case study

Case Study: What Happens When a Local Service Business Turns Google Ads Back On After 18 Months of Pure Organic Growth

After 18 months of pure organic growth, we ran a 90-day Google Ads test to see whether paid traffic could outperform SEO, GBP updates, and AI search. The results revealed why so many local businesses overspend on ads—and why organic visibility still delivers the highest-quality leads.

case study

Most local service businesses believe the fastest way to get leads is simple:
Turn on Google Ads and let the schedule fill up.

And yes—ads can create early momentum. But what happens once you’re 12–24 months in?
What happens when the credit card stops?
And what happens when you compare paid leads to leads coming from true organic visibility?

Inside The Blueprint to Business, we decided to find out the hard way.

In this case study, we’re walking through what happened when we—after nearly two years of relying on SEO, GBP optimization, and AI-driven organic reach—turned Google Ads back on for a 90-day controlled test.

The results?
They reinforced exactly why so many home-service owners overspend on ads and underestimate the power of organic visibility.

This isn’t theory.
This is real data from our business and from other top-performing local service owners we work with.

The Setup: Two Owners, Both Top Performers—But Two Very Different Strategies

We personally know two local business owners in the same industry:

Owner #1 — “Always Running Ads”

  • Spends $2,500–$3,000 per month on Google Ads
  • Works with a digital ad agency
  • Has run ads since Day 1
  • Looks successful from the outside
  • But: the moment ad spend stops, leads stop

Owner #2 — “Zero Ads in 18 Months”

  • A long-time FS Agency client
  • Invests in SEO, GBP optimization, YouTube content, and AI SEO
  • Has not run paid ads in a year and a half
  • Also a top performer
  • Leads continue even when they stop publishing new content for a few weeks

Same industry.
Same customer base.
Same geography.
Two completely different cost structures and long-term visibility paths.

Which one is building an asset instead of a bill?

We wanted to find out.

Why We Turned Google Ads Back On After Nearly Two Years

Going into the test, we weren’t struggling. In fact, the opposite:

  • We had just had our highest revenue months ever,
  • Our highest profit margins, and
  • Our most booked-out schedule — all without ads.

But we wanted to pressure-test our assumptions.
So we committed to a 3-month Google Ads experiment with clear goals:

  1. Increase weekly appointment volume
  2. Track lead quality vs. organic leads
  3. Compare revenue and profit per job
  4. Evaluate whether ads gave us an incremental boost

We were fully prepared for ads to at least add a little extra volume.

But what actually happened… surprised even us.

Before we show you the data, here’s a quick video explaining how this test turned into a $9,000 lesson — and why organic leads still beat paid ads every single time.

YouTube player

What Happened When We Turned Google Ads Back On

1. We booked fewerappointments than the months when we ran no ads.

Not fewer “profitable” appointments.
Fewer total appointments.

2. We paid for unqualified leads.

Including:

  • People searching for services we don’t provide
  • Price shoppers
  • Competitors
  • Tire kickers

3. Lower average order value.

Even the leads that did convert ended up with:

  • Smaller tickets
  • More discount requests
  • More cancellations
  • Lower gross profit per job

This is a pattern we see across many home-service categories:

Paid leads are often less educated, less committed, and less profitable.

Organic leads?
They tend to be higher intent because they’ve already seen your content, your reviews, your photos, or your brand multiple times.

4. Our organic visibility dipped.

We’ve seen this before with other clients, but here we saw it firsthand:

When ads turn on, organic search often slides a bit.

Coincidence?
Maybe.

But when Google knows you’re paying, organic performance has a strange way of dipping—only to slowly rebound weeks after ads are turned back off.

The Math Doesn’t Lie: The ROI Was Worse Than Expected

Our digital ad agency called the month “successful” when they drove four qualified leads.

Here’s how those four broke down:

  • 1 canceled
  • 2 weren’t even for the right service
  • 1 sold, but at a lower ticket than any organic job we closed that month

That’s not “qualified.”
That’s “technically not spam.”

Meanwhile, organic leads from:

  • Google Search
  • Google Business Profile
  • ChatGPT
  • AI search
  • YouTube
  • Blog posts
    …continued showing higher conversion rates and higher average revenue per job.

Even worse:

Every dollar spent on ads disappeared the moment we stopped spending.

No residual value.
No long-term lift.
No compounding.
Just a bill.

The Long-Term Difference: Ads Are a Faucet, Organic Visibility Is a Foundation

Paid ads work like this:

Turn faucet on → water flows
Turn faucet off → nothing

Organic visibility works like this:

Every blog, every GBP photo, every review, every YouTube video →
Becomes a permanent asset that keeps driving leads.

That’s why the owner who spends $3,000 every month will always need to spend $3,000 every month.

Meanwhile, the owner investing the same amount into organic visibility sees results compound — even when they pause new content for a month or two.

This is also why door knocking, print ads, magazine ads, and “please take out our coupon” mailers fade instantly.
They create zero long-term value.

Organic creates momentum that doesn’t turn off when the credit card does.

AI Search Has Become the New Multiplier (And It’s Only Growing)

The strongest organic leads today aren’t just coming from Google.

They’re coming from:

  • ChatGPT
  • Gemini
  • Siri
  • Bing AI
  • Perplexity

People research your service before they ever land on your website.

We are now consistently seeing double-digit percentages of leads coming directly from AI tools—which never would have happened from ads.

These leads are deeply researched, high-intent, and far more profitable.

The Big Takeaway: Ads Have a Place — But Organic Visibility Wins Every Time

If you’re a brand-new business, ads can help you fill your calendar quickly while organic visibility is still building.

If you have a one-time promotion, ads can help you push a specific offer.

But if you want:

  • Better leads
  • Higher average order values
  • Higher profit margins
  • Fewer cancellations
  • More authority
  • And a lead engine that doesn’t stop when you stop paying

Then you need to build an organic ecosystem:

This is exactly what’s working for our clients — across multiple home-service industries.

And it’s exactly why we continue to focus our energy on organic visibility instead of paid ads.

Ready to Stop Renting Visibility and Start Owning It?

If you’re tired of paying Google month after month just to stay visible, the FS Agency helps small and mid-size service businesses build long-term lead engines that compound over time.

We specialize in:

  • SEO
  • AI SEO
  • GBP optimization
  • Content ecosystems
  • Visibility strategies that actually drive profitable leads

If you want a business that doesn’t rely on ads to survive, we’d love to walk you through what this could look like for you.

Amber Hoffman Franchise Operations Specialist

Amber Hoffman

Founder & CEO, The FS Agency
Amber helps home service owners scale smarter through marketing, systems, and strategy — bringing years of leadership and franchise experience.