Let's TalkLet's Talk'Painting' is an unusually crowded word to bid on - art classes, car resprays, paint shops and job seekers all search with it. Google Ads for a painting company starts by paying only for people who want to hire a painter.
We go through the search terms you paid for, the estimates they produced and what happened to them, and show how much went on art, auto, retail, DIY and job searches, how spend followed the seasons, which campaigns produced booked jobs and what to change first. Recorded walkthrough, no call required.
Four failures we see repeatedly in this vertical, and what each one actually costs.
People search for painting classes, paint-and-sip nights, car painting, canvas prints, paint shops and painting jobs, and loosely matched keywords will show your ads to all of them. Each click can cost as much as one from a homeowner who wants a living room painted. Without a careful, growing negative keyword list, a painting account can spend a real share of its budget on people who will never hire a painter.
'How to paint a ceiling', 'best paint for a bathroom', 'how much paint for a room' and colour questions come mostly from people planning to do it themselves. Some will hire a painter eventually, but most are researching a weekend project. Paying contractor prices for those clicks drains the budget meant for homeowners ready to book an estimate this month.
A homeowner wanting the outside of the house done before the weather turns, a family repainting two bedrooms and a property manager repainting a building between tenants search differently, are worth different amounts and need different pages. Lumped into one campaign, the budget follows whatever is cheapest to click, and when exterior season ends the account has nothing structured for interior work.
Painting estimates are easy to book and many go nowhere - homeowners collect several quotes and choose one. If Google only sees estimate requests, it learns to find people who request estimates, including the ones who will always choose the cheapest painter. Without booked jobs fed back, bidding cannot tell a buyer from a collector of quotes.
Business outcomes rather than dashboard metrics. None of these is a guaranteed number - where we do guarantee something, it is written into the offer above.
The real deliverables, not a list written to make a proposal look thicker.
Not the general agency pitch. The reasons that only apply to this kind of business.
In painting accounts the quickest improvement usually comes from removing waste. We build negative keyword lists from the search terms you have actually paid for - classes, car paint, shops, supplies, DIY questions, jobs - and keep reviewing them, so new budget reaches homeowners and businesses who want a painter rather than everyone else searching for paint.
Exterior demand is seasonal and interior demand is steadier. We run separate campaigns and budgets for each, agree in advance when exterior spend should taper in your area and shift emphasis to interior rooms, cabinets and commercial repaints, so the account follows the work your crews can actually take on that month rather than last month's search trends.
Homeowners often gather several painting estimates before choosing. We import booked jobs from your records as offline conversions, ideally with their value, so Google learns which searches lead to signed work rather than to one more quote request. In a trade where estimates are easy to give away, it is the signal that keeps bidding honest.
Every paid term sorted into hiring, DIY, retail and unrelated.
Classes, car paint, shops, supplies and jobs removed.
Interior, exterior, cabinet and commercial campaigns.
When exterior tapers and interior takes over, agreed in advance.
Prep photos, local projects and a qualifying estimate request.
Booked work fed back for bidding.
The parts of this that come from having run it in this industry before rather than from running it well in general.
Searches such as 'exterior house painters', 'cabinet painting' or 'commercial painting contractor' come from people who already know what they need. Campaigns and pages built for each meet them with the right examples and tend to convert better than a generic 'painters near me' ad pointing at a homepage.
Cabinet painting is detailed, valuable work searched for separately from room painting. A dedicated campaign and page, with before-and-after kitchens and an explanation of how doors are removed, prepared and finished, reaches homeowners weighing painting against replacing their cabinets.
Bidding hard for exterior work after your crews are booked solid, or after the weather has turned, buys enquiries you cannot serve this year. Tapering exterior spend on a plan and moving it to interior work keeps cost per booked job steadier across the year.
Some painting jobs come with a date attached: a house going on the market, a move-in, a tenant turnover. Those buyers often want to talk now. Call assets, tracked and qualified on scope and timing, catch them while they are still choosing who to call.
None of our case studies is a painting company. Our nearest Google Ads work is for an auto dealership, where narrow, disciplined targeting delivered 1.22M clicks at a 0.90% click-through rate and $617K in revenue at 627% ROAS. The lesson that carries over is spending only where buyers search - which, for a word as crowded as 'painting', starts with knowing what to exclude.
Read the full case studyThey can, once the account pays only for people who want a painter. That means firm exclusions for art, car paint, retail, DIY and job searches, separate campaigns for interior, exterior, cabinet and commercial work, and booked jobs fed back for bidding. Judged on cost per booked job over a few months, they can become a dependable source of work.
Art and craft searches such as classes, canvases and paint-and-sip; auto searches such as car painting and touch-up paint; retail and supply searches for paint shops, brands and sprayers; DIY and how-to questions; and job searches from painters looking for work. Review the search terms report monthly, because new variations keep appearing.
Usually not. Most people searching for a paint brand are shopping for paint, not a painter. If homeowners in your area ask for specific products, say on your landing pages which products you use and why, rather than paying for brand searches. Check the trademark rules that apply before using any brand name in ad text.
Run exterior campaigns while exterior work can be booked and scheduled in your climate, and agree in advance when to taper them. As the weather turns, shift budget and messages to interior rooms, cabinets and commercial repaints. Booking exterior work for the following season can start well before that season arrives.
Photos of real local work for that type of job - including prep, not only the finished room - what your estimate covers, the products you use, proof of insurance and any licence your state requires, reviews, and an estimate request asking the rooms or surfaces, their condition, the timing, whether the home was built before 1978 and a few photos.
Availability varies by category and area. Where they are offered, they charge per lead - answered calls, messages and booking requests - rather than per click, and businesses that pass Google's checks show a Google Verified badge. Compare them with search campaigns on cost per booked job rather than on lead price alone.
Yes. Property managers, facility managers and business owners search with different terms, judge on different criteria and need a page about insurance, scheduling around operations and references. A separate campaign keeps that budget measurable and stops cheaper residential searches from quietly using it up.
Record which estimates became jobs and import them as offline conversions, with the job value if you can. Bidding then learns which searches lead to signed work. Counting every estimate request equally teaches the system to find people who enjoy collecting quotes, which in painting is a large and expensive crowd.
Enough to fill the estimates your team can run in the season you are in, judged on cost per booked job over a few months. Start with your most profitable type of work and your strongest areas, then expand what books. We do not set a minimum budget; we size the plan to the work you want.
Removing wasted searches can improve an account within weeks. Booked-job results take longer to read, because homeowners often wait for colour decisions, other quotes or the right weather before signing, so judge changes over a couple of months rather than a few days.
If you are certified and work in areas with many pre-1978 homes, it can help - it answers a question careful homeowners have. Keep the certification current and explain your process on the landing page. EPA gives certified firms a Lead-Safe Certified Firm logo for advertising, to be used under its logo guidelines.
Written for owners weighing this up, whether or not they work with us.
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