PlumbingSarkinen Plumbing
2Xleads
on the same budget
- search visibility
- 3.75X
- search visibility
- ads conversion rate
- 27.37%
- ads conversion rate
PPC in Charleston, South Carolina
Charleston Google Ads built around what a click costs.
Charleston Google Ads start with conversion tracking on every click, because “hvac repair charleston” averages $45.21 before a call.
- Calls traced to the campaign
- A landing page per job
- One report on leads and cost per lead
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5.0on Google · read our reviews
2010Lithium Marketing, established in 2010
$10M+Over $10 million in Google ad spend managed
Businesses
we’ve worked with
Businesses we’ve worked with
- Willard Power Vac
- Sarkinen Plumbing
- Robinson Restoration
- Town & Country Glass
- Dixie Glass
- Byers Septic Service
- F&W Fence Co.
- Drake’s 7 Dees
- Rickabaugh Construction
- Hillsview Building
- Dozer Dave
- Mt. Hood Pro Painting
- On-Target Landscape
- Atiyeh Bros Carpet
- Lovett
- Westmore Construction
- Northwest New Homes
- Porter Sealcoating & Paving
- RescueHero Restoration
- Panda Plumbing
- Biermann Plumbing & Heating
- Ballistic Junk Removal
- Smart Doors LLC
- Peak Performance Roofing
- Deluxe Heating & Cooling
- Lifetime Exteriors
- Bruce Johnson Construction
- Madrone Painting
- Smart Tree Service
- Premier Gutter Cover
- NW Pacific Electric
- Universal HVAC
- Lenny Martin Painting
- Next Level Decks & Exteriors
- Prodan Construction
- Smooth Rollin’ Sealcoating and Paving
- Lovett Restoration
- Greenlight Titles
- G.W. Hartley IV
- Advanced Coatings
- Thomson Equipment
- MyADU
PPC, answered
Put the ad budget where Charleston calls are cheapest
“hvac repair charleston” averages $45.21 a click, so a Google Ads account without call tracking is buying guesses. Lithium Marketing starts every Charleston campaign by naming the search behind each call, then sends the budget to the searches that book jobs.
Other trades cost less to buy: “roofing company charleston” averages $22.99 and “plumber charleston” $22.47, while “water damage restoration charleston” averages $2.34. A cheaper click still needs a page that states the job plainly, so each campaign gets its own landing page and its own short list of search terms.
Click costs in Charleston
What Charleston clicks cost, trade by trade
“pest control charleston” is the busiest trade search in the table at 1,600 a month, and its clicks average $17.52. A pest company can buy plenty of visits at that price, which makes the landing page and the phone answer the part that decides whether the budget returns anything.
PPC searches naming Charleston total 20 a month, so few owners shop for an agency by that name. Charleston owners search for the trade instead, and the campaigns go where those searches are.
| Search | Searches a month | Cost per click |
|---|---|---|
| ppc agency charleston | 10 | not reported |
| ppc management charleston | 10 | not reported |
| google ads agency charleston | under 10 | not reported |
Source: Google Ads keyword data, average monthly U.S. searches. "Under 10" = below Google’s reporting floor.
| Search | Searches a month | Cost per click |
|---|---|---|
| hvac repair charleston | 480 | $45.21 |
| garage door repair charleston | 480 | $41.81 |
| roofing company charleston | 590 | $22.99 |
| plumber charleston | 1,300 | $22.47 |
| pest control charleston | 1,600 | $17.52 |
| electrician charleston | 590 | $17.41 |
| landscaping charleston | 390 | $11.23 |
| water damage restoration charleston | 320 | $2.34 |
Source: Google Ads keyword data, average monthly U.S. searches. "Under 10" = below Google’s reporting floor.
- Map Pack
- The first thing on the page
- Search ads
- None recorded
- Local listing reviews
- 128 to 7,200 Google reviews each
- Directories in the top 10
- Facebook, Thumbtack, Yelp
- AI Overview
- Not shown
- People also ask
- Shown
Source: one Google results page for “plumber charleston”, as Google showed it to a searcher located in Charleston. Search ad counts exclude sponsored local listings. Results shift by searcher and day.
The Charleston market
Rain, heat and a budget that follows the calls
Summer is Charleston's wettest season, so a restoration or roofing owner should ask whether those months bring more calls. If they do, put more budget there. If they do not, the money belongs in the months your own call history names.
Charleston summers are hot and humid, and an HVAC or pest company buying clicks in July should know what a booked job is worth before the budget goes up. That value sets the starting number, and the first month of tracking corrects it.
- residents (2025 estimate)
- 159,423
- residents (2025 estimate)
- population change, 2020 to 2025
- +5.8%
- population change, 2020 to 2025
- housing units
- 77,417
- housing units
- of occupied homes owner-occupied
- 55.6%
- of occupied homes owner-occupied
- of homes built before 1980
- 34.4%
- of homes built before 1980
- median home value
- $509,700
- median home value
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau 2025 population estimates, ACS 2020–2024 and 2023 County Business Patterns.
Trades in Charleston County
The trades where a Charleston ad budget works hardest
Pest control is the bigger field in Charleston County, with 53 pest control companies, against 34 roofing contractors. Both sell work that starts with a phone call, so both campaigns start with the same tracking work.
A pest company can test a small budget against demand that already exists, and the campaign should name the treatments it sells and send each one to its own page. Roofing works the same way, with one page for repair and one for replacement.
County Business Patterns
Trade and home service businesses in Charleston County
Establishments by industry, 2023
- Residential remodelers267
- Landscaping services184
- New home builders181
- Plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractors151
- Electrical contractors93
- Painting contractors60
- Excavation and site preparation contractors59
- Pest control companies53
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2023 County Business Patterns (NAICS establishment counts).
Your first month
From a cold account to tracked Charleston calls
No budget moves until every call and form is counted, and the campaign order follows your busy months.
1
Start with the account you have
The current campaigns get read line by line, what produces calls stays, and the search terms that spent without a job go on a list.
2
Count the calls before anything else
Every call and form gets a tag that names the keyword and the ad it came from, and GA4 ties the two together.
3
A campaign for each service
Each service you sell gets a campaign and a page of its own, so a roof repair ad lands on a roof repair page.
4
Then a weekly review
The first 30 days get daily changes to bids and search terms; after that the checks drop to weekly, timed to the months you named.
What every Google Ads account includes
The same eight parts go into every Google Ads account, wherever the business is.
- Conversion tracking, properly wired
- Landing pages per intent
- Match types and negatives
- Responsive search ads
- Geo and audience targeting
- Bid management
- Remarketing
- Looker Studio reporting
Client work
A plumber's ad account inside a wider marketing build
The conversion rate on the card comes from a Google Ads account Lithium managed for Sarkinen Plumbing, a Portland-area plumber. Lithium also built the website and handled the SEO, so the credit belongs to all three. Marc Rickabaugh of Rickabaugh Construction is quoted next to it.
Plumbing“We used the team at Lithium Marketing to update our website and increase our SEO. We couldn't have been happier with the results! We receive compliments about our updated website on a regular basis!”
Marc RickabaughRickabaugh ConstructionAround Charleston
Where a Charleston campaign can spend
Bids can be set city by city, so a campaign can run in Mount Pleasant, North Charleston and Columbia without touching Savannah or Augusta, both in Georgia. Every South Carolina city Lithium covers is listed on one page.
Published price
Charleston PPC management, priced before launch
From $500
per month in management
Management is separate from your ad spend. Typical: $500–$1,500 a month in management on $2,000–$5,000 a month in ad spend. No haggling, no hidden upsells.
How much should we put into the ad budget?
Start with what one booked job is worth to you. A roofer and a landscaper sell different jobs at different values, so one budget cannot fit both. On the strategy call we set the opening number, and tracking corrects it from there.
How soon should we expect the phone to ring?
Expect calls in the first week, once tracking is live. From there the work is subtraction: search terms that never produce a call get cut, and the money moves to the ones that do. Cost per lead gets clearer after a few weeks of that.
Is the management fee locked in?
The management fee follows your ad spend and any landing pages or extra channels you add, and the rate and scope are fixed in writing before launch. After an initial six months, the agreement rolls month to month; 30 days' notice ends it.
Do you run ads on Meta or Microsoft too?
Microsoft Ads and Meta ads on Facebook and Instagram are both in the mix. A second channel earns its budget when the tracking shows calls at a price the jobs can carry; until then the money stays on Google.
Can we see which keyword produced a call?
The keyword travels with the call. GA4 and call tracking keep the ad, the search term and the call on one record, and the monthly report stacks calls, leads and cost per lead by campaign. Mark the leads that turned into work and the same report shows which campaign paid.
Free action plan
Map your Charleston ad budget to your busy months
Bring the trade, the months that fill your crews and the value of a booked job. A co-founder will put the click prices beside those numbers on a short video call and set a starting budget.
What we’ll cover
- What’s working (and what isn’t) in your current marketing
- Site and funnel gaps that are costing you leads
- Local SEO and paid traffic opportunities
- Simple tracking and KPIs to measure success
(503) 766-5964
[email protected]
2000 NE 42nd Ave Ste D Unit 2370, Portland, OR 97213
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