Drain cleaning marketing that fills the schedule.

Drain work is a phone business

Nobody plans a clogged main line. It backs up on a Sunday night, the tub fills with gray water, and the homeowner grabs a phone. They don't compare five websites. They call the first rooter company that looks real and picks up.

That changes how you market. A remodeler can win with a beautiful portfolio and a slow sales process. A drain company wins on three things: showing up in the first screen of Google, looking trustworthy in five seconds, and answering the phone. Everything below serves one of those three.

We'll go in the order we'd fix it if we owned a rooter shop in the Inland Empire tomorrow.

Answer the phone. It's the whole game.

This sounds obvious. It's also where most drain marketing money leaks out. You can pay for the click, win the call, and lose the job to a ring that nobody picked up.

Google is blunt about this in its own Local Services Ads help pages. On how ads get ranked: "Missed calls may negatively affect your responsiveness." On managing leads, Google says it's highly recommended that you respond as soon as leads come in, and that a consistently fast response time could improve your ad's ranking.

So a missed call costs you twice. You lose that job, and Google is less likely to show you to the next person.

Practical fixes, none of them fancy:

• One number on the truck, the profile, the ads and the website. Forwarded to whoever is on call.
• Set your real hours in your Google Business Profile. If you run 24/7, say so. If you don't, don't pretend.
• Turn on text messages. Some people will text a photo of the cleanout before they'll call.
• If you truly can't answer, an instant text-back ("Got your call, calling you back in 10 minutes") beats silence.

Local Services Ads: how drain leads get charged

For most drain companies, Local Services Ads (the paid boxes at the very top of the results) are the first paid channel worth testing. You pay per lead, not per click. But you should know exactly what counts as a lead before you set a budget.

From Google's "How leads work" page:

Read that second row again. A missed call during your posted hours can still cost you money. Another reason to pick up.

Google says it keeps checking lead quality over a 30-day period and may credit low-quality leads automatically. You can also flag a bad lead in the feedback survey for that lead, and Google says it may occasionally credit those. Check the Charge Status column on your Leads page every week. Don't assume.

Budgets are set as an average weekly budget. Google says you can go over in a given week but you'll never spend more than your monthly max. When you hit it, the ad stops showing for the rest of the month.

Google doesn't publish lead prices. They vary by location, job type, lead type and bidding mode. Anyone quoting you an exact cost per drain lead in your city is guessing.

What moves you up in Local Services Ads

Google says LSA listings are ranked by an auction that weighs your bid and your overall profile quality. Profile quality, in Google's words, includes your rating, number of reviews, average response time, use of high-quality images and the verification checks you've completed. Google also says higher-quality profiles may rank higher and may pay lower costs per lead.

That last part matters. Better reviews and faster answers don't just get you more leads. They can make each lead cheaper.

Google's own "improve your performance" checklist, translated for a rooter shop:

• Select every job type you actually do. Drain cleaning, main line, sewer camera inspection, hydro jetting, whatever's on the menu. Unchecked boxes are jobs you'll never be shown for.
• Set a wide service area. Google's example is your whole county instead of specific ZIP codes.
• Get to at least 5 reviews. Google recommends 5 or more, and says some business types may need 5 reviews just to show.
• Add real photos. Your trucks, your crew in uniform, your jetter. Google says high-quality photos can help you stand out and get more leads.
• Turn on message leads. Google says message leads typically cost less than phone leads.

Reviews: ask for them yourself, never buy them

Google's LSA review page says star ratings and number of reviews affect how you're ranked, and that providers with higher ratings and more reviews typically book more jobs. It also says customers are more likely to leave a review if the request comes from you directly.

So ask. The best time on a drain job is right after the water goes down. The customer is relieved and standing next to you. Text the review link before you leave the driveway.

What you can't do got a lot clearer in 2024. The FTC finalized a rule banning fake reviews and testimonials, including AI-generated ones. It bans paying or giving incentives for reviews that are conditioned on a particular sentiment, positive or negative. It bans undisclosed reviews from your own managers and employees. It bans threats or intimidation to get a bad review taken down. And it lets the FTC seek civil penalties against knowing violators.

Translation: a $10 gift card for "a 5-star review" is out. Asking every customer for an honest review is fine. Reply to the bad ones calmly and fix what you can.

Your website: one page per job, one page per city

LSA and your Google profile get you seen. Your website is what a cautious customer checks before calling, and what Google reads to decide what you're relevant for.

A common mistake on rooter sites: one "Services" page that lists drain cleaning, sewer repair, hydro jetting and water heaters in a single paragraph. That page can't rank well for any of them. Build a page for each job you want calls for:

• Drain cleaning (kitchen, bathroom, floor drains)
• Main line and sewer line clearing
• Hydro jetting
• Sewer camera inspection
• Root removal
• Emergency or after-hours drain service, if you actually offer it

Each page should answer what a homeowner wants to know: what the job is, when they need it, what you'll do when you arrive, and a big call button. Then add a page for each city you really serve. We wrote a full guide on service area pages that don't read like copy-paste.

On a phone, the number should be tappable and visible without scrolling. A lot of drain calls start on a phone in a wet hallway. If they have to hunt for the number, they hit back.

Your Google Business Profile is the free half

LSA is paid. The map pack below it is free, and it runs on your Google Business Profile. Same reviews, same hours, same photos feed both, so the work pays twice.

The basics: use your real business name with nothing stuffed into it, pick the category that matches your main work, list every service, keep hours accurate, and post real job photos. If you run from home, hide the address and set a service area. Our Google Business Profile guide for contractors walks through each setting, and this one covers how the map ranks you.

The weekly drain marketing checklist

Fifteen minutes on Monday morning. That's it.

1. Check missed calls from last week. Call back every one you haven't.
2. Open the LSA Leads page. Look at Charge Status. Flag any junk lead in the feedback survey.
3. Count new reviews. If it's zero, your techs aren't asking. Fix that today.
4. Reply to every new review, good or bad.
5. Upload two or three real photos from last week's jobs to your profile.
6. Make sure your hours match reality, especially around holidays.
7. Check that your website loads on your phone and the call button works.

How NOCTURNE does it

We build websites and Google profiles for trades, rooter and drain companies included. A page for each job and each city you serve, a call button that's always on screen, a quote form, and your Google Business Profile cleaned up so your hours, services and photos line up everywhere. See what that looks like for rooter and sewer companies.

You don't pay to find out if it's any good. After a 10-minute call, you get a real page on a live link within 24 hours. Or skip the call for $50, credited to launch. Launch starts at $1,500: a single page on your domain, live in 5 days. You own your domain, account and files. No annual contract. Details on pricing.

Built first. Paid after.

Questions

Sources

• How leads work (Google Local Services Help)
• About ad rankings (Google Local Services Help)
• Reviews and Ratings on Local Services Ads (Google Local Services Help)
• Improve your Local Services Ads performance (Google Local Services Help)
• Manage leads and jobs (Google Local Services Help)
• Federal Trade Commission Announces Final Rule Banning Fake Reviews and Testimonials (FTC, Aug. 14, 2024)