Google Ads for drywall contractors: what to bid on, what to block, what a call costs
The three campaigns that work for a drywall company, the search terms that burn money, realistic cost per call for repair and finishing, and the first two weeks.
The word "drywall" is a trap in Google Ads. Type it into a keyword planner and the volume looks great. Run it broad and you pay for "drywall jobs", "drywall price per sheet", "how to patch drywall", "drywall lift rental" and "drywall near me" from a guy standing in a big-box aisle. The owner looks at $900 spent, two calls, both asking if you hire, and decides Google Ads does not work for drywall. It works. It just has to be built around the searches that end in a booked job.
The searches that end in a job
Homeowners who are ready to pay search in three ways: by problem, by service, and by the word "contractor" or "company" attached to drywall. Build around these, phrase and exact match only:
- Repair: "drywall repair", "drywall repair near me", "drywall repair contractor", "ceiling repair", "water damage ceiling repair", "fix hole in wall"
- Popcorn: "popcorn ceiling removal", "popcorn ceiling removal cost", "remove textured ceiling"
- Finishing: "drywall contractor", "drywall company", "drywall installation", "basement drywall", "garage drywall", "drywall finishing contractor", "level 5 finish"
- Texture: "texture matching", "knockdown texture repair", "orange peel texture repair"
Skip "sheetrock" unless your market uses it heavily; in the South and parts of the Midwest it is the main word, so check your own call notes.
The negative list, which matters more than the keyword list
Add these as negatives at the campaign level on day one: jobs, hiring, careers, salary, wages, how to, DIY, tutorial, youtube, per sheet, price per sheet, home depot, lowes, menards, rental, lift, tools, screws, mud, compound, tape, sander, supply, wholesale, training, school, union, apprentice, free, cheap.
Then read the search terms report every week and add more. In the first month, a drywall account typically needs forty to sixty negatives before the wasted half of the spend is gone.
Three campaigns, not one
Campaign one: repair. Phrase match repair and ceiling terms, a $15 to $40 bid range, scheduled for the hours you can answer the phone. Land it on your repair page with a price range and a tap-to-call button, not the home page. These calls are small, $150 to $600 jobs, but they close fast, produce reviews, and lead to "while you're here, can you look at the garage".
Campaign two: popcorn and texture. Exact match on popcorn removal and texture terms. Few searches, high intent, a $1,200 to $4,000 ticket. Land it on a popcorn page with before-and-after photos and a per-square-foot range.
Campaign three: finishing and installation. Basement, garage, addition, and "drywall contractor" terms. These are the biggest jobs and the most contested clicks, because remodelers and GCs bid on them too. Expect $8 to $25 per click. Land it on a finishing page that says "hang, tape, finish to level 4 or 5, we work with your framer or ours".
Call extensions on all three, a sitelink to the reviews page, and a location extension linked to your Business Profile.
What a call costs
Across markets we have seen, a tracked phone call from a repair campaign lands between $20 and $60. Popcorn and texture calls run $40 to $90. Finishing and installation leads, phone or form, run $50 to $140 in metros and less in smaller towns. A booked job costs roughly double the call, because about half the calls are tire kickers, out of area, or asking if you hire.
Put that against the ticket. A $350 patch bought for $50 is fine if it comes with a review. A $2,500 basement bought for $120 is excellent. The owner who gives up on Google Ads is almost always looking at cost per click instead of cost per booked job.
Budget and schedule
A one or two crew drywall shop needs $900 to $2,000 a month to learn anything. Under $600 you get a handful of clicks spread across three campaigns and no pattern. Split it roughly 50% repair, 20% popcorn, 30% finishing to start, then move money toward whatever is booking.
Schedule ads for the hours someone will answer. For most drywall companies that is 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., and if you take Saturday calls, Saturday morning. A click at 10 p.m. that reaches voicemail is a click you paid for twice: once to Google and once to the competitor who answered. If you cannot answer during the day because you are finishing, pair the campaign with missed-call text-back; the missed calls guide covers the setup.
Call tracking or do not bother
Use a tracking number on the ads so every call is recorded and counted. Count a conversion at 60 seconds or longer; a 20-second call is a wrong number. Listen to the recordings on Friday. In ten minutes you will know which campaign brings real homeowners and which one brings people asking what you pay per board. You will also hear how your own phone is being answered, which is often the bigger problem.
Local Services Ads
Google's Local Services Ads, the "Google Guaranteed" boxes above the map, are open to drywall in most states. You pay per lead, $25 to $70 is typical, rather than per click, and ranking leans on review count and response time. With 75% of drywall companies under 10 reviews, a shop with 30 and a fast answer rate can own that box in its area. Apply early; the background check and insurance verification take two to four weeks.
What two weeks should look like
By the end of week two on a $1,500 a month budget, a well-built account shows 10 to 25 tracked calls, a search terms report you have already pruned twice, and one or two booked jobs you can name. Not a lower cost per click. If after four weeks the recordings are all job seekers and DIYers, the negative list is wrong. If the calls are real but nobody books, the problem is the phone or the price, not the ads.
Check your market's competition in the benchmark report before you set a budget; a state where most listings have no website is cheaper to buy clicks in than one where every shop has a site and runs ads.
Frequently asked
Should I run Performance Max? Not first. Performance Max spends across Display, YouTube and Gmail and reports almost nothing about which searches brought the calls. Run search with phrase and exact match until you have 30 or more tracked conversions, then test it with a small budget if you want.
Can I run ads to my Google Business Profile instead of a website? You can, but the profile cannot hold a price range, a before-and-after gallery or a form, and you cannot track it properly. 49.4% of drywall companies have no site; building a five-page one before you advertise is the cheapest improvement to an ad account there is.
What about Angi and the lead marketplaces? They sell the same lead to three to five contractors and charge $30 to $80 each time. Google Ads calls are yours alone. If you are already paying for marketplace leads, compare cost per booked job, not cost per lead.
Google Ads setup, the negative list, tracking and the first two weeks of management are one of the services in the free 14-day trial.
Steven has spent the last several years running growth campaigns for local service businesses, drywall companies among them, and builds the benchmark datasets on this site from public Google listings. About the editor