The State of Home Service Marketing in 2026: Google Ads, Meta & LSA

Dude, marketing in 2026 is crazy.

I personally spend $15K a month on Meta ads. Meta doesn't work well for people that suck at speed to lead or have a good CSR.

Do you miss any calls? How fast do you pick up? Like, we pick up in 7 seconds.

If you don't have that, don't spend money on Meta. It's just a waste of money.

Like, there's a company that went from $10 million to $150 on the back of Meta.

Just Meta?

Yes.

Here's what I love about Meta. Anyone can go compete.

Marketing is not just marketing anymore. Call center and marketing are becoming the same thing. I will say the only other thing with Meta that I've seen Welcome back to Owned and Operated, a top 150 business and entrepreneurship podcast. I'm your host, John Wilson. On this show, we talk about the home service industry, we talk about how to buy businesses, we talk about how to build them, talk about my own business, and we also talk with my friends on what they're doing inside the industry. Today I'm rejoined by Sam Preston in person, live, live in live in studio.

And we're guns bigger in person or on camera.

Yeah, before we started filming, we were flexing in front of the camera to see how good we look. So if you see us doing that, just ignore it.

It's all steroids. Literally. So I'm a dad and a business owner. I don't type anything else but steroids.

I run. Yeah, I run.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

Um.

Welcome back in person. Uh, this will be a ton of fun. We're here at the Breaking 5 workshop, and it's been good. I love this.

I love this one yet. It is getting better.

It is good.

Yeah, well, one of the reasons why it's better than last time is because it's bigger.

Yeah, it's big. It's like, yeah, we, uh, we had, I think it's 35 people, and, um, I mean, literally The room is too small for it.

Yeah.

So, 'cause we had to cap it, we capped it like a month ago and we're thinking about doing it, we're thinking about moving it to a different section of the warehouse to like allow for like 40 or 50 or whatever. 'Cause we had to shut off tickets like, yeah, like back in early August.

Yeah.

Which is crazy. Like we've never had to do that before.

I literally had some people in Akron that were prospects looking at, you know, doing marketing with us. And I was like, you should be at the Breaking 5. And I couldn't get tickets.

Yeah.

They're all sold out. I was like, my bad. You're here, but you cannot come.

I think we'll be moving on to a new room.

Um... OK.

Just...

And not Mexico, or, like...

Yeah. Well, there is, like, a Mexico— we're doing a little Mexico retreat in November, so that'll be cool. Are you?

OK. Did I get invited to this?

Uh... I was just like, no! Well, it's like home service above $10 million. Are you above $10 million?

I am not, no, unfortunately.

I haven't made that yet. But yeah, Mexico would be fun.

Yeah, Mexico.

That's absolutely— so what are we talking about today?

We're talking about like marketing in 2026.

Dude, marketing in 2026 is crazy.

It is. I mean, I feel like I'm saying—

I don't know if I've said this every year. I, I don't want to look— I don't want to look back at like transcripts and be like, for 4 years John's complained about the state of marketing. But like, kind of complaining.

I said this in the last podcast, but it's so true. Like, 4 years ago, it was like, this market is so volatile. Every 6 months something changes with Google and we had to change everything.

Yeah.

And now it's like every other day.

Yeah.

Like if I go to look up a YouTube video on how to do something, if it's older than a week old, I'm not watching it.

Yeah, it's already outdated. That's crazy.

And so it's just, it's a different world.

Yeah, I think this, I think marketing, um, I bring this up a lot. Have you and I ever talked about the elephant curve?

Mm-mm.

Okay. So, I think that this is not my concept. This is— I think his name is Jason Cohen. And he was the founder of WP Engine. And he has a personal blog and it's called something bear.

I don't remember.

But if you search WP Engine Elephant Curve, like the blog, the article pulls up and I think everybody should read it. I think it's like a fundamental lesson in marketing. So the concept is marketing follows an elephant curve.

Mm-hmm.

So it goes from, like if you trace an elephant, like if you're watching this on video and an elephant's just standing, You know, you have the trunk, it goes up along the head, the back, and then down the tail.

Yep.

So it's like, it's a bell curve basically, but we're calling it the elephant curve. And I think it's because of the pace of growth. So the idea behind the elephant curve is that when you add a new channel, you begin your curve. So you get fast results with a new channel. And those results, you go from like, hey, we didn't do Meta ads, and now we do Meta ads, which by the way, like we should talk about Meta ads because Meta ads are like I feel like the craziest thing that's come out of 2026. But so hey, we didn't do this channel. Now we do this channel, and we added a net new 400 leads a month. But like that doesn't just keep growing from zero to 400 leads a month forever. It's not this exponential. Curve, it flattens out along the back of the elephant and then eventually declines because you have maximized that channel. Yeah, I think we all instinctively understand this, um, and there's a few different ways to like combat it. But I, I think that in 2026 and 2025 and like as this has gotten more competitive, we are just having to iterate faster. Yeah, so I think 5 years ago, hey, we launched a new channel. Well, nobody's really using LSA yet, so like we had a lot of room to run on LSA before we hit our flatline. Well, now it's more competitive.

Yeah.

Uh, so you just run out of room. I would say Meta right now is like kind of an underutilized, uh, channel by most service businesses, us included. Um, so I think, uh, yeah, I think it— the elephant curve idea is you add new channels, and then as you add more channels, you don't solve your problem. So if you add like— when I mean channels, I mean like Google Ads is a channel, mailers is a channel, Canvassing is a channel. Like, these are all channels.

Yep.

But as you add more channels, you don't like solve the problem. It doesn't stay exponential. Each channel, it's just a bigger elephant curve.

Yeah.

So like you just stack the elephants on top of each other. So like, okay, Meta, we had huge results really fast and it stabled out.

Yep.

Well, Google, we had huge results and it stabled out. Mailers, we had huge results and it stabled out. So our job is to find more channels after we've stabled out the previous one because it will stable out. And I think that in 2026, like my hot take is that we're just having to do that way faster than we used to because there's just, just more competitive. One of the best things that you can do as a home service operator is get in the right room with other great entrepreneurs. And that's what we are building with Catalyst. Over the past few years, we've hosted 6 awesome events where we bring home service entrepreneurs from all over the country to our shop in Akron, Ohio. We're taking everything that we've learned from those 6 events and we are putting it into something awesome. From May 3rd to the 5th, 100+ home service entrepreneurs are coming to our shop in Akron, Ohio for 3 days where we're going to be having tactical sessions, breakout conversations, and learning from some of the greatest operators in the industry. You're also just going to be building relationships with people facing the exact same problems that you are every single day. This is going to be our strongest room of operators yet. Grab your seat for Catalyst below.

Okay, I've never heard of that, the elephant curve, but it like, it makes sense.

Yeah, I think it's instinctual, you know, like, hey, I'm gonna launch a new channel, we're gonna get a bunch of leads, but eventually like, that will steady out. Like, no one's like, oh, LSA can go on forever and grow exponentially. I think we all know it instinctively. That's just like, here's a study around it.

Yeah, I mean, at some point you only have so many people searching in your market on Google.

Yes.

Like you might even be in a really big market.

Yes.

It might be a huge search volume, but at some point you max that out and you have to go find other channels.

Well, and the way to combat it is you've— adding more channels doesn't necessarily defeat the problem.

No.

Because you will just have more elephant curves that you have to deal with.

Yes.

So what you have to do is you have to find a new customer segment. So for home service, that's like a new location.

Yeah.

So like, okay, well, we're, you know, $30 million or whatever, and I guess $40 now in Northeast Ohio.

Mmhmm.

But like we added Indiana.

Yeah.

And we're 7 or 8 or something out there.

Mmhmm.

So new segment, new customers to introduce our services to.

Yep.

New curve. Or you add new products or services, which is also like a fair way to do it. So like, hey, you begin your curve, you get more people in the system, And then, hey, that channel works, so let's introduce electric HVAC, whatever. Uh, but those are the 2 ways to like defeat the problem and continue exponential growth, is you stack more channels, yes, but then you also have to introduce, uh, like net new customers, like new market or new product service or both.

How do you— so inside of a certain market, let's say I don't actually want to Like, I don't wanna go to Indiana. Like, I like my local area, right?

Indiana's great.

No offense.

Indiana is great.

I'm sure it's great.

Yeah.

Um, but like, so you're saying, like, the way you would just keep growing inside that same market is to add other product, add other services, or add another channel that's not in the same boat as the current, you know, like LSA to Google Ads is literally the same thing.

Instinctually, I think we all understand this, Hey, in order to grow, I have to grow horizontal, which is like breadth of service, or vertical, which is more locations of plumbing only. Like, are you going to be Roto-Rooter where you have, I don't even know, 500 locations of plumbing? And then are you going to be Neighborly or something where it's like a bunch of different franchises? Now, Roto-Rooter is a good example because they ended up doing both. Like, they hit maturity They have I don't even know how many locations, and then they added water restoration. So then they did the second part of that, which is new service.

Interesting.

But yeah, I think we all know that like you can only do like the growth model is more locations or more services.

Yeah.

For a long time we did more services, so we just like continued to drive the same. I think the issue is it complicates the business.

Why is that?

Like HVAC is a totally different business than plumbing.

Yeah.

Um, I think that like Roto-Rooter is, is like my key example, or Zoom Drain or something like that. Like doing one service and just doing it at scale is a simpler business model to run.

Yeah.

I think.

Oh yeah.

Than like 7 service lines under one roof.

I mean, we're running into that right now for my own business where we've done SEO for so long, and that is very much website and content and backlinks and all that kind of jazz. And now socials is starting to play into affecting your, your SEO.

Yeah.

And so when we say like, oh, we do SEO for you, but we don't do like one of the major functionalities that's going to make a difference, like that hurts. And so I'm like, okay, well, how do I, how do I go win in posting on Instagram and Facebook, which we've avoided on purpose for years? Um, and so trying to figure that out as a new service of how we grow your organic.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's interesting. Um, so okay, that was like my lecture on, uh, elephant curves. But the state of marketing of 2026 is— I think it has just accelerated the need to add channels and potentially accelerated the need to choose one of those 2 options.

Yeah.

Now that could also just be my perspective from my own business and Like, obviously I'm not running— like, I'm running a larger business in the trades, so maybe that's— I don't know, maybe that's tainting it.

Yeah, I mean, I think, uh, most— the majority of businesses are, you know, probably sub-5, uh, that are trying to grow. And I think that if you are in that spot, adding a new service is much harder.

Yeah, I think so.

Than just going deeper into that current service. And so I think that's where you start.

I actually think it's the wrong decision.

To add a service below 5?

I think so. I think that, um, I think that, yeah, my hot take is I think it's the wrong decision. I, I can point to a few awesome examples of like hypergrowth companies that are single trade, um, and they're just doing a great job. And like I've said this on the years for podcast, on this 4 years on this podcast, but if I could go back, I would've been plumbing only to like $40 million. then introduced HVAC, and then introduced electric. Like, we love HVAC and electric, and our teams are awesome.

Yeah.

But it is easier to run and scale one business and then add more onto it, um, once you have infrastructure. I mean, now it doesn't matter, like, we're an at-scale business, but it would have been easier growing to do that just as a solo.

Uh, Call Dad did that.

Yeah, totally.

HVAC.

Yeah, they just introduced plumbing. So like, there are 10 locations, uh, so this is similar to Roto-Rooter, and there are 10 locations and All HVAC. They like maximized breadth—not maximized—but ten locations is a lot. Like, I mean, we're only at six or something, and then they added plumbing. Yep.

Service maxing—that's what we can call it.

Yeah. There you go. I like that. I like that. Meta is why. I mean, back to state, but Meta is kind of wild.

Meta is super interesting right now.

Meta is really interesting. I keep running into these businesses. Meta was written off. Which honestly, like, I, I think, I think that like 2025 and 2026 marketing for like me has mainly just been like re-exploring things that I wrote off 5 years ago. Because like, it's like, you know, 5 years ago I was like, ah, this fucking doesn't work. Like, like, uh, I feel like Angie's List or Meta, like you can sort of pick one. Dude, Angie's List is literally our highest ROI channel and it's not close. And it is so annoying. It is so annoying because for years I was like, fuck this shit. It's the best. Like, it is our best channel.

I meet so many people that say that. I mean, just as many people that hate it. Crazy. But like, every single time we're talking to a prospect, I'm talking like, hey, what are your lead partners? Have you tried Angie's? And they go, no. I'm like, please go try it because I don't know if it's in your market, but so many people count it as their best lead source.

It's crazy. It's crazy. I mean, for years, like, I don't know. So anyway, so 2025 and 2026 is just like, it's not even us being creative or like inventing, you know. I feel like we went through a few years where we were like ahead of the curve and like, yeah, and like, I mean, in a lot of ways I still think we are, but like a lot of '25 and '26 was just be like, hey, you know that thing that we hated 5 years ago? Like, maybe we should just look at it again. Yeah, see what we think. Yeah. Oh my God, it worked.

Yeah.

But Meta ads has been similar. We have not had the same results yet. We did it with like drains. We're trying it with drains right now.

Yeah.

But like, I'm seeing companies close to like high 8 figures or 9 figures that Meta is like what Google was to us 3 years ago. It is their dominant channel.

Yeah.

Which is mind-boggling to me.

Yeah. I, we're, I'm like redesigning our Meta, package right now. Meta doesn't work well for people that suck at speed to lead or have a good CSR.

Or I would also say have a premium price. Premium price. What the— that is the biggest thing that I see successful. Again, we're not having this experience. So like, I'm not, you know, this is me talking from just like, here's what I see. If you are premium priced, you will struggle. Like you need, you can be premium price, but you need a, like a, you need a low, low option.

Yeah.

'Cause Meta is just a different, it is a low intent channel. You can't, you know, you don't, you're not getting no heats.

Yeah.

You're getting people bidding 5 contractors at a time to like do a repair. So it's a tremendous amount of leads, but like it's, it's cheap.

Yeah.

Like the consumer's cheap.

Yeah. So you have to be good at speed to lead because you are competing so well and you have to have a good, talented CSR team. Yes, totally.

Which we would've never, it's the same with Angie. We would've never been able to do, I think that's why it didn't work for us in the first place. I think all of these lead channels, in 2025, we rebuilt our speed to lead system.

Yeah.

Which part of it's software, um, and like Evoq is doing that, but then a lot of it is like our, our behavior, like what you're saying right now, like our call center behavior. Because speed to lead is, uh, yeah, it's hard to get right. It's important. But like once you do it, once you, once you have the technology and most importantly the people on top of the technology to like make it better, That's when it works, and then any lead channel works. That's what we found where it's like, hey, now we have this system that we didn't have five years ago. Yeah, like it's not because Angie got better. Angie was probably the same. It's because we got better. Yeah, and now it works for us. Yeah, but it's the same with like yeah meta leads. Like if you get ten leads, maybe you only book two. Yeah, so you got to sell one.

You know well for the audience because I get this question a lot. Yeah, and I feel like people don't actually understand when we talk about speed to lead. Like what does that mean?

Yeah, okay, because I'll go, hey, you need to have good.

speed to lead? And they'll go, oh yeah, I've got good speed to lead. I was like, okay, hold on, what do you mean?

Yes.

Oh, I answer the phone quickly when someone calls.

Yes.

I'm like, okay, great, but like how many rings?

Yeah.

Like if someone submits a form or is like reaching out via Angie's List, how quickly do you— like, is it 7 seconds? Is it 30? Like, so when some— when you say like you have to have good speed to lead, yes, define it to me like I'm a 5-year-old and don't really—

Yeah, no, that's a good point because I, I hear this a lot too. It's like, well, we respond. And I was like, well, shit. Where are you? Can I compete with you? Um, yeah, so we— speed to lead is when you get a call, do you, do you miss any calls? How fast do you pick up? Like, we pick up at 7 seconds. Like, yeah, it's been 7 seconds for years. We watch it every week. Like, 7 seconds.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm anal about it. And, uh, 7 seconds. Um, so we pick up at 7 seconds. And so that's phone calls in. But the bigger you get and the more like you have leads outside of phone calls, that's actually where I think it gets a little bit more complicated because suddenly you're watching like contact instead of call. Yeah. And, you know, if we get, I don't know, 500 phone call leads in a week. Yep. In Akron, we might get 2,000 written leads. Like, it is a huge amount. Um, so I, I think that's the complicated one. So, uh, so what the way that works is it's like a technology, uh, that all of the leads go into. You immediately text them, like it's automatic, which I think is the important part, is the automatic contact. Yeah. Um, and then once there's automatic contact, like continuing it into a, into a booking. Yes. And adding the human being, uh, so like as an example for like Low-intent lead sources like Angie's, Meta, Modernize, like anyone that's like, here's a lead that's not Google LSA, um, a 30% book rate is considered good.

Yeah.

So 3 out of 10.

Yep.

Which is not high. And, uh, what we found is the automated text gets you from like 0 to 15-20% book rate on those contacts. The trained CSR that you're talking about, like, yeah, once you contact, if they don't respond back, like, who's hounding them? How do you, how do you add calls? How do you add emails? Like, how do you book that lead like you paid for it? That's what gets you to 30% and above. Yep. Book rate.

Yep. So, so I love this. Okay, speed to lead. When we say speed to lead, we mean are you answering the phone within 7 seconds? And then—

Are you missing any calls?

Are you missing any calls?

Do you have technology to pick up calls at night? Some people call at 11 PM. Like, what's your overflow?

And then when, after your initial contact, how often you are reaching out to that person via SMS, phone call, and email.

Yeah.

How many times do you do it on the first day?

Yeah.

I'm asking, like, how many? Like, do you reach them 7 times?

It's a lot. Yeah. I mean, I mean, there's some companies that do like 30 times in that first week if you don't book.

Yeah. So that's— that is speed to lead.

Yeah.

I like that.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a system. And I think I've said this so much, but probably a couple of years ago in plumbing, HVAC, electric, we are— we are such a unique industry versus windows. As an example, or bathroom models or whatever else. So as you're thinking about your call center and how to handle leads, you should almost never be studying larger plumbing, HVAC, electric contractors because it is not complicated to get big in plumbing, HVAC, electric on broken furnaces and broken water heaters.

No.

It's like, it's kind of straightforward. That's how the industry works. When you start adding low-intent lead sources like bathroom models has to, or windows has to, where they have to get a lead and really like own that lead, control it, sell it. It's a it's a different level of maniacal. It was pretty humbling when we first started looking into our speed to lead. We talked to a guy who's doing epoxy garage floors. It was like two million dollars. This guy knew more about his lead funnel. Than we did, and we were a $25 million business. And he was he was running circles around me. Let's go. And he was like growing the business purely on meta. And I was like, I don't even think we could do that right now because we're not locked in the same way that this guy is locked in. Yeah. So yeah, it was really interesting. So yeah, you don't study other plumbing HVAC electric companies. You study companies that have that live or die by low intent leads, which plumbing electric lives or dies by high intent leads. Yeah. So yeah, you got to, you got to study everyone else. Love that.

So got to be good at speed to lead in order for Meta to work. And then you have to be good at turning those leads into appointments. Yes. With a talented CSR team. Yes. And I think people get that mixed up a lot.

They think, well, you don't have to in plumbing HVAC. I think that's like your CSR team is trained from day one to book high-intent leads that are phone calls. When you add low-intent non-phone calls, it is a totally different call center, like completely different. I mean, we had to rebuild our call center last year completely around this idea because we were not thriving because we were building a company like how this used to work.

Okay.

So yeah, I think, I think To me, it makes total sense that people aren't good at it because like we weren't good at it. Yeah. I mean, now I think we're really good at it.

Now you're good at it?

Yeah, it's a strength. Let's go. Yeah, it is cool. I love that. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. Okay. All right, so, so back to Meta. Yeah. So you're seeing Meta pop.

Meta's working so well across the board. Again, not for people that suck at speed to leads and have calls. If you don't have that, don't spend money on Meta. It's just a waste of money. Yeah, but if you can figure those 2 things out and you already have the systems in place, you've been running, you're growing, you're looking for that second channel, it's a great place to be.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I keep, I keep seeing these, um, I keep seeing these HVAC companies specifically growing on Meta, and it is, it's fascinating. Yeah, to watch, because I think Um, it takes a lot of work, and I think that's why people aren't very good at it. But once you— yeah, once you like put in the fundamentals, it's crazy. Like, there's a company that went from $10 million to $150 million out in, uh, well, I'm not gonna say where, but like on the back of Meta.

Just Meta? Yes.

Like, yes.

It's like the yard signs guy. I'm like, what? I know. How did you do that?

That's the thing. When I saw that, I What the fuck? And there's another company, Topline. I think they talk pretty publicly about this. And I, I'm pretty sure they've got— because I see their trucks like sort of bebop around, but I think they're out of Pittsburgh or something like that. I don't know how big they are now, 40 or 50 or 60 or something, but almost exclusively Meta is my understanding.

Yeah.

But what they, what they have is like it's a very low ticket item. I believe lower gross margin, but I've never seen their financials, so I don't know. Yeah, lower gross margin. And I think that's what you need. And then like an obsessive system over like handling those leads. But you know, you know, if you're a retail, like if you're a retail HVAC shop, your average ticket might be like $12,000 to $14,000. But the people succeeding on Meta are installing $9,000 to $10,000 full systems. Got it. So like, it is a difference. It's a total— it's a different type of sales, which I also think that's why HVAC— current HVAC companies don't really know how to deal with it because they're used to like going up, up, up. And this is like, it's, it's Meta. It's like kind of a race to the bottom, but it is a unique amount of volume. It's half of the global population. It's a unique amount of volume.

Here's what I love about Meta. Is that anyone can go compete. It's not like Google Business Profile where people have been doing this for 20 years. Yeah, yeah. They already have 20,000 reviews and you're just like, man, how do I go beat that? It's not like Google Ads where again, like people, you know, the big companies aren't good at it. They suck.

They're not. Well, and the thing that's like the hyper growers today are Meta Ads hyper growers. Like that, that's the thing that's been blowing my mind for the past like 6 to 12 months is all the companies that I see like can still clipping 30% year-over-year growth in the high 8 figures or low 9 figures. Yeah. Are driven by Meta. Yeah. Which like, that's crazy. Whereas like when you look at the sort of, I'll call them legacy $100 million businesses, like they were built like how Wilson was built. Yeah. Meta, or not Meta, but like Google lead ads, mailers. Yeah. Yeah, Mailers is actually crazy too. I'm seeing a lot of Mailers right now.

Really?

Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah, yeah. Like Meta and Mailers, it's like, it's a combo.

It's—

but like the, the hyper growers, the guys growing like 20 or 30% or more, um, I'm saying 20 or 30% like because these are like already $50 million businesses, you know, that's a lot for a $50 million business.

Yeah, I will say the only other thing with Meta that I've seen is clients can get in their own way because of how much creative that actually needs to be created to make it work. And I think the idea behind is like, oh, I'm just gonna do a couple different campaigns and it just gets slowed down and it doesn't work as well. And so having that creative team just allowed to go and test and waste some money.

I think that's our benefit. Is like, for— we're doing it for drains right now. Yeah. And like, we have our own film team. And like, I, I think it would be— I also think that's another reason like it never worked before is we didn't have our own. Yeah. Like, we just couldn't do it.

Yeah. I personally spend $15K a month on Meta ads and it works well. So yeah.

Um, like for the— for your home service business?

Yeah. And so we like We like Facebook over here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Facebook's crazy. All right, so Facebook mailers, what else we got?

Um, Google Ads is super interesting. I'm like, I'm so fascinated.

I have not— we're in the middle of our switch, so I don't have an opinion yet.

Okay.

What should I expect? Okay, so just for context, LSAs is moving from the LSA platform. It's being merged into Google Ads. Yep. Which I can see either being awesome Or a shit show, but it doesn't seem like it'll be neutral.

It is going to be both for sure. Perfect. For sure.

So yeah, so we, so we like preempted it because like the moment we got announced, we're just like, we're doing this so we can control the timing because Google will eventually just sunset it and then we won't have an option at all. So we're just going to do it and start so we can control our time, which none of our clients' accounts are actually inside of Google Ads yet.

It's all—

ours went live this week.

Did it? None of— I like checked this.

You should go look at Jesse's.

I wanted to make sure.

We should go look at Jesse's.

Yeah, we should. Um, I got an email from Google this morning that they're now connecting, uh, YouTube profiles with Google Ads accounts.

Oh, that's interesting.

So, um, we're running— so last year we ran a bunch of PMax, uh, campaigns. Didn't work this year. I mean, it works sometimes, sometimes it didn't. This year, PMax is popping off. And if you look into what's working in PMax, it's search, which is what search has always been, the main driver.

Yeah.

So if I'm looking in my little crystal ball, I'm looking into the future, like, they're like, I think they're gonna get rid of traditional search.

I thought they were turning it into like chat-based. Well, I think November, I thought.

I'm I think they're getting rid of it all and it's all going into PMax. Like, what's the biggest complaint that you ever heard about or that you heard the most often about LSA?

I don't even know. Like, inconsistent.

I can't spend my entire budget.

Oh, that is right. That is. Yes, that is right.

Who? That's Google's biggest problem. Yes. Is they're not spending your entire budget. Yeah. Yeah. So what are they going to do? They're going to pull that into PMax.

Yeah, that'll be interesting. You know, I think so. We spent the— okay, I like this a lot. So we spent the first half of the episode talking about like all the channels that we sort of like don't cur— and I, I wonder if it's not even PPC anymore, it's just like Google Ads. But I wonder if next year Google Ads will be like the resurged channel.

I, I, I think so. And so I'm trying to tell everybody to be running Performance Max campaigns, the AI Max campaigns. Yeah. Um, you know, we, again, we haven't had a lot of success Specifically in the, uh, in the, the AI Max, but like, that's where it's going.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, you just gotta— I, I think that kind of makes sense, even if it's just like $500 or $1,000 a month or something, just to like feed it so that way when you're ready to activate. That's a good idea.

Yeah, because that's where it's going.

That's interesting.

They're gonna put it all in one system. I mean, Meta, that's what Meta does. Meta has like one system, you use it, and it distributes to Instagram and Facebook and other parties.

It makes sense.

It's It's literally gonna be the same thing. Google's gonna have one spot. This is where you go do paid because everything's gonna go to the AI search. Like, it's not gonna be your traditional search. They're gonna get rid of that completely.

Yeah.

If I'm guessing correctly. And I have been wrong before.

No, I think you're right. I think, yeah, this will be interesting. I bet this opens up an opportunity because I think a lot of people have written off PPC because ROI for PPC is like 4 to 5. Whereas like LSA is like 7. And I mean, obviously some people do a lot better on PPC, but yeah, that'll be interesting. You know what's kind of— I was thinking about this the other day. There's— my head is not fully like wrapped around this concept yet. So like what you're getting is—

The half-baked—

Fairly raw.

Yeah.

I was thinking about So I started working on this, we're working on this like data project, and we are, I'm building like a dashboard for call center.

Okay.

And I think this is back to like the state of marketing in 2026 in home service. And what I think is interesting, marketing has always been like the most important thing. It's just, I think more of the industry is starting to recognize it. And as I'm thinking more and more about like how marketing scales, you guys should do like a fractional CMO thing or something like that. I've thought about this. 'Cause I feel like—

I want to.

Dude, I feel like it is like how you drive your leads is like the thing. It's like, that's it.

Yeah, the people— what companies need now is to know what levers to pull, not necessarily just someone to do one thing. And granted, you need that as well. Like, you need someone who's just a specialist inside of like SEO or Google Ads or whatever that is to get the most out of a said channel. But I'm trying to figure that out.

I think my point is like marketing is not just marketing anymore. So on this like dash— so I started off with a dashboard. So like Marketing is like, hey, we have to get the lead. But like, hey, we spent kind of a lot of time talking about speed to lead in like call center. And I think what's happening is call center and marketing are becoming the same thing, at least for us, where it's like this is really the same problem. Yeah. As far as like paid leads. Now obviously there's marketing like, or there's organic and there's like branded, and those are different things, like totally received. But, uh, I think it becomes the same, and I think it becomes much more about the system of marketing and like how it ties into call center and are we booking. And like, I mean, call center is really just like an extension of marketing.

Yeah, yeah.

Is— I, I guess that, that's like my half-flush take, but I, I'm thinking more and more about it the deeper those two get because the scorecard is becoming the same. Like, as I'm building this like Dashboard for call center. Well, I'm like, well, the dashboard for call center is really the dashboard for marketing and vice versa. And you can't build one without the other because one gets leads, the other books leads, and like, it's kind of the same thing.

Yeah. Yeah, we're, we're rethinking. I feel like I'm kind of rebuilding my entire delivery system right now with the way things are changing. But I'm rethinking everything and I really want to figure out how I could be that fractional CMO for companies.

I think that'd be interesting. There's a couple problems. Because I think it's just deeper. You have to be inside the call center. Like, you have to participate in the book.

Well, it's lead to job appointment.

Or alternatively, launch a call center or booking system that books the leads for the client.

I have thought about talking to QuickStaffers. Jack, if you're first hearing this, like, hey, what if we owned that entire— like, I drive leads, you book leads.

There's somebody out there that does that for Meta ads, I think.

That's what I want to do for Meta ads. Yeah, I think it makes sense. But like, how— so one of the things I would have to get really good at is training, because it is very difficult to have somebody come in like I can. I can come into your system and look at your whole thing and go like, yo, you don't actually have a leads problem, you have a sales problem. Don't spend more money on marketing agencies. Go, go, go get your sales done right. Yeah, you don't have a process. You know, I can do that, but how do I train somebody to do that? And it is simple. If this, then that.

Yeah.

But that's a training problem.

No, it totally is.

And so, like, it's something if I can figure out, I think is good.

Yeah.

And it'll work. Um, but I think it'll come with a lot more trust from clients. Um, so I think what it'll end up being is like clients that are already working with us, getting into them.

Yeah, yeah.

Uh, building those relationships. I have a handful. I'm going to a couple of the clients this fall to start talking to them about like, Hey, how can we be more? You know, like, how do we help you more?

Well, I think you almost need to because I think, like, to my point, call center and marketing are becoming the same thing. And if, like, if I had a CMO, call center would report to CMO. And I think call center used to be an operations function, and I actually don't think it is anymore. Like, I think it's a marketing function. I'm, again, still getting my head around this, but like, The more we're like deploying and building and like driving improvement in call center and like booking in general, it's clear that this is now marketing. And and I think when you think about it like marketing, that's when back to our speed to lead and like you have to you know like reshape your call center and like have them be about low intent leads. That's a marketing function. Like you you get your marketing team. Built around low-intent leads and booking them and obsessed over that lead—that is marketing. That's not like operations. Yeah. So I, yeah, I think I think the industry is currently thinking about call centers wrong. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, John's John's hot take for what is today?

Thursday. The entire industry is wrong. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's the that's the thumbnail. The whole industry is wrong, and they're gonna probably use that.

Hey, I mean, industries have gotten things wrong before. Like, maybe this is—

well, I think it's just like the next adaptation. Not even wrong. I just think it's the next adaptation. It's like call centers no longer operations. Call centers like very clearly marketing. Yeah, I would even potentially call dispatch like a marketing function. Like, are we routing the lead to the correct source? Like, yeah, I think—

well, I mean, speed to lead is one thing, but like speed to marketing is going to be another thing, right? Like your ability to go out and test new things. I've got a handful of clients that are on my like We'll call them the specialist.

They just move faster.

They move fast and I can test things. Yeah. So they've kind of given me permission to like just try something. Yeah. And so I'll go out there, I'll see something on, on Reddit or X as a good idea. I'll just like implement it and just see if that works. Oh yeah. And that's fun. That's fun for me. We'll test and we'll see how it works. And if it works, we implement it into their marketing system. So I think like You know, talk about the state of home, home service marketing. It's becoming like, how do you get creative?

Yes.

Like, how do you find new opportunities that no one else is doing right now? Because you can move so fast.

Yeah. I've wasted a lot of money on marketing agencies that made pretty reports but didn't make the phone ring. And that's why we use ServiceSkillers at Wilson. They work exclusively with home service companies and focus on what actually drives leads: PPC, local service ads, SEO, Google Business Profile, and everything you need to get in front of homeowners who are ready to book. The best part is that you know exactly where your money is going and what's producing real jobs. If you're ready to stop guessing and start getting better leads, head to the link below, book a free strategy call, and let them know that Owned and Operated sent you. We now know that we have to be fully meta ads and nothing else. Yeah, yeah, it is interesting. Um, it'll be fun to watch Uh, it'll be fun to watch next year.

Yeah.

I'm actually pretty excited about the Google thing now because I do think that'll be— I mean, you probably have like a year or two. Like, if you start pushing faster, I mean, most of the— I don't know, I don't know what percentage of companies are actively running, um, like PPC versus LSA versus Whatever. I mean, we met somebody in the workshop today, $12 million business. They've never turned on LSA. And I'm like, I know, I know, Peter.

It's my favorite. Peter. Peter Konyak, bro.

Yeah, I know. I've called him out like 10 times. I'm like, everyone throw a pen at Pete.

Hey, hey. But he built that business without it. That's hard mode. Respect.

That is amazing. Respect. I mean, he has this huge lever, but it'll be interesting because I feel like if you can jump— and that's why we're moving faster on the transition from LSA to Google Ads. It's like, okay, How can we be ready when everyone six months from now is still like figuring it out? Because we want to be able to move fast. Yeah. So yeah, I don't know though. Yeah. I have no idea what it's going to look like.

No one does. Yeah. You know, we're all guessing.

Well, we're going to go look at Jesse's right after this.

There's some there's some things that we all know. Yeah. Google's going to make its money.

Google will make money. They're going to.

We're all really confident in that, and they're going to figure it out.

Yeah, yeah.

And so, like, I would keep betting on that. AI is going to be the future.

Yes.

Um, reviews are going to matter more than almost anything else. So, like, if you want to future-proof yourself, continue to get reviews.

Yeah.

Uh, and as many as possible. Um, so yeah, like, those are the things that we know. Um, keep pushing into those and then start, start getting that testing mindset. I'm willing to spend X amount of dollars to see what works.

Yeah, add more channels because you got to defeat your elephant curve and then figure out, like, More markets, more service lines. But one of the two has to happen. Yeah, it's the only way to like win over a long period of time. Marketing 2026, let's go! Thanks everybody for tuning in. Make sure you like and sub.