Advertising · Roadmap step 5
You are paying for the word “free”.
Prepared for Halstead Heat & Air
—Why this step matters
Step 5 · Advertising on the roadmap
Advertising multiplies whatever is already there. Point it at a thin profile or a weak site and you are paying to send people somewhere that loses them — which is why it is the sixth step and not the first.
What follows is one worked example. Halstead Heat & Air does not exist. The platform behavior described is real and is linked to the vendor's own documentation.
01One month, and what the money actually bought
$3,780 spent in June. The report below is the one most businesses running ads have never asked to see: not what you bid on, but what people actually typed before they clicked.
| Search term | Clicks | Cost | Leads | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
hvac repair tahlequah | 41 | $592 | 11 | kept |
ac not blowing cold air | 33 | $436 | 7 | kept |
furnace repair near me | 24 | $364 | 5 | kept |
hvac free estimate | 58 | $764 | 1 | cut |
how to recharge car ac | 47 | $544 | 0 | cut |
hvac technician salary | 39 | $452 | 0 | cut |
air conditioner window unit walmart | 31 | $348 | 0 | cut |
hvac training school oklahoma | 22 | $280 | 0 | cut |
$2,388 of $3,780 — 63% — went to searches that could never have become a job. Not one of them was a bad bid. They were all matched to keywords that looked perfectly sensible.
02Where the money went, and why
- Somebody researching a career.
hvac technician salaryandhvac training school oklahomaare students. They match a keyword with “hvac” in it and they will never buy anything. - Somebody doing it themselves.
how to recharge car acis not even the same trade, and it was the second most expensive line on the page. - Somebody buying a box, not a service.
air conditioner window unit walmartwants a shop. - The word “free”.
hvac free estimatewas the single most expensive term of the month and produced one lead from 58 clicks. It attracts people collecting quotes, and Halstead was paying a premium to be in front of them.
03What changed
| Before | After | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly spend | $3,780 | $1,392 |
| Leads | 23 | 23 |
| Cost per lead | $164 | $61 |
Same leads, $2,388 less spend, cost per lead down from
$164 to $61. Nothing clever was done. A
negative keyword list was written — salary, training,
school, jobs, how to, diy,
walmart, car, free — and the search
terms report is now read every month, because new ones arrive every month.
The honest version: this does not make the advertising work. It stops it wasting. Whether the remaining $1,392 is worth spending at all is a different question, and it is answered by the dashboard at step 6, not here.
04The order matters more than the budget
Halstead's ads were pointed at a website that answered the phone properly and a profile that was already complete. That is why the kept terms produced leads at all.
Run in the other order — ads first, profile and site later — and the same money buys clicks that land on a thin page and leave. It is the most common way a small business concludes that advertising does not work for their trade, when what did not work was the order.