Cut What Wasn’t Working.
Backed What Was.
Pinnacle Painting & Decorating paints homes and commercial spaces across Winnipeg, and AdEasy has run its Google Ads for years. Over the winter of 2025 to 2026, the leads slowed to a trickle and each one cost close to double the goal.
In April we reset the account around residential work. By June, leads cost about $54 each.
Leads from Google Ads (calls and quote requests) in the six months after the reset
Average cost per lead, against Pinnacle’s $80 goal
Cost per lead in June, the best month of the year, with 42 leads
Tracked calls in June across every source, the busiest month for the phones
The six months after the April reset. Leads are Google Ads conversions (tracked calls and quote requests). Calls are CallRail, every source.
Painting Runs on the Season.
Winter Got Expensive.
Homeowners book painters in spring and summer. Winter is slow for every painting company, and Pinnacle’s account was spending into it. From November 2025 to March 2026, Google Ads brought in 60 leads on $9,110 in ad spend. That’s about $152 a lead, close to double Pinnacle’s $80 goal.
Some of that was the calendar. The rest was in the account itself, so in March we pulled it apart campaign by campaign to find out where the money was going.
The Numbers
Didn’t Add Up.
Our March review turned up four problems, and each one was costing Pinnacle leads. One of them was ours: in December we had moved the website’s quote form to a new form tool, and it wasn’t pulling its weight.
Commercial Tests That Didn’t Pay
Three campaigns aimed at commercial work took nearly a third of the winter budget and brought in 7 leads between November and March.
A Form That Lost Requests
The new quote form we had switched to in December brought in 9 requests over 30 days. The old form brought in 29 over the same stretch a year earlier.
Tracking That Didn’t Match
Google Ads counted 742 clicks in March, but Google Analytics recorded only 16 paid visits. The reports couldn’t be trusted until the tags were checked.
Ad Copy Past Its Date
One Residential Search ad was still running a headline written in 2019. It was a small thing, and a sign the ads needed a full review.
Put the Budget
Where the Calls Are.
Cut the Commercial Test
We paused the last of the commercial campaigns in April and moved their budget into Residential Search, which had brought in 8 of March’s 10 leads. Commercial ad spend has been zero since.
Switched the Form Back
In May we replaced the new form tool with the Gravity Forms quote form already built into Pinnacle’s site, connected through Zapier to Knowify, the system Pinnacle runs its jobs in.
Tightened Residential Search
We reviewed keywords and ad copy, added negative keywords to cut wasted clicks and worked on ad rank. In late June, Residential Search impression share rose from 44% to 57%.
A Check Every Week
Since June, a written campaign check every week compares the last two weeks with the two before, and says what to change and what to leave alone.
Branded Search impression share in late August. A competitor started bidding on Pinnacle’s name in July and pushed it as low as 61%. The weekly check flagged it, and we won the searches back.
Leads Came Back
With the Season.
From May to October 2026, Google Ads brought in 169 leads on $13,365 in ad spend, about $79 each against the $80 goal. June was the best month of the year: 42 leads at about $54 each.
That’s 48% less per lead than November to March. Winter is always slower for painters, so the season deserves some of the credit for that gap.
Not every month landed. July came in at $110 a lead, and August to October held between $83 and $95 as outdoor work wound down. Across every source, CallRail tracked 214 calls in May and June, 114 of them in June.
cost per lead, May to Oct against the off-season Nov to Mar
tracked calls in May and June, every source
spent on commercial campaigns after April
Residential Search impression share in late June, up from 44%
| Period | Ad spend | Leads | Cost per lead |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 2025 to Mar 2026 | $9,110 | 60 | $152 |
| Apr 2026 (reset) | $1,198 | 20 | $60 |
| May 2026 | $2,226 | 31 | $73 |
| Jun 2026 | $2,251 | 42 | $54 |
| Jul 2026 | $2,308 | 21 | $110 |
| Aug 2026 | $2,167 | 25 | $86 |
| Sep 2026 | $2,228 | 27 | $83 |
| Oct 2026 | $2,185 | 23 | $95 |
| May to Oct 2026 | $13,365 | 169 | $79 |
April was the changeover month, with commercial spend winding down. Monthly leads are rounded.
Source: Pinnacle Painting & Decorating Google Ads and CallRail, November 2025 to October 2026. Ad spend is media only. Leads are Google Ads conversions: tracked calls and quote requests. Pinnacle doesn’t feed booked jobs back from Knowify yet, so these figures count leads, not booked work.
Fall Clicks Cost More.
So We’re Heading Indoors.
As outdoor season ends, painting searches get pricier. In late October, a Residential Search click cost $21.85, against a 13-month average of $12.81. Winter is close, and this time the plan is in place before the slow months start.
in late October
Interior Work for the Cold Months
Pinnacle’s owner asked us in October to point the ads at interior painting, the work homeowners still book when it’s cold out.
Leads Matched to Paid Jobs
Pinnacle is setting up Knowify’s reporting so we can see which leads became booked, finished and paid jobs, and judge each campaign by the work it brings in.
More Google Reviews
We’re working on a QR code the crew can leave with happy customers, so a Google review takes a few seconds instead of a search for the right page.
