Homeowners now ask an assistant who to call.

Enough of them that ignoring it is now the expensive option. OpenAI reports a billion weekly active users and says 20% of them show commercial intent, meaning they are weighing a purchase while they chat. In plumbing the pattern is usually a description of the problem, a question about likely cost, then a request for someone local. We record what the assistant says for your towns before we start, so you can see your own position rather than take our word for it.

Search is an auction on short phrases; this is a conversation where being named in the answer matters as much as the placement beside it. The economics are also different today. Non-branded plumbing search leads averaged $183 across 524 contractors in early 2026 and clicks average $10.49, while assistant placements are still thinly contested. We run both and let the cost per booked job decide the split.

Small and measured. A few hundred a month beside your existing search programme is enough to learn whether the placements produce callable leads in your area, and we would rather prove that than sell a big number. The larger piece of work is the local evidence and service content, which is a one-off build with a long tail. We scale spend only once cost per booked job is proven.

We build the tracking ourselves rather than trusting platform reporting, which is still coarse. A dedicated tracked number, landing paths that identify the source, and a 'how did you hear about us' field on the booking form feed one view in our analytics layer. It is not flawless attribution and we will not pretend otherwise, but it is honest enough to move budget on with confidence.

More than ever, because it is one of the main things an assistant reads before naming a plumbing company. Categories, coverage zones, opening hours, photographs and a steady flow of recent reviews all feed the answer as well as the map results, so the same work pays twice. We rebuild it as part of this programme rather than treating it as a separate project.

Start with the work you want more of and can staff tomorrow. Emergency drain and burst-pipe demand converts fastest but arrives unpredictably; water heaters, repipes and bathroom work carry a bigger ticket and a longer decision, which suits a conversational surface well. We usually run a small emergency line for coverage and put the majority of the budget behind the planned work with the better margin.

Placements can produce enquiries within the first few weeks, while the visibility work that gets you named in answers builds over a quarter. We report those separately so you always know which part is paying its way. In month one we would rather show you a handful of well-attributed calls than a big number of clicks nobody can trace to a job.

It leans on it. Everything that makes an assistant confident about naming you — consistent details, real reviews, clear service pages, local relevance — is the same work that wins the map results. Companies running SEO already have a head start here, and the two programmes share the same content plan rather than duplicating it.

The job, the area and the response time. A homeowner with water on the floor does not read adjectives, so we name the service, the towns and what happens when they call, with pricing expectations wherever you are willing to publish them. Everything we claim has to be something your dispatcher can honestly deliver, because an unmet promise costs more in reviews than it earns in calls.

Very few, which is the opportunity. Adthena counted 7,378 distinct advertisers on ChatGPT in a single week across every category worldwide — a tiny field next to the 132,000-plus plumbing businesses operating in the US alone. Local service companies are barely represented, so the placements remain cheap to test while that lasts.

We plan for it rather than react to it. Demand in this trade is weather-driven and largely non-discretionary — 70-80% of plumbing service calls are urgent — so budgets and copy are prepared before the cold snap, then released when the forecast turns. We also cap spend to what your team can actually answer, because leads you cannot reach become bad reviews.

A named senior paid media strategist with a local search specialist alongside, and the same people stay with your account instead of handing it to a rotating queue. You will know their names, you can email them directly, and the person who wrote your plan is the person who reviews the numbers with you every month.