Ted's Plumbing
Ted's Plumbing had an active website form for free estimates, but it was converting at only 2.1%, and their Google Ads CPL was nearly $100. In 90 days, a full landing page rebuild and campaign restructure grew total leads 148% and cut cost per lead nearly in half.
148%
More Total Leads
7.8%
Form Conversion Rate (from 2.1%)
$49
Cost Per Lead (from $94)
The Challenge
A request form is only as valuable as its conversion rate. Ted's Plumbing had a visible, functional form, but it was long, complicated, and appeared on a page that didn't give visitors enough reason to trust and submit. The result was $94 CPL and a 2.1% conversion rate.
- Website form required CAPTCHA completion, high abandonment point on mobile
- Form asked 7 fields including 'best time to call', excessive friction for emergency intent
- Google Ads sent traffic to the homepage, not a service-specific landing page
- No call tracking, clicks and form fills tracked, but phone calls invisible
- Ad spend concentrated on broad keywords like 'plumber' with no service or location modifier
What the Audit Found
- Heatmap analysis: 61% of visitors scrolled past the form without interacting
- CAPTCHA abandonment: 38% of users who reached the form left at the CAPTCHA step
- Google Ads: 'plumber' broad match consuming 52% of budget, most traffic was non-residential
- No phone number visible in the navigation on mobile, all conversion funneled through the form
- Ad copy identical across residential and commercial keywords, wrong message to wrong audience
Our Approach
Paid Advertising
- Rebuilt Google Ads with residential and commercial as separate campaigns
- Fort Lauderdale, Pompano Beach, Deerfield Beach, and Coral Springs as separate ad groups
- Wrote split ad copy: emergency messaging for residential, contractor partnership for commercial
- Added call extensions with unique tracking numbers per campaign, both call and form tracked
- Shifted to exact-match and phrase-match keywords with 140+ negative keywords added
Organic & Conversion
- Redesigned landing page: click-to-call above fold, testimonials above the form, form simplified to 3 fields
- Removed CAPTCHA from the form, replaced with honeypot spam filtering
- Added 'Get a Free Estimate in 60 Minutes' headline above form, urgency + credibility
- Installed CallRail, first time phone calls were tracked alongside form submissions
- Built a separate commercial plumbing landing page for the commercial campaign
Timeline of Changes
Week 1–3, Tracking & Landing Page
- CallRail installed, phone calls now tracked for first time
- Landing page redesigned: 3-field form, click-to-call, CAPTCHA removed
- Commercial plumbing landing page built and live
- Google Ads rebuilt: residential vs. commercial campaigns separated
Month 2, Keyword & Audience Refinement
- 140 negative keywords added based on first 30 days of search terms
- Shifted 80% of budget to exact-match and phrase-match keywords
- Form conversion rate climbing: 2.1% → 5.4% in first 30 days
- Emergency residential keywords identified as best-performing segment
Month 3, Scale & Optimization
- CPL from $94 down to $49, nearly 50% reduction in 90 days
- Form conversion rate reached 7.8%, well above plumbing industry benchmark
- Commercial campaign stable with $56 CPL and higher average job value
- Total leads up 148% with same or lower ad spend vs. starting baseline
The Results
Form Conversion Rate
3-field form + removed CAPTCHA
Before
2.1%
After
7.8%
Google Ads CPL
48% reduction in 90 days
Before
$94
After
$49
Monthly Total Leads
+148% including calls + form fills
Before
31
After
77
Phone Call Volume (Tracked)
First time calls were counted
Before
0 (untracked)
After
34/month
Wasted Spend (Junk Traffic)
140 negatives + match type shift
Before
~$1,400/mo
After
~$280/mo
Paid Advertising Wins
- Residential emergency keywords produced $38 CPL, best-performing segment by margin
- Commercial campaign: $56 CPL but 3.1× higher average job revenue vs. residential
- Call extensions drove 34 calls/month that were previously invisible and uncounted
- Match type shift reduced junk click spend from $1,400/month to $280/month
Organic & Conversion Wins
- Landing page rebuild improved form conversion from 2.1% to 7.8%, same traffic, more leads
- CAPTCHA removal recovered ~38% of form visitors who previously abandoned at that step
- Click-to-call above fold generated 34 phone calls per month from the same page traffic
- 3-field form reduced average time-to-submit from 4.2 minutes to 1.1 minutes on mobile
"We didn't realize half our leads were coming from phone calls we weren't even counting."
- Office Team, Ted's Plumbing
Why It Worked
- Form friction kills conversion, every unnecessary field removes qualified leads
- CAPTCHA is an invisible lead killer, remove it and use server-side spam filtering instead
- Tracking matters before spending: Ted's was getting 34 calls/month that were invisible
See What's Possible for Your Shop
We'll audit your current setup, website, ads, GBP, call tracking, and show you exactly where calls are leaking and what to fix first.
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