The generic pest search costs almost as much as a termite inspection and brings you a one off spray.
What your clicks actually cost, which searches are wasting money, and what your cost per booked job looks like. Fifteen minutes, and you keep it either way.
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Six dollars more, and a job worth many times as much.
Pest control is the rare trade where the expensive click is the right one to buy. Termite inspection is $18.85 and termite treatment $13.39. The generic pest control search is $12.86, barely cheaper, and it has 18,100 searches a month pulling your budget toward one off sprays. You are already paying close to termite prices. The only question is what you get for the money.
Average cost per click across Australia, from Google Keyword Planner. What your account pays will differ with location, competition and quality score. The gap between these rows is the argument, not the exact figures.
The top of this chart is expensive for a good reason. A termite inspection leads to a treatment, a treatment leads to a management plan, and a management plan leads to an annual visit. It is the only work in this trade with a real recurring tail, and the bidding reflects it.
The bottom of the chart is where the trouble is. Cockroach control at $6.40 looks like a bargain until you notice what it buys: one visit, no follow up, and a customer who will not think about you again for two years.
Three numbers, and only the last one decides anything. It is the same chain our Brisbane digital marketing agency works through in every industry, only the dollar figures change.
We work it right to left. What a job is worth sets what a lead can cost, which sets what a click is worth bidding.
Cost per click is the easiest number to improve and the least useful one. Bid on cheaper searches and it drops immediately, whether or not those searches ever turn into work. That is why we will sometimes tell you to pay more per click rather than less.
Google Ads is the fastest of the three and the only one you pay for by the click. Here is what the other two do, and where the expensive clicks eventually stop.
THE SLOW ASSET
A real page per pest and per job type instead of a Services list, a Google Business Profile built properly, and a review process after every job. Slow to arrive, and the only thing that eventually takes the expensive termite clicks off your bill.
THE FAST LEVER
Campaigns split by job type so termite work never competes with general sprays for the same budget. Negative keywords so you stop paying for pest control courses, licences, operator wages and people looking for a spray to buy themselves. Call tracking, because this trade is booked by phone.
THE ONE MOST OPERATORS SKIP
The cheapest reach available, and the right channel for a seasonal trade. Nobody goes looking for a pest controller in July, but they will remember who they saw when the first cockroach turns up in October.
We start from what a job is worth, not what a click costs. An operator chasing termite management plans and one chasing general sprays cannot afford the same cost per click. Google Ads does the fast work, SEO eventually takes the expensive clicks off your bill, and Meta Ads covers the seasonal demand. We will tell you if one is not worth running.
Not a strategy document. These are the three campaigns we would build first for a Brisbane pest control business, and what each one is actually for.
Built around “termite inspection”
The most expensive click in the trade at $18.85, and the only one attached to work that returns. An inspection becomes a treatment, a treatment becomes a management plan, and a plan becomes an annual visit. The page has to answer what the inspection covers, what it costs, and what happens if you find something.
Built around “pest inspection”
$13.92 a click and a buyer with a contract deadline, which makes it the fastest converting search in the trade. They need a date, a price and a report format, in that order, and they are ringing three operators until one of them can do Thursday.
Built around the searches we exclude
Pest control courses, licences, operator wages, DIY sprays, hardware stores, and the very large number of people trying to identify an insect rather than hire anyone. On broad match you pay full price for all of it.
Send us access to your Google Ads account and we will come back with what it is wasting, which searches are costing you the most for the least, and what we would change first. Fifteen minutes, no obligation, and you keep it either way.
Two clicks can cost the same and be worth completely different amounts. That gap, not the click price, is what decides whether an account works.
Eighteen dollars and change for the click, and the only job in this trade with an annual return attached. An inspection leads to a treatment, a treatment leads to a management plan, and the customer is on your books for years. This is the search worth paying the most for, and the reason we put green at the top of that chart rather than the bottom.
Your Google Business Profile, suburb pages, and local listings optimised so customers in your area find you first.
Technical fixes and service-focused SEO that make your site easy for Google to understand and trust.
Build your reputation through reviews, with monthly reports tracking rankings and leads from organic search.
Six dollars and change for the click, one visit, and a customer who will not think about pest control again until something crawls across the kitchen bench in two years. Perfectly good work, and a poor thing to build an account around.
Site speed, crawlability, schema markup, and Core Web Vitals sorted so Google can index and trust your site.
Service pages and suburb landing pages written to rank and convert, not just fill space.
Backlink building and on-page optimisation that compounds month over month.
Three things come up in nearly every Google Ads account we audit for a pest control business.
Pest control is the obvious buy so it takes the whole budget, at $12.86 a click, which is only six dollars under a termite inspection. It brings a one off spray at close to termite prices, and the account calls it a win.
Termite inspection is $18.85 and termite treatment $13.39. More per click than the generic search, and worth many times more per customer because the work returns every year. Most accounts we audit have this exactly backwards.
A job count treats a cockroach spray and a termite management plan as the same event. They are not, and averaging them hides which campaigns are actually paying for themselves.
Cost per click, then cost per lead, then cost per booked job by job type. That last number is the only one that tells you whether to spend more next month, and almost nobody reports it.
Pest demand swings harder than almost any trade. Cockroach control ran at 210 searches a month last July and 8,100 this January. An account spending the same amount every month is underbidding in the season that pays for the year and wasting money in the one that does not.
We push budget into the months the searches actually happen and pull it back when they do not. On the termite side that means swarming season, and on the general side it means summer. It is the single cheapest improvement available in this trade.
We start with what a job is worth and work backwards to what a click can cost.
A cockroach spray and a termite management plan cannot carry the same cost per click. We work out your average job value by type first, including what a termite customer is worth across the years they stay on the plan, because that is what decides which searches are affordable.
Termites, pre-purchase inspections, general pests and commercial each get their own campaign, budget and landing page, so the recurring termite work never competes with one off sprays for the same dollar.
Search terms reviewed weekly and negatives added, because at these click prices the waste compounds fast. Then monthly reporting on cost per booked job by job type, not clicks and impressions.
Worth saying before you enquire, because it saves everyone three months.
If you are not licensed for termite work, think hard before running this at all. General pest is the cheap end of the chart and the thin end of the market, and you will be paying close to termite prices for it. And if nobody answers the phone, expect to pay for clicks that go nowhere, because a buyer with a settlement date rings the next operator.
Fast answers, clear decisions.
Spend, leads and trends at a glance.
Your data, your accounts.
Budget goes to what converts.
4+ years average client retention.
Specialists across each platform.
It is the one click in this trade we would tell you to pay more for. An inspection leads to a treatment, a treatment leads to a management plan, and the customer comes back every year. Against that, $18.85 is cheap. The generic pest control search is $12.86 and buys you a single spray.
On this trade, usually yes, which is the opposite of most of the industries on this hub. The gap between the top and the bottom of that chart is about three to one on price, and much wider than that on what the customer is worth. Chasing the cheap click in pest control is how accounts end up busy and unprofitable.
Agency fees usually work one of three ways: a percentage of ad spend, a flat monthly retainer, or a base fee plus a percentage above a threshold. Percentage models get expensive as you scale and quietly reward the agency for spending more of your money. Ask which model an agency uses and why before you ask for a number.
It should not be the same every month, which is the more important answer. Demand in this trade swings several times over between winter and summer. Beyond that, enough that the data means something: at these click prices a very small budget buys too few clicks to learn from.
Yes, and the numbers are not subtle. Cockroach control ran at 210 searches a month last July and 8,100 this January. If your budget is flat across the year you are capped in the months that pay for the year and spending into an empty market in the months that do not.
It varies too much by job type for a single honest number. A termite inspection lead and a general spray lead are not comparable, which is why we report cost per booked job by type rather than one blended figure.
Three places, in this order. The generic pest control search taking budget at close to termite prices for one off work. Searches you should never have bought, mostly courses, licences and people identifying an insect. And flat monthly budgets in a trade where demand moves by a factor of thirty across the year.
The split between termite and general pest, every time. In most accounts we audit they share a campaign, which means the cheap generic search quietly eats the budget that should be buying termite inspections. After that, the search terms report, and then getting the monthly budget to follow the season.
Yes, and more than most trades. Somebody booking a pre-purchase inspection has a settlement date and needs a price, a date and a report format. Somebody worried about termites needs to know what the inspection covers and what happens if you find something. They are not the same page and they are not the same customer.
We look at what it is wasting, whether termite and general pest are sharing a budget, whether the monthly spend follows demand at all, and what your cost per booked job looks like by type. You get it in writing and you keep it whether or not you hire us.
