Marketing for a trade or construction business comes down to three things: being the name people see when they search or ask around, looking trustworthy enough to let into their home, and answering when they call. I'm a marketing consultant on the Central Coast, NSW, working with trade and home service businesses across Australia. Most tradies I talk to don't need more leads first. They need to stop losing the ones they already get, to a phone that rings out or a quote nobody followed up.
Written by Dan Picken, founder. Last checked 28 October 2026.And 76,414 new construction businesses started in 2024-25, more than any other industry. It's a crowded field of small teams, where the person on the tools is usually the person who answers the phone. That's exactly where the work leaks.
How locals find a tradie
They post in the local Facebook group, check Google Maps, read the reviews, maybe ask ChatGPT, get a couple of quotes off a platform, look at your website, then ring. Or they ring whoever answers first.
The psychology
Hiring a tradie means letting a stranger into your home and trusting them with a job you can't check yourself. Every customer runs the same checks. Most of them aren't about price.
01
Ellsberg found people prefer a known risk to an unknown one. 'Sometime Tuesday' is an unknown. A two-hour window and a text when you're on the way is a known.
Show them: A booking window, an on-the-way text, and what happens if you run late.
02
The first number they hear becomes the yardstick. If it comes from a competitor or a horror story, you start behind.
Show them: Your call-out fee, typical price ranges for common jobs, and what moves the price up or down.
03
The customer carries all the risk until the job's done. Anything that moves some of it back to you makes saying yes easier.
Show them: Licence number, insurance, and a workmanship guarantee in plain words, near the phone number.
04
People trust people like them. A review from a neighbour two streets away beats fifty from strangers.
Show them: Recent reviews that mention the job and the suburb, with your replies.
05
People give extra weight to now over later. With a burst pipe or a dead switchboard, 'now' is the whole decision.
Show them: Same-day or next-day availability, only if it's true, and a phone that gets answered.
From my audits
Most trade businesses I look at lose work in the same few places, and most of them are after the marketing has already done its job. These are the six I check first.
The marketing works, the phone rings, and nobody can answer because they're on the tools. No voicemail plan, no text back, no one checking missed calls until the end of the day.
Set up years ago with the wrong main category, no services listed, no photos since, and reviews nobody replied to. It's usually the best free lead source the business has.
Twenty pages that say the same thing with a different suburb. Google sees through it and customers can tell. One good page with real local jobs does more.
Someone searching 'hot water repair' lands on a home page about bathrooms and decks. They don't go looking. They go back.
Most work comes from quote platforms. Fine as part of the mix, but every lead is paid for again and shared with competitors. Nothing builds up.
Quotes go out and nobody calls back. The customer goes with whoever rang them, often not the cheapest.
Calculator
In most trade businesses I see, new work still starts with a phone call, and the person who'd answer it is usually on a roof or under a house. Search 'missed call statistics' and the numbers mostly come from companies selling answering services. So use your own. The starting numbers are examples. Change them to yours.
Not sure about 'ring someone else'? Next time you call back a missed number, ask if they've already booked someone. Count for a fortnight.
Work lost to missed calls
$4,680/month
That's the value of the work, not profit. Speed matters as well as answering. In a Harvard study of 1.25 million leads, firms that made contact within an hour were nearly seven times as likely to qualify the lead as firms that waited longer.
AI search
In BrightLocal's 2026 survey of US consumers, use of ChatGPT and other AI tools to research local businesses jumped from 6% to 45% in a year. It's a US survey, but it's the clearest sign of where things are heading. For a tradie, AI is starting to do what the local Facebook group always did: hand people a shortlist.
It searches the web, sharing the question with providers such as Bing, then recommends the businesses the sources agree on. For local businesses, AI answers may draw on reviews, directories, business websites and social media.
Built on Google. For local results, Google looks at relevance, distance and prominence, and says there's no way to pay for a better local ranking. Your Business Profile and reviews feed it.
What to do now
My take: the businesses that win in AI search will be the ones that were already easy to check out. Good reviews, a complete profile, and a website that says plainly what you do and where.
Australian rules
Trade advertising has a few rules most other industries don't. These are the ones I see broken most.
In NSW, the licensee's name and licence number must be shown in all advertising for residential building work and specialist work like electrical, plumbing and gas fitting. That covers print, internet, TV and radio. Other states have their own rules, so check with your regulator.
The ACCC says leaving out negative reviews can be as misleading as posting fake ones, and it's concerned about generous incentives in exchange for reviews. Ask every customer, not just the happy ones.
'From $99' has to be a price people can actually get, and 'fully licensed' and 'guaranteed' have to be true. Under Australian Consumer Law, false or misleading claims are illegal whatever the size of the business.
This is a plain-English summary, not legal advice. Check with your state regulator or a lawyer for your situation. Last checked 28 October 2026.
The channel mix
The trades and construction hub
Usually it's not more leads first. It's answering the calls you already get, following up every quote, and getting your Google Business Profile right. Then add Google Ads for urgent jobs and SEO for planned ones.
Google says local results are based on relevance, distance and prominence. You can't pay for a better local ranking. Fill in your Business Profile completely, pick the right main category, and keep getting reviews that mention the job and suburb.
They can be, especially when you are starting out. The trade-off is that every lead is paid for each time and often shared with competitors. In my experience they work best alongside your own Google presence, not instead of it.
In NSW, yes, for residential building work and specialist trades. The licensee's name and licence number must be shown in all advertising. Other states have their own rules.
Be careful. The ACCC has said it's concerned about generous incentives in exchange for reviews. Asking every customer, straight after the job, works better anyway.
Work it backwards from the jobs you need, your job value and what clicks cost in your area. This Google Ads cost guide has a calculator that does it.
Yes, in most cases. Your profile gets you found. Your website is where people check you do their job in their area, and it's what Google and AI tools read to understand what you do.
Keep going
Takes a minute. Audits come back within 1 to 2 business days. For anything else, I'll get back to you as soon as possible.
What happens next