue. Take your average ticket, your close rate on paid leads, and what a customer is worth over time. That gives you the most you can pay for a lead and still profit.
Then check it against the benchmark for your trade above. If the math is tight before you have paid anybody to manage it, paid search may not be your channel right now.
How is the agency paid, and does it change what they recommend?
Ask this of anybody you are considering. The industry standard is 10 to 20 percent of ad spend, which means their income rises when your budget rises, whether or not the extra money worked.
Our prices are published as flat monthly figures on the pricing page, so you can see exactly what an engagement costs before any conversation.
How fast will I see results?
Ads deliver traffic immediately and useful data within a couple of weeks. Meaningful optimization takes 30 to 90 days because the algorithm needs conversion volume to learn from.
The main way people waste money is changing things every few days. Each change restarts learning, so a campaign that never settles never optimizes.
Should I run Google Ads or Local Services Ads?
Often both, and for many trades Local Services Ads should come first. They sit above everything else, you pay per lead rather than per click, and the Google Guaranteed badge carries real weight with nervous homeowners.
Standard Google Ads gives more control and reaches searches LSAs do not cover.
Who owns the account?
You do, always. We work inside your account rather than running you through an agency-owned one. If you leave you keep the account, the history and the conversion data, which is the part that actually took time to build.
Agencies that keep the account keep your data. Ask anyone you are considering this question directly.
What does management cost?
All pricing is published, including what is included at each level. Look without talking to anybody.
Start with where you actually stand.
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