Real accounts. Real numbers.

A locksmith and plumbing provider running Google Ads to win emergency call-outs: lockouts, broken locks, burst pipes and blocked drains. The phone ringing is the whole business, so every dollar of ad spend has to turn into a call that same hour.

The account was already spending, but it was not holding steady.

• Conversion rate swung month to month with no clear reason.
• Cost per conversion moved up and down, so the budget could not be planned.
• Broad keywords were pulling in clicks from people who were never going to book.
• A limited budget meant every wasted click came straight out of the job count.

Four changes, in this order, so we could see what each one did.

• Keyword optimisation. Built the account around high-intent searches such as “24/7 locksmith near me”, “emergency lock repair” and “car lockout service”. Cut the broad-match and low-performing terms, and added negatives to block the research traffic.
• Smart bidding and budget scaling. Moved off manual CPC to Maximize Conversions with a target CPA, adjusted bids by device and by hour of day for peak emergency hours, then raised budget only where the data earned it.
• Ad copy testing and extensions. Ran urgency-led variants — “Locked Out? Get Help in 15 Minutes!” — with call extensions, location extensions and structured snippets.
• Landing page optimisation. Faster page, simpler lead form, plus reviews, service areas and quick-call buttons so a panicked customer can tap once.

An emergency-intent keyword set with a live negative list, a Maximize Conversions campaign with target CPA and device plus hour-of-day bid adjustments, urgency ad copy with call and location extensions, and a rebuilt landing page carrying trust signals and a tap-to-call button above the fold. Then a second campaign launched for the plumbing side of the business.

Volume went up while the cost of a lead stayed flat, which is the hard part. July delivered 350 conversions at a 34.65% conversion rate. August took a step back on rate but held volume at 346. September finished at 363 conversions — the best month of the three — at $24.38 each, with competition rising the whole time.

With the locksmith side stable, we launched the plumbing campaign from scratch. Its first window brought 90,286 impressions and 532 clicks at a $1.10 average cost per click — cheap, qualified traffic to build on — and the first 11 tracked conversions off $608.57 of spend.

If your emergency or home-services account is spending without a predictable cost per call, this is exactly the work we do.