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Paid search campaigns can only capture the demand already typing into Google. This pay-per-click Performance Max campaign went past the search box and produced 694 leads over twelve months at $58.11 each, a 14.60% conversion rate, while paying a cost per click in line with the plumbing average.
Verified Results · Sep 1, 2025 to Aug 21, 2026
Every figure below is taken directly from the Google Ads campaign view for the reporting period. This was the highest volume campaign in the account, producing more leads than every search campaign combined.
694
Leads Generated
about 60 per month
$58.11
Cost Per Lead
▼ 19% vs. $72 PMax benchmark
14.60%
Conversion Rate
▲ 1.8x vs. home services search
$8.71
Cost Per Click
in line with plumbing average
$40,368
Total Ad Spend
across twelve months
177,869
Impressions
from 4,637 clicks
Metric
Result
Conversions (phone calls)
694.64
Cost per conversion
$58.11
Conversion rate
14.60%
Total cost
$40,368.01
Average cost per click
$8.71
Clicks
4,637
Impressions
177,869
Click-through rate
2.61%
Campaign Snapshot
The full configuration, so the result can be judged in context and the structure repeated.
Campaign type
Performance Max
Focus
Plumbing Services
Reporting period
Sep 1, 2025 to Aug 21, 2026
Optimization target
Qualified plumbing leads
Asset groups
One per plumbing service
Conversion action
Qualified plumbing enquiry
Bid strategy
Maximize conversions
Inventory
Search, Display, YouTube, Discover, Maps, Gmail
Duration
Roughly twelve months
Role in the account
Primary volume driver
Audience signals
Customer lists and homeowner intent
Location targeting
Service area radius
The Challenge and the Strategy
Search advertising has a hard ceiling, and it is not the budget. It is the number of people typing plumbing keywords into Google in a given month. Once a search campaign is capturing the high-intent queries in its service area, more money does not create more demand. It just bids the same finite pool of searches up in price.
This account had already hit that ceiling. The call-only and emergency search campaigns were converting well, at 26.15% and 27.32%, but their volume was capped by how many people were searching. Growth had to come from somewhere other than the search results page.
Performance Max was the answer, because it places the same offer across Google’s full inventory: search, YouTube, Discover, Display, Maps and Gmail. That reaches homeowners before they start searching, the ones who have a slow drain or an aging water heater and have not yet decided to act.
The obvious risk is that broader reach usually means worse economics. It did not here. The campaign produced 694 leads at $58.11, below the floor of the normal plumbing cost per lead range, and its cost per click landed at $8.71, essentially the plumbing category average. It found the extra volume without paying a premium for it.
The Execution
Built Asset Groups Around Individual Plumbing Services
Rather than one generic asset group for the whole business, we built assets around specific services so the headlines, images and descriptions matched what each homeowner actually needed. Relevant creative is the main lever an advertiser still controls inside Performance Max, alongside the search themes and negative keyword list that keep the campaign off the wrong queries.
Steered the Algorithm With Audience Signals
Performance Max learns faster than any other Google Ads campaign type when it is pointed in the right direction. We supplied audience signals built from existing customer data and homeowner intent, which shortened the learning period and kept early spend from drifting into unqualified traffic. Ad schedule and device reporting were watched through the same window, because Performance Max will happily buy cheap impressions at hours no plumber is dispatching.
Optimized Toward Qualified Leads, Not Raw Conversions
Maximize conversions will chase whatever it is told to count, so the conversion setup mattered more than any bid adjustment. We kept the campaign optimizing toward genuine plumbing enquiries, with conversion tracking counting phone calls and form submissions rather than every page view. That is what held the cost per lead, the cost per acquisition (CPA) that actually matters, at $58.11 across nearly 700 conversions.
Gave the Campaign Time to Learn
Performance Max needs more volume and time than a standard paid search campaign before its bidding stabilizes, and accounts that judge it after a few weeks usually switch it off too early. Early cost per click (CPC) and click-through rate (CTR) readings swing hard while the model is still learning, and the search terms it matched only settle into recognizable plumbing search intent once volume arrives. Running it for twelve continuous months is what let the algorithm compound into a steady 60 leads a month.
Benchmarked
Volume is only impressive if the economics hold. Measured against published home services and plumbing benchmarks, this campaign delivered its scale at a lower cost per lead than the category average.
| Metric | This Campaign | Benchmark | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost per lead vs Performance Max benchmark | $58.11 | $72 | 19% cheaper |
| Cost per lead vs plumbing search range | $58.11 | $60 to $150 | below the floor |
| Conversion rate | 14.60% | 8.2% | 1.8x higher |
| Cost per click | $8.71 | $8.45 | at par |
The last row is the one that makes the rest of it work. Reaching beyond the search results page normally means bidding into cheaper but colder inventory, and paying for it later in a worse conversion rate. This campaign held its cost per click at the plumbing category average while converting at nearly twice the home services search rate, which is why the extra volume arrived without a cost penalty.
Put next to the account’s search campaigns, the division of labour is clear. Call-only produced 204 calls and emergency search produced 138, both at excellent conversion rates but limited by search volume. Performance Max produced 694, more than triple the two combined, by finding demand the search box was never going to surface.
Key Takeaways
FAQ
Yes, Performance Max works well for plumbing lead generation when the conversion tracking is set up to count real enquiries. This campaign produced 694 leads over twelve months at $58.11 each, converting 14.60%, which made it the highest volume campaign in the account. It works because it reaches homeowners across YouTube, Discover, Display and Maps before they start searching.
A good cost per lead for Performance Max in home services is around $72, the tracked benchmark for this campaign type, and strong plumbing campaigns land between $60 and $150. This campaign delivered leads at $58.11, beneath that range. Cost per lead depends heavily on service area competitiveness and on whether the campaign is optimizing toward qualified enquiries rather than raw conversion counts.
Plumbers should run both, because they solve different problems. Search campaigns capture people already looking for a plumber and convert at very high rates, but their volume is capped by search demand. Performance Max creates demand beyond the search box. In this account the search campaigns produced 204 and 138 leads while Performance Max produced 694, and the combination covers far more of the market than either alone.
What We Did
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