Melbourne Drains & Plumbing didn’t exist in January 2026. By April its Google Ads account was producing more than 100 leads a month, and it hasn’t had a month under that since. Seven months, 903 leads from search, $143 each. This is how a plumber with a tired brand started again, and what we switched off along the way.
| The short version | |
|---|---|
| Leads from search, April to October 2026 | 903 |
| Average cost per lead | $143 |
| Months with 100 or more leads | 7 out of 7 |
| October | 142 leads at $121 each |
The situation
Mick had been running a Melbourne plumbing business for years under another name, with close to 200 Google reviews to show for it. The ads weren’t paying. The website was built around marketing claims, it was hard to use on a phone, and most of the people who landed on it left without calling. The reporting from the previous provider showed what he already felt: money going out, not enough jobs coming back.
In February 2026 we agreed on a different approach. Instead of patching a site built around slogans, start a second brand with a plainer name, one page built for one job, and a Google Ads account with nothing in it but what we put there.
Melbourne Drains & Plumbing: the same business, a simpler front door.
What was going wrong
A marketing-heavy website is the opposite of proof. Someone with water on the laundry floor at 7am doesn’t want to be told you’re Melbourne’s number one. They want a phone number, a sign you’re nearby, and a reason to believe you’ll turn up.
The old account was carrying that site, and the site was carrying the ads. Neither could be fixed without the other. Starting clean was faster than untangling it.
One page. One service. One number to judge it by.
What we did
1. A new brand and a page built for one job
A mobile-first landing page for blocked drains, written around the words people actually search, with the phone number and a short form at the top. No slogans. Built in two weeks.
2. A fresh account from a full build sheet
Keywords, negatives, ad copy, locations and schedule were planned on paper before the account existed. The account was created on 10 March and the first campaign was live by 13 March, with calls and forms tracked as leads from the first click.
3. An honest first fortnight
From 16 to 29 March the account spent $6,597 for 7 leads. Google had no history to work from and neither did the brand. We held our nerve, read the search terms and tightened. In April the account produced 102 leads. It hasn’t dropped below 100 a month since.
4. Tested what Google recommended, then switched it off
Google’s recommendations tab is never empty, and from July the account had a Google account strategist assigned to it. We ran the recommendations as proper tests, and judged each one on the calls and forms it produced.
| What we tested | When | What the account showed | What we did |
|---|---|---|---|
| Performance Max | April to August | Reported 103 conversions for $2,916 in June, a fraction of what a search lead costs | Paused. A number that good gets checked against the phone and the job book before it gets more budget, and we don’t let unverified conversions steer the spend |
| A second blocked drains campaign, split by location | April to August | $11,163 for about 35 leads, roughly $322 each | Paused. The main search campaign was winning the same work for under half that |
| AI Max for Search | Late July to mid August | 173 extra clicks and about 33 leads for $4,483. Google’s reporting put blocked drains conversions up 583% and cost per conversion down 72% | Switched off on 13 August. The search terms report showed dishwasher repairs, grease traps, washing machine repairs and “cheap” |
Since September one search campaign runs, with the money going to the searches that have proved they turn into jobs.
The results
Search campaigns only. Performance Max and AI Max are left out, so these are the leads a search campaign produced for the money it spent.
| Month | Ad spend | Leads | Cost per lead |
|---|---|---|---|
| April | $15,204 | 102 | $149 |
| May | $17,430 | 111 | $157 |
| June | $24,573 | 153 | $161 |
| July | $19,310 | 146 | $132 |
| August | $17,001 | 122 | $140 |
| September | $17,936 | 128 | $141 |
| October | $17,229 | 142 | $121 |
| Total | $128,682 | 903 | $143 |
October was the cheapest month yet. The account knows more than it did in March, and so do we.
A lead is a call or a form from the ads, counted once. Numbers are from the Google Ads account, pulled 7 November 2026.
What Mick said
“The man, the myth, the legend! Forever grateful for Hatim and his team”
Mick, Melbourne Drains & Plumbing. Google review, 8 April 2026, four weeks after the first campaign went live.
What any plumber can take from this
Most of the growth here came from decisions that look boring. One service. One page. A tracked phone number. The discipline to switch off anything the search terms couldn’t justify, including things Google’s own team recommended.
If a campaign is reporting leads far cheaper than everything else in the account, be suspicious before you’re happy. Check them against the phone. We wrote more about this in Performance Max campaigns: what Google won’t tell you and AI Max for Google Search: what it does and where it fails.
When the report and the search terms disagree, believe the search terms.
Running ads on a site that doesn’t convert?
Book a call with me. We’ll look at whether the page or the account is the problem, and whether starting clean would be faster than fixing what’s there. See how we run Google Ads.
