Pest control is one of the most competitive categories in local home services advertising. Customers want someone fast, they search urgently, and there are usually several providers bidding on the same keywords. Getting the cost per lead under control in that environment takes more than just turning on a campaign and waiting.

This case study breaks down how a pest control company cut their cost per lead by 65% over eight months without increasing their budget.

The client

A pest control company in Parker County, Texas, specializing in pest, weed, termite, and rodent control. Well-established in their local market with a strong service reputation, but struggling to make their Google Ads spend work efficiently.

The problem

The client needed to generate quality leads without exceeding their monthly budget. Their existing Google Ads campaigns were producing leads, but the cost per lead was too high to justify scaling. The challenge was bringing that number down while keeping the volume and quality of leads consistent.

The goal

Increase the number of qualified leads while reducing the cost per lead significantly over an eight-month campaign period.

The strategy

The campaign launched with targeted search and call campaigns built around keywords and audience segments relevant to pest control services in their county. The first four months focused on getting the targeting right and establishing a baseline understanding of how their specific audience searched and behaved.

That initial phase produced results, but at a cost per lead of $133, the economics weren't yet where they needed to be. The data collected in months one through four was the foundation for everything that followed.

A detailed analysis of service-level performance and audience behavior identified where the campaign was working well and where budget was leaking into searches or segments that weren't converting. Those findings drove a round of strategic adjustments in the second half of the campaign.

Automated bidding strategies were introduced and refined based on the conversion data from the first four months. Multiple bidding approaches and ad types were tested to identify which combinations produced the best results at the lowest cost. The client's input on their service areas, peak demand periods, and the types of jobs they most wanted to win helped calibrate the campaign targeting further.

The best-performing ad used a direct, urgent call to action. In pest control, where a customer's motivation to call is often high and immediate, "Call us Now" outperformed softer prompts consistently. The ad was built for visibility and fast engagement, not consideration.

The results

Over eight months on a budget of $1,000 per month:

Total leads generated: 98
Total campaign spend: $7,125
Click-through rate: 7.58%
Cost per click: $10.73
Months 1 to 4 cost per lead: $133
Months 5 to 8 cost per lead: $47
Overall CPL improvement: 65%

The 7.58% click-through rate is well above average for home services Google Ads, where a strong CTR typically falls in the 4% to 6% range. It reflects how well the ad messaging aligned with what people were actually searching for.

The shift from $133 to $47 per lead between the first and second halves of the campaign is the result the structure was designed to produce. The first four months were the learning phase. The second four months were where that learning was applied.

What drove the performance

A deliberate two-phase structure. The campaign was designed from the start with the understanding that the first phase would be more expensive. Rather than treating that as a failure, it was treated as data collection. The optimization decisions made in months five through eight were only possible because of what months one through four revealed.

Audience behavior analysis specific to pest control. People searching for pest control services have different urgency levels depending on what they're dealing with. A termite inspection inquiry behaves differently than an emergency rodent call. Understanding which segments drove the highest-quality leads at the most efficient cost allowed the campaign to concentrate budget where it performed best.

Automated bidding built on real data. Automated bidding performs best when it has conversion history to optimize against. Introducing it partway through the campaign, once real conversion data existed, meant the algorithm was working with meaningful signals rather than guessing in the early weeks.

Client knowledge integrated into campaign decisions. The client's understanding of their own market, including which services had the best margins, which areas they most wanted to serve, and when demand peaks typically occurred, was built into the campaign targeting. Campaigns that ignore this context tend to optimize for volume of leads rather than quality.

Direct response ad creative. Pest control is not a category where people deliberate for long. Someone who has spotted signs of termites or found a rodent in their house wants to call a professional today. Ad copy that reflects that urgency and makes the next step obvious performs better than messaging that tries to educate or build brand awareness.

The half-campaign problem

One of the most common reasons Google Ads campaigns underperform for home services businesses is that they get evaluated and often cancelled before the optimization phase has had a chance to produce results.

This campaign at month four looked like it was costing $133 per lead. At month eight it was costing $47. If the campaign had been cut after four months due to high costs, the client would have walked away with the impression that Google Ads was too expensive for their business. Instead, they ended up with a campaign producing qualified leads at under $50, on a budget most small businesses can sustain.

The lesson is not that you should run every campaign for eight months regardless of performance. It is that there is a meaningful difference between a campaign that is failing and a campaign that is still learning, and those two things look similar in the early months if you're only watching the cost per lead number.

What this looks like for GTA pest control and home services businesses

Pest control, wildlife removal, lawn care, and similar home services businesses in the Greater Toronto Area operate in a market with consistent demand and strong seasonal peaks. Google Ads is well-suited to this category because the search intent is high and the buying decision is usually fast.

The difference between a campaign that produces leads at $50 and one that produces them at $130 is almost always in the management and optimization, not the budget. More spend without better strategy just produces more expensive leads.

At Kaaname Digital, every Google Ads campaign we manage is built with a clear optimization roadmap and reviewed monthly. If you want to understand what an efficiently run campaign could look like for your home services business in the GTA, book a free consultation. We'll take a look at your market and tell you what's realistic.