How to Get More Commercial Plumbing Work: Win Accounts, Not One-Off Calls

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Summary: To get more commercial plumbing work, pick the buyers you can serve, get approved as their vendor and promise only response times you can keep. Back that with a commercial page, a separate Google Search campaign for commercial terms, steady relationship selling and service agreements. Judge it on cost per booked job and on the accounts that keep calling you back.

A homeowner with a burst pipe calls whoever answers first. A property manager, a facilities director or a restaurant owner picks a plumber they can call again and again. That makes commercial work slower to win, and repeatable once you have it.

Who buys commercial plumbing, and what wins them

Start with one or two. A restaurant owner and a general contractor buy differently, and one pitch can't serve both.

Whichever you pick, the math is the three numbers in our free guide, How a local service business can spend $1,000 and make $60,000 in a month: what a lead costs, how many book, and what a job is worth. The guide's $60,000 is worked math, not a promise. For commercial work, count job value as what the account pays you over a year, not the first invoice.

Get approved before the first work order

Expect to be vetted before anyone sends work. Build a vendor packet now:

• A W-9. The IRS form gives the client your taxpayer ID so it can report what it pays you.
• A certificate of insurance. University vendor rules, for example, ask for general liability and workers' compensation coverage, with the university named as an additional insured on the general liability policy. Send each client's requirements to your insurance agent before you quote.
• License numbers for every state and city you work in, plus any safety training the client asks for.
• An after-hours number a person answers, and your night and weekend rates in writing.

Keep it current: renew your certificate of insurance before it lapses and send the new one without being asked, and close every work order with before-and-after photos and any readings you took. A vendor whose paperwork is always in order is an easy vendor to keep.

Response times you can keep

Commercial clients will ask how fast you respond. Put nothing in writing you can't hit on your worst night:

• Define "response": a callback, or a plumber on site.
• Say which hours it covers, and what counts as an emergency.
• Price after-hours work before it happens.
• Log every call against the promise, and tell the client first when you miss one.

Night cover is its own system: see how to get more emergency plumbing calls. The free guide's rule, reply within 60 seconds, holds for property managers too.

A commercial page, not a second Business Profile

Give commercial work its own page on your site, not its own Business Profile. Google says "There should only be one profile per business," and a department gets a separate profile only when it operates as a distinct entity with a different category. Add commercial services, such as commercial drain cleaning, to the profile you have.

The page needs:

• A headline for the buyer, such as "Commercial Plumbing for Property Managers in [City]," with tap-to-call at the top.
• The property types you serve and the work you do, with photos of commercial jobs.
• Your response commitments, in the same words as your agreements.
• A "request our vendor packet" button, and a form asking for company name, property address, number of properties and the problem.
• Your service agreements, explained in plain words.

For the rest of the site, see plumbing website design.

Google Search ads for commercial terms

Run commercial terms as their own Search campaign, so they get their own budget and schedule instead of competing with homeowner searches. Themes to research: commercial plumber, commercial plumbing contractor, restaurant plumber, commercial water heater, grease trap and backflow testing, only for work you do. Ad groups, match types and negatives are in our Google Ads playbook for plumbers.

Three settings matter more for commercial:

• Location. Keep Google's default, "Presence or Interest." A property manager may sit in another city from the building, and this setting also reaches people who have shown interest in your area.
• Assets. A structured snippet with the "Service catalog" header lists what you do, such as backflow testing, jetting, water heaters and grease lines; Google suggests at least 4 values. Set the call asset to show only when someone can answer.
• Conversions. Count only real commercial leads as primary conversions, because bidding optimizes toward the Conversions column. When a lead signs, send it back to Google Ads: Google recommends starting with enhanced conversions for leads, and offline conversion imports need click IDs within 90 days.

Local Services Ads run on job types from Google's list for your category, with examples like "install shower," so check whether yours cover commercial work. We'd build commercial on Search, where you pick the terms.

Relationship selling: where accounts come from

1. List the property managers, facilities teams, restaurant groups and general contractors in your service area.
2. If they already have a plumber, ask to be the one they call for after-hours work and overflow.
3. Win the first job by answering, then send the photo report and invoice the same day.
4. Show up where they meet: local apartment, property management, restaurant and builders' associations.
5. Ask residential customers who own rentals or businesses.
6. Check in each quarter with a one-page summary of the work you did.

Service agreements: turn one job into an account

A service agreement puts you on the calendar instead of the call list. Build it from work that repeats:

• Grease lines and interceptors. EPA's pretreatment fact sheet says food service establishments "must be diligent" in having grease interceptors serviced at regular intervals, and that sewer authorities can require inspections and periodic grease pumping. Learn your local rules.
• Backflow tests, if you're certified. EPA's cross-connection guidance describes water systems requiring customers to install and maintain backflow prevention assemblies, and notes that testing frequency and tester certification rules can vary by state.
• Scheduled checks: drain jetting, water heater flushes, camera inspections of main lines, fixture and valve checks.

Write down what's included, the response you'll keep, after-hours rates, how you'll report and the renewal date. Price it from your own labor, truck time and parts. The homeowner version is our plumbing membership program guide.

Track accounts, not just leads

Follow each commercial lead from first call to first job, second job, signed agreement and first-year revenue, and credit every repeat job to the source of the first call. Example numbers to swap for yours:

1. Commercial Search ads cost $1,500 in a month and bring 25 leads, $60 each.
2. You book 8 first jobs, a 32% close rate: about $188 in ads per booked job.
3. Three become repeat accounts: $500 in ads per new account. Compare that with your margin on a year of each account's work.

For comparison, across the accounts we run, leads have averaged $63 over the last twelve months; measure your own close rate from your job records. More in how to track marketing ROI.

What to do this week

1. Pick the two buyer types you'll chase first.
2. Build your vendor packet: W-9, current certificate of insurance, license numbers, after-hours number and rates.
3. Ask your insurance agent how fast they can issue a certificate naming a client as additional insured.
4. Write down the response times you can keep on your worst night.
5. List twenty local accounts and call five.

FAQ

How do plumbers get commercial plumbing leads?

Pick buyers you can serve, get approved as their vendor, then add a commercial page, a separate Search campaign, relationship selling and service agreements, judged on cost per new account.

Do I need a separate Google Business Profile for commercial work?

No. Google says there should only be one profile per business; a department qualifies for its own only as a distinct entity with a different category. Add commercial services to your profile instead.

What insurance do commercial clients ask for?

It varies, so ask each one. University vendor rules, for example, want general liability and workers' compensation, with the university named as an additional insured. Send each client's requirements to your agent before you quote.

Should I promise response times in a service agreement?

Only ones you can hit on your worst night. Define whether "response" means a callback or a plumber on site, and which hours it covers.

Do I need a commercial plumbing marketing agency?

Not to start. If you hire one, ask how it will separate commercial from residential campaigns, track leads through to signed accounts and report cost per new account. It earns its fee only if that number goes down.

Opus Group runs Google Ads, Local Services Ads and high-converting landing pages for local service businesses. See how it works.

Opus Group is a plumbing marketing agency working with plumbers across the US, including Chicago, Sacramento, San Diego and Charlotte.

Theo Prada is the founder of Opus Group, which runs Google Local Services Ads and Google Ads for local service businesses.