Free Advice
MVP marketing plays you can steal
No fluff, no plugs, no AI-generated SEO sludgesludge. Real campaigns, real numbers, every week.
Every play
Roto-Rooter just spent $3.1 million more to get fewer leads
Nobody in this industry shows you their lead counts. Not the consolidator buying up your market.
Read the play
LSA is moving to Google Ads: the hottest take (it’s lukewarm)
If you run Local Services Ads, your inbox had a busy week.
Read the play
The state of the HVAC industry in 2026: price increases, private equity, and beating both
You already know the headline numbers, because you lived them this year. Equipment costs that make you wince before you update the pricebook.
Read the play
How to Calculate Market Share for 9 Trades Benchmarked
At some point a pitch deck told you your market share. Maybe it said 2%.
Read the play
The Greenfield Marketing Checklist: What to Do, in What Order, by When
Nobody fails a greenfield launch on launch day.
Read the play
Greenfield or Tuck-In: What Each Expansion Path Actually Costs
The cheapest thing about your home market is the part you stopped paying for fifteen years ago.
Read the play
New trade or new market: how to decide where your next $5M comes from
You came home from the last conference with two case studies and no decision. One peer just launched a plumbing division and can’t stop talking about cross-sell revenue.
Read the play
UPDATED: ChatGPT Ads Manager Now Available For Local Services (May 2026)
On Friday, OpenAI quietly shipped state, DMA, and ZIP code geo targeting in the ChatGPT Ads Manager.
Read the play
How to Critique an SEO Report When the Graph Is Always Green
You’re in the quarterly review. Every chart is green, every arrow up, and your booked jobs are flat.
Read the play
How to Add a Trade Without Starting in the Hole
Someone has probably told you what a new division costs. Maybe a coach, maybe the guy at Pantheon who added plumbing last year, maybe just the math in your own head.
Read the play
How Much Should Contractors Spend on Marketing in 2026? [3 Examples + Free Calculator]
It’s one of the most common questions contractors ask—and one of the least useful without context.
Read the play
SMS Template Pack: 13 Automations Built for Home Services
A lead form fills out at 9:12 AM Tuesday. Your CSR is in the morning rush: three dispatches to sort, a tech asking where the truck keys ended up, the phone ringing off the hook.
Read the play
New Study Correlates LLM Ranking Heavily With SERP Ranking. Is AEO Just SEO?
You saw the post on Facebook. An industry marketer you’ve followed for a while was announcing their proprietary AI Visibility Engine.
Read the play
Competitor Conquesting in Google Ads: What Your Agency Won’t Tell You Before You Turn It On
It usually doesn’t come up in the big strategy presentation. It comes up three months in, on a call with your Google Ads specialist, almost casually.
Read the play
How to Target Homeowners by Home Age on Meta Ads
If you’re running Meta ads for an HVAC or plumbing company and haven’t tried home age targeting, there’s a reasonable chance you’re paying to reach people who rent.
Read the play
The Ritz-Carlton Doesn’t Make Plumbers. But If It Did…
An article written by our friend Yossi Wachtel, Founder & President of Monkey Wrench Plumbing, Heating, Air & Electric, whose stories we liked so much, we asked to be a…
Read the play
WTF is ROAS “Potential”?
Let’s start with what ROAS actually is, because the industry has done a remarkable job of confusing a straightforward concept.
Read the play
Humans vs AI: CSR Edition
Everyone loves the carefully curated AI voice demo. The voice is calm. The responses are fast.
Read the play
5-Step Open Estimate Follow-Up That Sells Without Selling
Most contractors lose estimates for boring reasons. Not price. Not competition. They lose because they go silent, or worse, they follow up like a desperate coupon email.
Read the play
The Guaranteed Way to Cut Your CAC in Half
Most contractors think they have a marketing problem.
Read the play
MarketingPro vs Chiirp vs Hatch
One of the most common questions I get from home service business owners using ServiceTitan is: “Should I be using MarketingPro, Hatch, or Chiirp?”
Read the play
How the SEO Playbook Changes as Websites Grow
SEO has a habit of becoming repetitive. Publish a few blogs each month. Build a few backlinks.
Read the play
Lead Aggregators Case Study: Grasshopper Group
Last week, I wrote about lead aggregators as ROAS arbitrage.
Read the play
Stop Overpaying Google: How To Use Lead Aggregators For ROAS Arbitrage
Most contractors only think in channels. Google. LSA. Meta. Maybe Yelp if their rep won’t stop calling.
Read the play
10-Point Google Ads Audit Checklist for Contractors (No-BS Version)
This Google Ads audit for contractors is intentionally designed to help you maximize your returns not by way of inflating numbers but by way of cutting bullshit.
Read the play
Google LSA Credits Are Not Dead
There’s been a myth floating around contractor circles this past year: Google killed off LSA credits.
Read the play
Ads Are Coming To Google AI Mode By Q4, 2025
And we’ve gotten ahold of the internal document thanks to AdAge . In short, Google AI Mode isn’t a fluffy experiment.
Read the play
LSA Update 2025: Google Verified Badge Replaces Guaranteed & Screened
Google is killing off the Google Guaranteed and Google Screened badges.
Read the play
Why Doubling Your Marketing Budget Won’t Double Your Revenue
Most contractors, and any business trying to scale revenue via marketing, have heard the old-school advice: “Spend 5–10% of your revenue on marketing.”
Read the play
Google AI Ads: How to Get Ads in Google’s AI Overviews Using AI Max
(No, AI Max alone won’t enable Google AI Overview Ads, but it sure stacks the deck in your favor.)
Read the play
How We Structure Google Ads Conversion Actions (The Right Way) After Importing From ServiceTitan
If your Google Ads account is optimizing for phone calls from the same customer five times in one day… you’re not optimizing for revenue, you’re optimizing for Karen.
Read the play
Marketing vs Operations: How to Increase ROAS by Playing as a Team
Let’s be clear—business owners care about one thing: revenue. ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) is the scoreboard that shows whether marketing is turning dollars into more dollars.
Read the play
PMax Reporting: How Google Finally Opened The Black Box
Advertisers everywhere, rejoice: Performance Max reporting finally shows its cards.
Read the play
Brand vs Non-Brand PPC: The Hidden Cost of Blended ROAS
Let’s get real: PPC is one of the easiest places to lie to yourself—and the biggest culprit is blended reporting .
Read the play
The 12 Point Home Services Agency Interview Checklist
Let’s be blunt: you’re not hiring an agency to have more meetings. You’re hiring one to get results.
Read the play
Working With A Full-Service Marketing Agency? Why One-Stop Shops Fail at Scale
You’re not wrong for wanting one full-service marketing agency to handle it all. You’re just not scaling strategically.
Read the play
Why Contractors Hate Agencies—And Why We Exist
A year ago, I was at the peak of my career—finally landing a C-suite role, leading elite digital ad teams, and putting up numbers that most marketers only talk about in hypotheticals.
Read the play
The Future Is Fractional: What Contractors Can Learn From Big Tech
Walk into any tradeshow, conference, or Facebook contractor group right now, and you’ll hear the same conversations recycled on loop: “How are you guys recruiting?”
Read the play
In-House Marketing: When Should You Make the Switch?
It’s a question we’ve been asked a thousand times by home service companies looking to scale: “At what point should we move to in-house marketing?”
Read the play
Smart Bidding = Speed & Signal Bidding
What is your take on Google’s Smart Bidding? It’s a make-or-break question we ask every Google Ads applicant and one that more and more clients are asking Agencies.
Read the play
PSA on LSA Ranking
In the competitive landscape of home services, many business owners are on the hunt for a magic bullet to propel their Local Service Ads (LSA) rankings into the top three.
Read the play
How To Automate Review Responses For Google Business Profile
In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, time is not just a resource; it’s the backbone of effective business management.
Read the play
Get it in your inbox, every Friday.
2,000+ trades owners already read it. Unsubscribe any time. @freeagency.ai on TikTok
The toolbox
Steal these. They're free.
Checklists, calculators and templates you can put to work this week.
- The Greenfield Marketing Checklist: What to Do, in What Order, by WhenNobody fails a greenfield launch on launch day.
- 10-Point Google Ads Audit Checklist for Contractors (No-BS Version)This Google Ads audit for contractors is intentionally designed to help you maximize your returns not by way of inflating numbers but by way of cutting bullshit.
- The 12 Point Home Services Agency Interview ChecklistLet’s be blunt: you’re not hiring an agency to have more meetings. You’re hiring one to get results.
- How to Calculate Market Share for 9 Trades BenchmarkedAt some point a pitch deck told you your market share. Maybe it said 2%.
- How Much Should Contractors Spend on Marketing in 2026? [3 Examples + Free Calculator]It’s one of the most common questions contractors ask—and one of the least useful without context.
- SMS Template Pack: 13 Automations Built for Home ServicesA lead form fills out at 9:12 AM Tuesday. Your CSR is in the morning rush: three dispatches to sort, a tech asking where the truck keys ended up, the phone ringing off the hook.
- 5-Step Open Estimate Follow-Up That Sells Without SellingMost contractors lose estimates for boring reasons. Not price. Not competition. They lose because they go silent, or worse, they follow up like a desperate coupon email.
- Lead Aggregators Case Study: Grasshopper GroupLast week, I wrote about lead aggregators as ROAS arbitrage.
