The complete 2026 HVAC marketing playbook — seasonality, maintenance plan growth, emergency capture, LSA, co-op funds, AI search. Built for $1M–$10M shops.

Most HVAC marketing fails for one reason: it's built for summer.

The phone rings nonstop from May to September. Crews work twelve-hour days. Owners stop thinking about marketing because they have more demand than they can service. Then October hits, demand drops 40%, and suddenly nobody knows what to spend money on. So they cut paid budget, stop posting, ignore the maintenance plan funnel — and by February they're scrambling, calling old leads, hoping for a polar vortex.

The companies that build $5M–$15M HVAC businesses don't run their marketing this way. They build a year-round system. Summer feeds replacement revenue. Shoulder season feeds the maintenance base. Maintenance base feeds emergency response volume. Emergency response feeds future replacements. The wheel turns whether it's 102°F or 28°F outside.

This is the full playbook. The same system we'd build for an HVAC company owner who wants to stop running their marketing like the weather forecast and start running it like infrastructure.

It works for $1M shops and $10M shops. The dial settings change. The system doesn't.

Want to see the gap version first? Read our HVAC marketing teardown — a real $4M shop torn apart end to end. Or, if you'd rather grade your own setup in 3 minutes, use the Marketing Health Score.

1. The Foundation

Before you spend a dollar, three decisions. Get them wrong and the rest of the playbook gets harder and more expensive.

Define your market

There are at least four distinct businesses inside the word "HVAC" and they don't share playbooks:

Residential service and repair. Mid-frequency, mid-ticket. Pulls into replacement and maintenance plan upsells. Lead source mix: GBP, LSA, organic, emergency search.
Residential replacement. High-ticket ($8K–$15K), low-frequency per customer. Long-cycle. Comfort-advisor-driven. Lead source mix: SEO, GBP, referrals, paid search, manufacturer co-op.
Indoor air quality and add-ons. Smaller standalone category, big as an upsell layer on replacements ($1,500–$5,000 add-on).
Commercial / light commercial. Long cycles, RFP-driven, relationship-heavy. Different content strategy entirely.

Pick one as your primary. Pick a second as supporting. A $2M shop trying to win all four ends up winning none.

Set your budget

Across HVAC in 2026:

5–6% of gross revenue — maintenance mode. You defend, you don't grow.
8–12% of gross revenue — growth mode. Where most $1–$5M HVAC shops should sit.
12–15% — aggressive growth. Spend higher in peak demand months and pull back in shoulder season.

A $4M residential HVAC company in growth mode should expect a $320K–$480K annual marketing budget. And here's the part most owners miss: a meaningful chunk of that budget should be funded by manufacturer co-op dollars you're already leaving on the table (more in section 4).

Channel stack and build order

Build in this order. Don't skip 1 to chase 4.

Foundation — website + GBP + tracking
Reputation engine — review velocity (HVAC volume makes this fast)
Local SEO + city pages — 90–180 day payoff
Paid search + LSA + co-op layers
Content, social, retargeting, GEO — moat-building, longest-term

2. The Website System

Your HVAC website is not a brochure. It's the engine that converts every paid click, every Google Maps view, and every emergency call into either a service call or a system replacement consult. Treat it like infrastructure.

Performance baselines

Three numbers, non-negotiable:

LCP under 2.5 seconds on mobile 4G
CLS under 0.1
INP under 200ms

For HVAC, mobile speed matters even more than most trades. About 65% of inbound HVAC traffic comes from mobile, and a large chunk of that mobile traffic is high-intent emergency search at the worst possible moment — 9pm in July with a dead AC. Every second above 2.5s LCP costs you bookings. The biggest LCP killer is almost always the hero image; convert to WebP, add a responsive srcset, lazy-load below the fold.

Above the fold

Phone number, tappable, in header — visible on mobile without a menu tap
Sticky "Call Now" CTA bar on mobile scroll
24/7 emergency call-out in the hero — this is the most valuable line of real estate on an HVAC site
Hero headline that names a city, a service, and a differentiator ("Plano AC Repair — Lennox Premier Dealer, Same-Day Service")
Financing offer named — "$0 down, 0% for 18 months on system replacement"
Dealer badge (Lennox Premier Dealer, Trane Comfort Specialist, Carrier Factory Authorized Dealer, etc.) — these earn trust and they're earned, so flaunt them
Aggregate review count and star rating — "4.8★ from 612 Google reviews"

Below the fold, in order

Service blocks — AC Repair, AC Installation, Heating Repair, Heating Installation, Maintenance Plan, Indoor Air Quality, Ductwork, Commercial. Each clickable.
Maintenance plan promotion — prominent, with specific savings math ("Members save an average of $340/year on tune-ups and repairs"). This is the most under-promoted page on most HVAC sites.
Online booking widget — connected to ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro, or FieldEdge. Let homeowners book a service slot at 11pm Sunday from your homepage without ever talking to a human.
Real photos — your trucks, your techs, real installs in your service area. Not stock.
Brand block — the equipment lines you install (Lennox, Trane, Carrier, etc.) with logos. This signals quality and pulls in brand-specific searches.
Service area map or city list with each city linking to its own page.
Insurance and financing block — major financing partners (Wells Fargo, Synchrony, Microf, Service Finance Co.).
Reviews carousel — live-pulled from Google.
Founder or owner photo + short story — 200 words in the owner's voice.
FAQ section — 6–10 questions marked up with FAQPage schema.
Final CTA + form — name, phone, address, service. Four fields max.

Integrations that matter

CRM: ServiceTitan (enterprise), FieldEdge (HVAC-native mid-market), Housecall Pro (smaller shops), Sera, or BuildOps (commercial). Pick one. Use it consistently.
Online booking: All major HVAC CRMs have embeddable schedulers. The single highest-ROI website change most HVAC shops can make is connecting one.
Call tracking: CallRail or CRM-native. Every number on the site tracked by source.
Live chat or chatbot: Live chat from a real human (during business hours) often pays for itself in a single converted emergency call.
System-age lookup tool: A simple form asking for address that returns "your system is likely [age] based on permit data" — works well as a lead magnet for the replacement funnel.

Conversion rate benchmarks

For an HVAC site doing things right:

Total visitor-to-lead conversion: 5–10%
Paid landing page conversion: 12–22%
City page conversion: 6–12%
Online booking widget conversion (of users who open it): 25–40%

3. Local SEO Domination

Local SEO is the single most compounding investment an HVAC owner can make. Build it right and you generate leads in year three for free that paid search would cost $300 each.

Google Business Profile — the HVAC checklist

Most HVAC GBPs are set up at 30% completeness. Push yours to 95%+.

Primary category: "HVAC contractor"
Secondary categories (add 5–7): "Air conditioning contractor," "Air conditioning repair service," "Heating contractor," "Furnace repair service," "Air duct cleaning service," "Air filter supplier," "HVAC system supplier." Each opens distinct search query types.
Services list: 25+ entries. Each one specific with description and price-from where possible ($89 diagnostic, $299 AC tune-up, etc.). Google uses this list to match the listing to long-tail queries.
Products tab: populated with equipment lines you install (Lennox, Trane, Carrier, Goodman, etc.) with photos and price-from
Service area defined by ZIP or city list — match your actual coverage
Booking link: connected to your scheduler
Messaging: ON, with a real SLA — under 5-minute auto-acknowledgement, under 30-minute human response during business hours. For HVAC, slow messaging is the same as no messaging.
Photos: 75+ minimum. One new photo per completed job, posted weekly. Geotag to the project ZIP.
Posts: weekly minimum. Mix seasonal tips, completed-job photos, financing offers, maintenance plan promotions.
Q&A: seed the top 10 questions you get on every call with owner-provided answers. Monitor weekly.
Reviews: see section 5.

Review velocity targets (HVAC volume changes the math)

An HVAC company runs 6–10x more customer touches per year than a roofer. Reviews should scale accordingly.

Minimum: 15 new Google reviews per month
Healthy: 30–50/month
Top-quartile: 60+/month during peak season

A $4M HVAC shop running 60+ service calls a week should be generating 15–25 reviews a week. If yours isn't, the gap is automation, not customer satisfaction.

Citation building

Standard list, plus HVAC-specific:

BBB (claimed, A+, completed)
Angi, HomeAdvisor, Thumbtack
Yelp (claimed; powers Apple Maps)
Nextdoor (verified, monthly Local Deal)
Houzz
Manufacturer locators: Lennox Premier Dealer locator, Trane Comfort Specialist directory, Carrier Factory Authorized Dealer finder, Bryant Factory Authorized Dealer, Goodman/Amana, Rheem Pro Partner directory
NATE-certified contractor directory
ACCA (Air Conditioning Contractors of America) directory
Local chamber of commerce

NAP consistency across all citations. Inconsistent NAP is one of the most common quiet local SEO bugs.

City pages and service-by-service pages

For HVAC, you need both:

City pages — 15–25, one per city you serve, 1,000–1,500 words each, with a unique testimonial, a job-site photo from that ZIP, and the local detail that matters (e.g., common system sizes for typical home age in that area, ductwork conditions in older construction).
Service pages — one each for AC Repair, AC Replacement, Heating Repair, Heating Replacement, Ductwork, Mini-Split / Ductless, Heat Pump, Indoor Air Quality, Commercial HVAC, Maintenance Plan.
Cross-multiplication — for top revenue services, build city × service pages too ("AC Repair in Plano," "AC Replacement in Frisco"). 10 cities × 4 services = 40 pages. Sounds like a lot. Compounds for years.

Schema markup essentials

LocalBusiness on the homepage — NAP, openingHours (mark 24/7 emergency if you offer it), areaServed, priceRange, aggregateRating
Service on each service page
Product on equipment brand pages
FAQPage on homepage, service pages, city pages
Review for displayed individual reviews
BreadcrumbList on every page deeper than the homepage

The seasonal SEO play

This is what most HVAC SEO misses. Build landing pages that are seasonally tuned:

"Spring AC Tune-Up" landing page — active March–June, hibernated July–February
"Fall Heating Tune-Up" landing page — active September–December
"Emergency AC Repair" landing page — always on, bid-boosted May–September
"Emergency Furnace Repair" landing page — always on, bid-boosted December–February

These tunable pages let you flex search visibility into the demand curve without rebuilding pages every season.

4. Paid Lead Engines

Paid is where you buy the leads SEO doesn't yet generate. Get the structure right and paid becomes the most predictable channel you have — and HVAC paid economics include a hidden funding source most owners ignore.

Google Ads structure for HVAC

Most HVAC owners run one giant "HVAC" campaign with everything jammed into it. That's why their Quality Scores are awful and their CPCs are inflated.

Campaign structure for a residential HVAC company:

Brand campaign — your company name and variants. $300–$1,000/month. Defensive, very high ROAS.
AC Repair campaign — always on, ramps May–September. By city ad group.
AC Replacement campaign — always on, higher-ticket creative, financing-led.
Heating Repair campaign — always on, ramps October–February.
Heating Replacement campaign — always on, financing-led.
Maintenance Plan / Tune-Up campaign — seasonal flexing. Spring AC tune-up ad sets active March–June; fall heating tune-up active September–December.
Indoor Air Quality campaign — moderate always-on, with allergy-season boost in spring and fall.
Commercial campaign — separate keywords, separate landing pages, separate KPIs.

Budget allocation by market

Small market: $2,000–$4,000/mo across all campaigns
Mid-market (DFW suburbs, mid-size Texas metros): $6,000–$12,000/mo
Highly competitive (urban Dallas, Houston, Austin): $12,000–$30,000/mo

Emergency keyword strategy

Emergency intent is the most valuable HVAC traffic. Bid accordingly:

Mobile bid adjustment: +40–50% on emergency keywords
After-hours bid adjustment: +25% on "AC repair near me" type keywords from 5pm–11pm
Day-of-week adjustment: +20% on Friday–Sunday for emergency keywords during peak season

Pair the bid strategy with a dedicated "Emergency AC Repair" landing page that has a click-to-call hero, a 24/7 dispatch graphic, and absolutely no friction. Average ticket on emergency repair traffic runs 30–50% higher than non-emergency because urgency removes price sensitivity.

Mandatory ad extensions

Without these you pay full freight for half the visibility:

Call extensions
Location extensions
Sitelink extensions (4–6 links — Maintenance Plan, Financing, About, Emergency)
Promotion extensions ($89 tune-up, free service call with repair, financing)
Structured snippet extensions (services, brands, certifications)
Image extensions (truck, install, tech)

Landing pages — the rule

Never send paid traffic to your homepage. Every campaign needs a dedicated landing page built for that specific search intent. For HVAC, 2–4x conversion lift over homepage is typical when done right. Combined with proper extensions, this usually halves your cost per booked job.

Local Services Ads (LSA)

If you're not enrolled in Google LSA with the Google Guaranteed badge, fix it this week.

HVAC LSA economics in DFW (2026): $8–$30 per lead. Versus Google Ads at $25–$65 per click with 10–18% click-to-call rate, that's a $150–$650 cost per actual lead.

LSAs also occupy the top three Maps slots above traditional organic, dominating visibility on mobile emergency searches. Verification takes 2–4 weeks (background checks, license, insurance). Start now.

Manufacturer co-op funds — the hidden budget

This is the section most HVAC owners haven't run the math on. If you're a dealer-tier contractor with Lennox, Trane, Carrier, Bryant, or Daikin, you have access to co-op marketing funds — a percentage of your equipment purchase volume that the manufacturer will reimburse you for marketing spend.

Typical rates:

Lennox Premier Dealer: ~2% co-op rebate on equipment
Trane Comfort Specialist: ~2–3% co-op
Carrier Factory Authorized: ~2–4% co-op + national TV co-fund
Bryant Factory Authorized: similar to Carrier
Goodman / Daikin: ~2%

For a $4M HVAC company purchasing $1.6M in equipment annually, that's $32K–$48K/year in marketing co-op funds available to claim. Most independent HVAC owners use 20–40% of what's available — the rest evaporates at year-end.

Eligible spend usually includes: branded creative featuring the manufacturer logo, branded landing pages, branded direct mail, branded TV/radio, branded digital display, branded vehicle wraps. Talk to your equipment distributor's marketing rep. Make a quarterly co-op plan. Stop leaving money on the table.

Meta and YouTube layers

Meta retargeting: $500–$2,000/mo. Audience: anyone who visited the site in 90 days, anyone who watched a YouTube video. Creative: educational + financing offer + maintenance plan promo for non-converters.
Meta prospecting: $1,000–$4,000/mo. Audience: lookalikes of past customers, recent movers (recent movers convert exceptionally well for HVAC because they're inheriting a system they don't know the history of), homeowners with high-LTV income markers.
YouTube: $500–$2,500/mo. Six-second bumpers on local inventory + 30-second educational content. "Why your AC is short-cycling" or "Heat pump vs. AC in Texas" content drives measurable lift in branded search.

Budget allocation example

For a $400K annual marketing budget on a residential HVAC company:

35% — Google Search Ads (~$140K/yr, flexed seasonally)
22% — Local Services Ads (~$88K/yr)
15% — Meta retargeting + prospecting (~$60K/yr)
8% — YouTube + display retargeting (~$32K/yr)
20% — SEO, content, GBP, automation, tools, photo/video production (~$80K/yr)

Of that total, $30K–$50K should come from manufacturer co-op reimbursement, effectively reducing your out-of-pocket spend by 8–12%.

5. The Reputation Engine

For HVAC, reviews aren't a marketing tactic. They're infrastructure. Service-call frequency means review opportunities pile up faster than in almost any home services trade — which means the gap between the HVAC company that reviews well and the one that doesn't widens fast.

Tools

Podium (~$300+/mo) — strongest for HVAC because of the webchat-to-text feature that captures after-hours emergency traffic.
Birdeye (similar pricing) — broader feature set, stronger reporting.
NiceJob (~$75–$100/mo) — best for shops under $3M.
CRM-native — ServiceTitan Marketing Pro, FieldEdge reviews, Housecall Pro reviews. Often cleanest if you already run one of these.

The flow

Job marked complete in CRM (service call, install, tune-up — all of them)
60–90 minutes later, automated text fires to the customer's mobile with a one-click Google review link
4–5 star clicks go directly to your Google profile
1–3 star clicks route to a private feedback form first (recovery before public)
Owner gets notified of every review; responds personally within 24 hours

HVAC velocity targets

Minimum: 15 new Google reviews/month
Healthy: 30–50/month
Peak season (summer in Texas, winter up north): 60+/month

Once you cross 500 reviews at 4.7+ average, your local pack rankings consolidate. Once you cross 1,000, you're the dominant trust signal in your city.

Response patterns

Five-star: never templated. Reference something specific ("Glad we got that 4-ton replacement done before the heat wave hit, Linda — appreciate the trust.")

Complaints: thank, acknowledge specifically, take responsibility, describe the fix, sign with the owner's name. Never argue, never deflect. Future customers read responses as closely as reviews themselves — sometimes more closely.

6. Content & Social

HVAC content has a structural advantage over most trades: you're touching customers 2–4x per year, you have visible work product, and you have seasonal news pegs nonstop.

What to post

90/10 rule: 90% job content, 10% brand. Job content builds trust.

Install timelapses — equipment on the truck → mechanical room → completed install. Performs exceptionally on TikTok and YouTube Shorts.
Diagnostic walkthroughs — tech explaining "this is what's wrong" in plain language while pointing at the actual part.
Tune-up educational — what a real tune-up looks like, why it matters
Seasonal tips — "Why your AC short-cycles in 100° heat," "Why your furnace smells dusty when it first kicks on"
Refrigerant transition content — R-454B is the new refrigerant; homeowners are confused; explain it well and get cited by AI
Heat pump education — fastest-growing category; lots of curiosity, lots of misinformation
IAQ explainers — what's in your air, what filters actually do, when UV lights make sense
Tech and team spotlights — meet the people doing the work
Customer testimonial videos — 30–60 seconds, shot at job completion

Cadence

Instagram + Facebook: 3 posts per week minimum
TikTok + YouTube Shorts: 2–3 short videos per week
YouTube long-form: 1–2 per month (5–10 minute educational walkthroughs perform best)
GBP Posts: weekly, content repurposed

The seasonal content calendar

Map content to the year:

January–February: heating safety, deep-cold tips, why your furnace runs constantly, polar vortex content
March–April: spring AC tune-up promotion, allergy season + IAQ angle
May–June: AC replacement consideration content, peak demand prep
July–August: emergency response, "what to do when your AC dies" content, post-storm electrical-impact content
September–October: fall heating tune-up promotion, system-age awareness ("is it time to replace?")
November–December: financing year-end push, holiday comfort, gift-card maintenance plans

7. Marketing Automation

Automation is what separates a marketing system from a marketing collection of tactics. For HVAC, automation has an outsized impact because of the customer lifetime model — touching a customer 2–4x a year for 10–15 years is a marketing automation problem disguised as an operations problem.

The non-negotiable automations

1. Missed-call text-back. Phone rings, nobody answers, automated text fires within 30 seconds: "Sorry we missed you — this is [Company]. We're on another call. What can we help with?" Recovers 25–40% of missed calls. Available in CallRail, Podium, ServiceTitan, FieldEdge, and standalone tools like Numa and CallSource.

2. New lead 5-minute response. Every form fill triggers SMS within 5 minutes and a callback within 15. Lead conversion drops sharply after 5 minutes — homeowners are messaging four HVAC companies and booking the first one that responds.

3. Post-service review request. 60–90 minutes after job wrap — automated text with one-click review link.

4. Annual maintenance reminder. This is the single most under-deployed HVAC automation. Customers who had a tune-up last spring or last fall get an automated reminder 11 months later: "Time for your [spring/fall] tune-up. Click to book." Easy revenue, high attach rate, customers actually appreciate it.

5. Estimate-not-booked nurture. When a free estimate is given but no contract signed, a 14-day sequence: day 1 estimate summary email, day 3 financing reminder text, day 7 case study (similar install for a neighbor), day 10 personal call from owner or comfort advisor, day 14 final reminder with offer.

6. System-age replacement nurture. Customers whose system you installed or repaired 8–10 years ago get a structured outreach campaign starting in year 9: "Your system is approaching average end-of-life. Here's what to plan for." This is the highest-LTV replacement-funnel automation most HVAC companies don't run.

7. IAQ post-install upsell. 6–12 months after a system replacement, customer gets an IAQ campaign: REME HALO, whole-home humidifier, MERV-13 filter upgrade, UV. Attach rates of 15–25% on this sequence are common.

8. Filter subscription reminders. Monthly for high-MERV filter users. Pulls in filter sales, keeps you top-of-mind.

9. Birthday and anniversary touches for high-LTV customers (maintenance plan members, recent install customers).

CRM tagging

Every customer in your CRM should be tagged with:

Lead source (GBP, organic, paid, LSA, Meta, referral, manufacturer co-op campaign, direct)
Service type (repair, replacement, tune-up, IAQ, ductwork)
Equipment brand and install year
Estimate amount, booked amount, completed amount
Stage (lead → estimate → contract → completed)
Maintenance plan status (member / non-member / lapsed)
Customer LTV bucket

Without this tagging, attribution becomes guesswork in section 10. With it, you can build the highest-leverage automation in HVAC: targeted, life-stage-relevant outreach to the right customer at the right month.

Tool stack

CRM: ServiceTitan (enterprise), FieldEdge (HVAC-native mid-market), Sera (modern), Housecall Pro (smaller shops), BuildOps (commercial)
Call tracking: CallRail or CRM-native
Marketing automation: ServiceTitan Marketing Pro, FieldEdge marketing automation, or layer HighLevel / Zapier on top of any CRM
Review automation: Podium, Birdeye, NiceJob, or CRM-native

8. GEO & AI Search

GEO — Generative Engine Optimization — is the new layer your competitors haven't built yet. This is your first-mover window.

What's happening

Homeowners increasingly ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overview for HVAC recommendations the same way they used to ask Google. "Best HVAC company in Plano TX." "Who installs heat pumps in Frisco?" The companies cited by AI in 2026 will compound that visibility for years.

How AI picks who to cite

First-party content on your site
Schema markup defining the entity
Citations across the broader web (BBB, Angi, manufacturer directories, news, Reddit)
Structured FAQ content matching common questions

The HVAC-specific GEO foundation

Comprehensive schema (covered in section 3)
Expanded About page — 800+ words: founding year, leadership, certifications (NATE, BPI, manufacturer dealer tiers), service areas, capabilities, awards. This is what AI pulls from to summarize you.
Capability pages — dedicated pages for capabilities AI questions surface: "heat pump installation," "ductless mini-split installation," "Manual J load calculation," "R-454B refrigerant transition," "geothermal," "high-efficiency upgrades."
FAQ hub — 20–30 questions answered comprehensively, each marked up with FAQPage schema. Format: clear question, definitive answer in the first paragraph, supporting detail after.

Citation graph

Complete, photo-rich BBB and Angi profiles
Manufacturer locator presence (Lennox Premier, Trane Comfort Specialist, Carrier Factory Authorized) with rich profile data
NATE-certified contractor directory
ACCA directory
Local TV news quotes during heat waves and cold snaps (call assignment desks in May and December)
Trade publication mentions (Contracting Business, ACHR News) — pitch story ideas
Authentic Reddit r/HVAC and r/heatpumps presence — answer real questions with depth
Industry association memberships

HVAC-specific FAQ hub topics

The 20 questions HVAC homeowners ask AI that you should answer comprehensively on your site:

How much does a new AC system cost in 2026?
Is a heat pump worth it in [your climate]?
What's the R-454B refrigerant transition?
SEER2 vs SEER — what's the actual difference?
How long does an HVAC system last?
When should I replace vs. repair?
What size AC do I need? (Manual J explainer)
Is dual-fuel worth it?
Tankless vs. tank water heater? (cross-trade — only if you do plumbing too)
Mini-split vs. central air?
How much does ductwork cost?
Is a REME HALO worth it?
What's a good MERV rating?
Is a UV light worth installing?
Do I need a whole-home humidifier?
How often should I change my filter?
What does an AC tune-up actually do?
Should I sign up for a maintenance plan?
Why is my electric bill so high?
Are there 2026 federal tax credits for high-efficiency systems?

Each of these answered comprehensively, with FAQPage schema, has a multi-year payoff in AI citations.

Testing your AI presence

Monthly: run a defined set of test queries across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overview. Document who appears and who doesn't. Track over time. Within 90 days of consistent GEO work, you should appear on 2–3 test queries.

9. The 90-Day Launch Plan

If you're starting from zero — or restarting after firing a previous agency — execute in this order. Don't skip steps.

Month 1 — Foundation

Week 1:

Audit and complete GBP to 95%+ (categories, services, photos, products, booking link, messaging)
Claim and complete all citation profiles, including manufacturer directories
Install GA4, Search Console, CallRail, Meta Pixel
Begin manufacturer co-op program enrollment and quarterly plan

Week 2:

Rewrite homepage and top 12 page title tags + meta descriptions
Fix h1 hierarchy across site
Add LocalBusiness, Service, and FAQPage schema
Compress hero image to WebP, add sticky mobile call-CTA
Promote maintenance plan prominently on homepage with savings math

Week 3:

Build first 5 city pages (highest-revenue cities first)
Build seasonal tune-up landing page for current season

Week 4:

Launch automated review request system
Install missed-call text-back
Set up annual maintenance reminder automation (your sleeper highest-ROI automation)
Set up estimate-not-booked nurture sequence

Month 2 — Engine On

Week 5:

Build 4 dedicated PPC landing pages (AC Repair, AC Replacement, Heating Repair, Maintenance Plan)
Restructure Google Ads by campaign type
Add every ad extension
Implement seasonal bid adjustments

Week 6:

Apply for and verify Google Local Services Ads
Begin LSA spend at $100/day for 14 days of data
Identify and submit first manufacturer co-op claim

Week 7:

Build remaining 15 city pages
Build service-by-service pages (Heat Pump, IAQ, Ductwork, Commercial)
Internal-link city pages to service pages and vice versa

Week 8:

On-site photo and video shoot during installs and service calls
Begin posting cadence on GBP, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube Shorts
Launch system-age replacement nurture for past-customer database

Month 3 — Scale and GEO

Week 9:

Launch FAQ content hub — 8 of the 20 priority questions, each FAQPage schema'd
Expand About page to 800+ words

Week 10:

Pitch local news for heat wave / cold snap expert availability
Complete NATE, ACCA, and manufacturer directory profiles to 100%

Week 11:

Launch Meta retargeting + prospecting layers
Launch YouTube bumper retargeting
Launch IAQ post-install upsell automation

Week 12:

First monthly AI citation test across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overview
Set quarterly review velocity goal (50+/month)
Build first marketing dashboard (section 10)

By day 90 you should have a complete integrated marketing system running across all four seasons. You should also have three months of clean attribution showing what's working.

10. Measuring What Matters

The reason most HVAC owners can't tell if their marketing is working is they're measuring the wrong things. Impressions, clicks, even cost per lead — none of these tell you what to do on Monday morning.

The only KPI that matters most

Cost per booked job. Not cost per click. Not cost per lead. Cost per signed work order.

Calculate it monthly per channel: channel spend divided by jobs booked attributed to that channel.

For HVAC, given the variety of job types, calculate it separately for:

Service / repair calls (small ticket)
System replacements (high ticket)
Maintenance plan sign-ups
IAQ add-ons

What you can afford to spend per booked job:

A service call averaging $385 with 50% gross margin generates $192 in gross profit. Spend up to $80–$100 to book one.
A system replacement averaging $11,000 with 30% gross margin generates $3,300 in gross profit. Spend up to $300–$600 to book one.
A maintenance plan sign-up at $249/year with 75% LTV multiple over 10 years generates $1,500+ in gross profit. Spend up to $150 to acquire one.

HVAC-specific KPIs that matter

Beyond cost per booked job, HVAC has four KPIs most other trades don't:

1. Maintenance plan attach rate. % of replacement customers who enroll in your maintenance plan. Industry median ~15%. Top quartile ~35%. Each percentage point of attach rate adds meaningful recurring revenue over a decade.

2. Service-to-replacement conversion rate. % of repair calls that become system replacements within 60 days. Industry median ~5%. Top-quartile comfort-advisor-driven shops hit 12–18%. This is the most under-tracked profit metric in HVAC.

3. Customer LTV by source. Maintenance-plan members have 3–5x the LTV of one-off service customers. Knowing your LTV by lead source tells you what each channel is actually worth — not just per booked job, but per lifetime.

4. Recurring revenue from maintenance base. Total monthly recurring revenue from active maintenance plan members. Should grow month-over-month. If it's flat or declining, your maintenance plan funnel is broken.

Supporting metrics

Booked-to-completed conversion (especially important for permit-dependent installs)
Average ticket size by source (referrals usually 15–25% higher than paid)
Marketing % of revenue (stay in 8–12% growth band)
Lead-to-estimate conversion
Estimate-to-contract conversion (sales process metric, but worth watching)
Co-op fund utilization rate (% of available co-op claimed)

Dashboard

One dashboard. One place to look on Monday morning. Tools:

Google Looker Studio (free) — GA4 + Google Ads + GBP Insights + Search Console
CallRail dashboard — call volume and source attribution
CRM dashboards — pipeline value, ticket size by source, maintenance plan growth, LTV

The dashboard should answer six questions in 30 seconds:

How many booked jobs (by type) did we close last week and last month?
What's our cost per booked job by channel?
Where are we underspending? Where are we overspending?
What's our maintenance plan attach rate and total active member count?
What's our service-to-replacement conversion rate?
What's our marketing % of revenue trend?

If your dashboard can't answer those, it's the wrong dashboard.

Attribution honesty

Multi-touch attribution is the right answer technically. First-touch is the practical answer for most HVAC shops. Track the lead source the customer reports when asked ("How did you hear about us?"), supplemented by call tracking and CRM data. Don't get paralyzed trying to attribute perfectly. Get directional. Make decisions on the directional data.

You've Got the System. Now Run It.

This is the playbook. Build it and you'll do what the top 10% of HVAC companies in Texas do — book jobs in February the same way you book them in August.

Building it is the hard part. Most owners read a playbook like this, save it to their desktop, and never execute because there's always an install to dispatch and a tech to coach.

That's what we do. We build the marketing system so you don't have to. You stay focused on the trucks, the techs, and the bottom line — we run the funnel that fills the schedule year-round.

If you want help executing any part of this playbook — or all of it — book a 30-minute Growth Audit. We'll look at where you are today, walk through where this playbook would take you in 90 days, and tell you honestly whether you should run it yourself or hand it to us. No pitch deck, no contract, no pressure.

→ See the trade-specific service mix: our HVAC marketing services → Calculate your real cost per booked job: Cost Per Lead Calculator

HVAC Marketing System: Fill Your Schedule Year-Round