From Google Search to Booked Job: The Lead Funnel for a Vancouver HVAC Company

A furnace fails in Burnaby on the first cold night of November. The homeowner searches “furnace repair Burnaby” on their phone. Between that search and a technician in the mechanical room there are five steps, and a typical Vancouver HVAC company loses leads at every one of them. Here is each step, where it leaks, and what fixes it.

Step 1: being seen

The homeowner sees three things: Google Ads at the top, the map pack with three businesses, and the organic results. If you are in none of them, the funnel never starts. Most HVAC companies in Metro Vancouver are in one of the three, which is why the phone rings in November and is quiet in April.

Where it leaks: only running ads, so every lead costs money; or only relying on the map pack, which ranks by distance so a company in Surrey rarely shows for Burnaby searches.

The fix: all three, in the order that matches the budget. Google Ads for the emergency searches you cannot rank for yet, local SEO for the map pack in the cities you actually serve, and service pages that rank organically over time.

Step 2: being chosen

The homeowner picks one of the three to tap. They pick on reviews, on whether you say “same day” and on whether the name looks local. Nothing else registers at 9 pm with no heat.

Where it leaks: 18 reviews next to a competitor with 300; an ad headline that says “HVAC Solutions” instead of “Furnace Repair Tonight, Burnaby”.

The fix: the review system, run every day, and ad copy written per service and per city rather than one generic ad.

Step 3: the landing page

They tap and land on a page. It loads in under three seconds on a phone or they go back. The page says the service, the city, the price range or the diagnostic fee, and has a phone number that dials with one tap. Not a homepage with a slider.

Where it leaks: ads pointing at the homepage; a contact form with nine fields; a phone number as an image; a page that takes six seconds to load because of a hero video.

The fix: one page per service with the number and a three-field form above the fold, tested on a phone in the parking lot. This is what our websites for trades are built around.

Step 4: the call

They call. Someone answers, or nobody does. This is the step that decides whether the money spent on steps one to three was worth anything, and it is the one that owners look at least.

Where it leaks: voicemail after hours; the office line busy at 8 am; a dispatcher who quotes a price and hangs up instead of booking.

The fix: call tracking so you know how many calls went unanswered, an answering service or AI phone agent for after hours, and a script that books the appointment on the call rather than promising a callback. Our tracking guide shows how to count the missed ones.

Step 5: the booking and the follow-up

The job is booked. A confirmation text goes out, a reminder the morning of, a review request when the furnace is running, and a maintenance reminder next September. Each of those is automatic once it is set up.

Where it leaks: nothing after the invoice, so next year the same homeowner searches again and picks whoever answers first.

The fix: the email and text reminders that turn one emergency call into a customer for ten years.

Measuring the funnel

Five numbers, tracked monthly: searches that saw you (impressions in Google Ads and Search Console), clicks or calls from those, calls answered, jobs booked, jobs completed with a review. Divide each by the one above it. The smallest ratio is where next month’s effort goes. In our experience the weakest ratio is often calls answered, not traffic, which is why we insist on call tracking before spending on ads.

Book a free strategy call and we will map your five numbers in the first call, using whatever data you already have.

Related guides

• GA4 and call tracking setup for a trade business
• Website design that makes homeowners call
• How much a Vancouver trade business should spend on marketing
• Google Ads management for trades
• HVAC marketing in Surrey

Frequently asked questions

How much should an HVAC company in Vancouver spend on Google Ads?

Most of our home-service clients spend $2,000 to $3,000 a month in ad spend plus management, more during the heating season. The right number comes from your cost per booked job, not a rule of thumb. See the budget guide.

What is a good conversion rate for an HVAC landing page?

It varies by season and by emergency versus planned work. What matters more is the trend: if calls per hundred visitors rise after you change the page, keep the change. Track it rather than chasing a benchmark.

Should we answer the phone 24 hours?

If you do emergency work, yes, by a person or a service that books. If you do not, say so on the page and the profile so the after-hours searcher does not waste a call, and offer a next-morning booking form.

How long until the funnel pays for itself?

Ads produce calls within days; the map pack and organic take one to three months for local terms; the follow-up sequence pays next season. Together they reach a steady state within about a year.