Google Ads · Drainage Companies
Google Ads for drainage firms: unblocking pays the bills, repairs pay the wages
Every drainage account has the same tension. Unblocking searches are plentiful, urgent and cheap to buy, and the job is worth a couple of hundred pounds. Survey and repair searches are scarcer and cost more, and the job is worth ten times as much. Build for one and you will never see the other.
In short
Google Ads for drainage companies in the UK needs a different build from a generic Google Ads account, and this is how PipelineOS structures it. Four campaigns, and the reason for the first two is purely budgetary. Emergency unblocking runs on its own budget with a 24/7 schedule and call-heavy ads, because a customer with sewage backing up into a downstairs shower is not comparing providers. The first ad group to build is Emergency unblocking: 24/7 schedule, call-focused ads, top-of-page bidding. The most common way this goes wrong: one campaign for the whole business, where the emergency unblocking clicks reliably consume the budget and the survey and lining work never gets a click.
How we build it
Four campaigns, and the reason for the first two is purely budgetary. Emergency unblocking runs on its own budget with a 24/7 schedule and call-heavy ads, because a customer with sewage backing up into a downstairs shower is not comparing providers. Surveys and repairs run separately on office hours with a proper landing page, because a homeowner arranging a pre-purchase drain survey or considering a £3,000 no-dig lining job wants to understand what they are buying. If they share a budget, the emergency clicks will have spent it before the survey enquiry arrives, every single month.
The third campaign is the one drainage firms most often skip: cause-led searches. People do not always search for drainage. They search for the symptom — toilet not flushing away, gurgling sink, drain smell in the garden, manhole overflowing, water pooling on the drive after rain, tree roots in the pipe. These terms are cheaper than the trade terms and the intent is identical, because the person with a gurgling sink has already tried the supermarket bottle of drain unblocker. Each symptom deserves its own ad group with copy naming the symptom.
The fourth is commercial and recurring: restaurants and kitchens with grease problems, letting agents and property managers with a portfolio, facilities managers wanting planned maintenance, tanker work and interceptor emptying. Office hours, manual bids, a page about response agreements and compliance rather than about blocked toilets. These enquiries cost more and are worth far more, because a single letting agent will send work every month for years.
Two clarifications belong in the copy and the landing pages, because they cause enormous wasted spend. First, since 2011 the water and sewerage companies have been responsible for most shared drains and lateral drains outside the property boundary, so a proportion of callers are ringing you about something the water company will attend free. Saying so plainly on the page loses a few calls and earns considerable goodwill, and prevents a wasted attendance. Second, many drainage repairs are covered by home insurance, and a firm that will handle the claim paperwork converts substantially better on repair work than one that leaves the customer to argue with an insurer.
Ad groups
The account structure in practice. Ad groups stay tight so the ad can genuinely match the search, which lowers cost per click for the same position.
| Ad group | Example keywords | Bids and handling |
|---|---|---|
| Emergency unblocking | blocked drain [town], emergency drain unblocking, sewage backing up, drain unblocking near me now | 24/7 schedule, call-focused ads, top-of-page bidding. Give it a ring-fenced budget so it cannot consume the account and so it cannot be starved by it. |
| Symptom searches | toilet not flushing away, gurgling sink and toilet, drain smell in garden, manhole overflowing | Cheaper than trade terms, same intent. One ad group per symptom with copy repeating the symptom, which sharply improves click-through against generic competitors. |
| CCTV surveys and reports | drain survey before buying house, CCTV drain survey [town], homebuyer drainage survey, insurance drain report | Planned, scheduled, well-paid and often the start of a repair job. Landing page should explain what the report contains and how quickly it is issued. |
| Repairs, lining and excavation | collapsed drain repair, no dig drain lining, patch repair drain cost, root ingress removal | The highest value work in the account. Slower decisions, so measure on a longer window and lead with the insurance claim handling. |
| Commercial and contract | commercial drainage [county], grease trap emptying, planned drainage maintenance, interceptor cleaning | Office hours, manual bidding, low volume, high lifetime value. Sell the response agreement, not the individual visit. |
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Call 07443 392243WhatsAppBudget and the arithmetic
Set out the ladder. A straightforward unblock bills £120–£280, a CCTV survey with report £200–£400, a patch repair or short lining job £600–£1,800, a full liner or excavation £2,000–£6,000, and a commercial planned maintenance agreement anywhere from £150 to £600 a month depending on site count. Contribution on unblocking is high because it is labour and a jetter; on excavation it drops sharply once reinstatement, spoil disposal and traffic management are counted.
Where the money is actually made is the progression. A meaningful proportion of unblocking call-outs reveal a structural fault, which becomes a survey, which becomes a repair. If a fifth of unblock jobs progress to a survey and half of those to a repair averaging £1,400 with a £700 contribution, then every unblock carries roughly £70 of expected downstream contribution on top of its own £110. That doubles what you can afford to pay for an emergency call — to around £150 rather than £80 — and it is invisible unless somebody records where each repair job originated.
Commercial work is priced over its life rather than per visit. A restaurant on a quarterly grease and jetting agreement at £250 a visit, retained for three years, is a £3,000 contract, not a £250 job. At a 30% win rate on tendered enquiries and a 50% contribution, a commercial enquiry is worth about £450, which justifies paying five to ten times the domestic cost per lead for it. Most drainage accounts underfund commercial because they judge it on the first invoice.
Four ways this goes wrong
- One campaign for the whole business, where the emergency unblocking clicks reliably consume the budget and the survey and lining work never gets a click.
- Advertising 24-hour emergency drainage with a phone answered from eight until five. The out-of-hours click costs more and delivers nothing.
- Never mentioning insurance. A large share of collapsed drain work is claimable, and the firm that handles the paperwork wins against the one that quotes and waits.
- Bidding on “drain cleaning” without exclusions and paying for chemical unblockers, drain rods, drain covers and people looking for a plumber.
- Treating a letting agent enquiry as one job. It is a supplier relationship worth years of monthly work, and it should be bid on accordingly.
The two pages behind this one
This page is the intersection. For the wider picture:
Google Ads in general
Everything about marketing for drainage companies
Questions
Should we tell people the water company might fix it free?
Yes, on the landing page rather than in the ad. Since the 2011 transfer, sewerage companies are responsible for most shared and lateral drains beyond the property boundary, and attending a job you cannot charge for is worse than losing the call. Being straightforward about it also earns the private work when the blockage turns out to be inside the boundary, which is most of the time.
How do we get more repair work rather than just unblocking?
Fund the survey campaign separately and make the report the product. A customer who has seen footage of a fractured pipe under their patio understands why the repair costs what it does; a customer told over the phone that the drain is damaged gets three more quotes. Ring-fencing the survey budget so emergency spend cannot absorb it is the structural half of the answer.
Are symptom keywords really worth bidding on?
Consistently, yes. Somebody typing that their sink gurgles when the toilet flushes has a drainage problem and does not yet know the word for it, so the click is cheaper and less contested than the trade term. The requirement is that the ad repeats their words, because a generic drainage ad against a symptom search reads as irrelevant and gets ignored.
What should the out-of-hours campaign look like?
Separate campaign, separate budget, call-focused ads, and only running during hours somebody genuinely answers. Overnight drainage calls convert extremely well because the alternatives are few and the problem cannot wait, but the premium you pay for that click is only recoverable if the phone is picked up. Schedule it to your actual rota, not your aspiration.
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