A channel that is a bargain for one trade is a money pit for the next one along, and the difference is arithmetic rather than opinion. This page runs Google Ads specifically for insulation contractors: the modelled cost, the volume ceiling, the skill it demands, and a plain verdict at the end.

The relevant economics for this trade: a typical project is worth EUR 2,500 to EUR 6,000, the buyer is a homeowner reacting to a cold winter or an energy label, demand peaks September to December and bottoms out in May to July, and it takes 4 to 7 genuine enquiries to sign one customer.

The numbers, at a glance

• Modelled cost per enquiry: EUR 42 to EUR 311, from clicks at EUR 3.00 to EUR 9.35 converting at 3.0 to 7.0 percent

• Modelled cost per signed job: EUR 168 to EUR 2,177, once you allow for 4 to 7 enquiries per customer

• Time to first enquiry: days from a standing start

• Verdict for insulation contractors: Works for insulation contractors, because a job worth EUR 2,500 to EUR 6,000 absorbs a four-figure acquisition cost without flinching.

How Google Ads behaves in this trade

Google Ads produces enquiries whose intent is the highest of any channel, because the person typed the problem into a search box. It captures demand that already exists. Nobody searches for a roofer on a whim.

The constraint nobody mentions in the sales pitch: a minimum of around 30 conversions a month before the automated bidding has enough signal to work with. For an insulation business working a single metro, that is the thing to check before anything else.

Against that, the cost of being wrong. You are bidding against every other installer in the postcode plus at least one lead marketplace with deeper pockets and better data than you. Skill required: Real. An untended account will spend a full budget on broad matches that were never going to convert.

Keyword clusters and negatives that decide an insulation account

Insulation search is dominated by people looking for funded work. If you do not operate a funded scheme, the single most valuable thing in the account is the negative list rather than the keyword list.

• Bid at full value on: cavity wall insulation plus a place name, loft insulation cost, external wall insulation quote, underfloor insulation, insulation contractor

• Negatives to load on day one: free, grant, funded, scheme, eligibility checker, government, rolls, boards, buy, wholesale, DIY, soundproofing if you do not offer it, jobs

• Split by element: cavity, loft, external wall and floor have very different job values, and a single campaign will spend the budget on whichever is cheapest to convert rather than whichever is most profitable

• Qualify on construction year: a single form field naming the decade the property was built removes a large share of unviable enquiries before they reach a surveyor

The arithmetic, with every assumption visible

Here is the full chain for insulation, with every assumption visible so you can substitute your own.

1. Click cost: EUR 3.00 to EUR 9.35 for insulation keywords, which tracks job value rather than competition alone.

2. Landing page conversion: 3.0 to 7.0 percent of clicks become an enquiry, assuming a page built for one trade rather than a homepage.

3. Cost per enquiry: EUR 42 to EUR 311, which is click cost divided by conversion rate.

4. Enquiries per customer: 4 to 7 for this trade, because not everyone answers, quotes or proceeds.

5. Cost per signed job: EUR 168 to EUR 2,177.

Against a midpoint project of EUR 4,250, the worst-case figure of EUR 2,177 is 51.2 percent of contract value. Whether that is acceptable depends entirely on your gross margin, not on your revenue, and that is the calculation most contractors skip.

The survey usually shrinks the job, and that is the opportunity

Households frequently ask for cavity wall insulation on a property with no cavity, or loft insulation on a loft already at depth. A borescope inspection and a damp check regularly turn a large imagined job into a smaller real one. Contractors who treat that as bad news lose the customer. Contractors who reframe it as a saved expense and quote the work that will actually help build a referral base in exactly the demographic that talks to its neighbours.

Response time is the cheapest improvement available in this channel

Before touching bids, creative or suppliers, measure the median time between an enquiry arriving and your first call attempt. For insulation work, moving that figure from an hour to under five minutes typically lifts contact rate by a quarter or more, which is a larger effect than any realistic improvement in cost per enquiry.

Make it a named person's job rather than a shared responsibility, and report median time to first attempt weekly alongside volume. Teams that report only enquiries received have no visibility of the failure that costs them most.

You are selling something nobody will ever see

Insulation has no visible result, no showroom moment and very little emotional pull. The sale is therefore entirely proof-led: thermal images, moisture readings, before and after consumption from comparable properties in the same street. Emotional selling techniques that work for kitchens actively misfire here. What moves the decision is evidence that the work was done correctly and a guarantee that survives a change of ownership.

Radius targeting quietly buys you the wrong postcodes

A circle drawn around a depot includes the areas you do not want as readily as the ones you do. Postcode-level targeting, built from where your profitable jobs have actually come from over the last two years, outperforms a radius almost immediately. It also lets you bid differently on areas where travel time destroys margin, which a radius cannot express at all.

Structure the account by service, not by town

The instinct is to build one campaign per town. It fragments conversion data across dozens of thinly funded units and starves the bidding system of the signal it needs. Geography belongs in location targeting and in the landing page, not in the campaign structure. One campaign per service line, with location targeting set to presence rather than presence or interest, concentrates enough conversions in one place for automated bidding to work.

Before you spend anything on Google Ads

1. Take 10 to 20 percent of the gross margin on a signed job, which is the normal range, and you have your maximum acquisition cost per customer.

2. Divide your maximum acquisition cost per customer by 4 to 7, the enquiries this trade needs to sign one, and you have the most you can pay for a single enquiry.

3. Name the person responsible for the first call attempt and the target time. Every number on this page assumes contact inside minutes rather than hours.

4. Check that a page exists for insulation specifically, rather than a homepage listing every service you offer.

How these figures were built

These figures are a benchmark model, not a survey. They combine an industry base range observed across Western European home-improvement campaigns with a country multiplier for local auction pressure. Treat them as a band to negotiate against, not a quote.

Want leads like this in your pipeline?

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