Max Conversions is why your electrician ads book fan installs
Maximize Conversions optimises for easy wins. For multi-service electricians that often means a calendar full of low-ticket jobs. Here’s the failure mode — and what to do instead.
If your electrician Google Ads account is “converting” but the calendar is full of fan installs and other low-ticket work, check whether you’re on Maximize Conversions. Google’s recommended bid strategy optimises for the easiest conversions — not the jobs that pay for trucks. Multi-service trades get hurt first.
What is Max Conversions actually maximising?
Volume of whatever you told Google counts as a conversion. If that’s “form fill” or “phone call” with no quality filter, the algorithm will hunt the cheapest path to that event. Low-friction, low-ticket jobs convert easier than panel upgrades and commercial quotes. The account looks healthy in the ads UI while your average ticket quietly dies.
Homeowners search the trade (“electrician”) more than the specific job. Pair broad trade intent with a bid strategy hungry for easy conversions and you get a shotgun of the wrong work — busy techs, thin margins.
Why electricians are exposed
Electrical companies sell a wide mix: service calls, installs, upgrades, specialty work. One conversion action rarely means one profitable job type. Agencies that “turn on Smart Bidding” and leave for the month are outsourcing your job mix to an algorithm that does not care about your overhead.
Same class of mistake as selling leads instead of booked jobs — the metric on the dashboard isn’t the metric in your bank account. We cover that pattern in bad vs good agencies and what good Google marketing looks like.
What to do instead
- Fix the foundation before fancy bidding. Wrong GBP category and a weak site will poison any strategy — Motha’s category fix still applies.
- Prove with Local Services Ads first when it fits — Hooked Up ran years of volume on an LSA-led engine before treating Search as the hero.
- Define conversions as outcomes you’ll pay for. Qualified booked calls beat raw form dumps. Our LSA QA model (~$25 per booked call we review) exists for that reason.
- Use Smart Bidding only when the account has clean signal. Junk in, junk optimised. Early on, tighter structure beats a recommended default.
A converting account full of the wrong jobs is not a successful account.
How this shows up on a sales call
Owners say “ads don’t work for electricians.” Often ads work fine — at finding cheap conversions. The fix isn’t always more budget. It’s better definitions, better landing paths, and a partner who will turn a “recommended” strategy off when it’s quietly wrecking job mix.
If you want electrician marketing aimed at booked work worth keeping, start with the system on paid ads — LSA and Search in the right order, not Max Conversions as a personality.
What to Ask Before You Hire Help
Often not as a blunt default. Max Conversions pushes budget toward the easiest conversions — which for a multi-service electrical shop can mean low-ticket fan installs and quick call-outs while high-ticket panel and service work starves. Start with clear intent and honest conversion definitions, then automate carefully.
If the account optimises for “any conversion,” Google will find the cheapest ones. Homeowners search the trade (“electrician”) more than the job type. Pair that search behaviour with a bid strategy hungry for volume and you fill the calendar with the wrong mix.
Booked jobs you actually want — tracked as qualified calls or forms you’re willing to pay for — after the site and profile convert. We often prove with Local Services Ads first, then Search with structure that doesn’t reward junk volume. See our paid ads service and Hooked Up’s LSA-led story.
“Better” depends on the stage. Early shotgun volume on broad trade terms can teach you what converts; it can also buy noise. Neither Smart Bidding flavour fixes a weak landing page or a wrong GBP category. Foundation first, then bidding.
Correct category and converting pages, LSA as the cheap proof lane, Search when you can afford CPA, and bid strategies that don’t silently redefine success as “whatever converts easiest.” Reporting against revenue and booked work beats channel mythology.
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