Most marketing reports show leads going up or cost per lead going down. Paul The Plumber did both at once: monthly leads rose from 285 to 468 while average cost per lead fell from $36.74 to $20.48. In the 468-lead snapshot, the single largest source wasn’t anything they paid for by the click — it was Google Maps.
Mike of Paul The Plumber on doubling revenue and never scrambling to fill trucks again.
| Company | Paul The Plumber |
|---|---|
| Market | Southern New Hampshire |
| Services offered | Plumbing and HVAC |
| Speaking | Mike, who took over marketing after joining his dad’s company |
| Documented period | 285 → 468 monthly leads; CPL $36.74 → $20.48 |
What actually happened
Where the 468 leads came from
The mix matters more than the total:
- 208 leads — Google Maps. The largest single source, and not a paid channel.
- 141 leads — organic search.
- 119 leads — paid search.
This is why we treat Maps as a revenue channel rather than a vanity ranking. Nearly half of that month’s demand came from the map pack. If your Google Business Profile is an afterthought managed by whoever has the login, you are leaving the largest lead source in this snapshot on the table.
Better traffic is only half of it
The other half was where that traffic landed. The website was rebuilt around mobile speed, authentic company imagery, obvious scheduling and two-way text messaging. Paid traffic was sent to focused, service-specific landing pages instead of a generic homepage — and in the case-study walkthrough those pages were converting visitors into leads in roughly the 35–40% range.
That is the whole reason cost per lead fell while volume rose. More people arrived, and a far higher share of them turned into a phone call.
What it changed inside the business
“We've almost doubled revenue in the past few years since we made the switch, and a lot of that's attributed to more phone calls. We've got enough calls now that we can fill trucks all the time — we're not scrambling to fill trucks anymore.”
Mike, Paul The Plumber
With the phones handled, they could spend marketing dollars on becoming a household name in the area instead of just making the phone ring — and put money and time into the community. That’s what a stable lead engine buys you: options.
Want to know what your Google Maps presence is worth?
On a strategy session we’ll show you where you rank in the map pack across your service area, and what the gap is costing you in calls.
