Hiring a marketing agency for your turf company

Search interest in artificial grass has started its spring climb. Averaged over the last five years of Google Trends data, interest across the country rises from February and keeps rising until May, and in Texas March is already the strongest month of the year. It is also when the agency calls start. Some callers know turf. Others will pitch the package they sold a plumber last week, nouns swapped.

We would rather you hired nobody than hired the second kind, so here are the questions we think a turf owner should put to every agency this month, including us. Each has an answer specific to this trade.

Where will Google file my business?

Start here, because the answer shows quickly whether the agency has run a turf account. Google’s Local Services Ads have no turf category. The category list never uses the words turf, artificial or synthetic. The closest fits are Landscaping services, which Google defines around designing, installing and maintaining gardens, and Lawn care.

A good answer sounds like this: we apply under Landscaping, set the job types and service area carefully, and screen every lead, because a Landscaping account attracts mowing and yard cleanup requests. That last part matters more than it used to. Google no longer credits leads for a job type you do not serve, so a mowing request that reaches a turf company is a lead you paid for.

Two more checks belong in the same conversation:

• The badge in those ads has been Google Verified since October. An agency still selling you the old guarantee badge has not opened the product lately.
• Google puts screening at three to four weeks once your documents are in: general and professional liability insurance, state licenses where your state requires them, background checks for some owners, and a verified Google Business Profile. An agency that has not started that paperwork by mid-March is planning for you to sit out the start of the April rush.

What should a lead cost, and where does that number come from?

Nobody publishes cost figures for artificial turf alone. The nearest is LocaliQ’s 2025 search benchmarks for home services, built from campaigns that ran between April 2024 and March 2025. For the Landscaping category it reports a median cost per click of $8.76, a conversion rate of 6.42% and a median cost per lead of $117.92, well above the $90.92 median for home services as a whole in the same study.

So when an agency promises turf leads at a fraction of that, ask where the figure comes from, and ask to see the report behind it. The more useful question is what they will report against: cost per measured estimate at the property, and cost per signed job. A click is not a yard.

What will you put in my ads, and what will you refuse to write?

Turf ads carry three kinds of risk that most home service ads never meet:

• License numbers. California’s Business and Professions Code 7030.5 requires a licensed contractor’s number in all forms of advertising. Nevada’s contractor law lists advertising a construction project without the responsible licensee’s name and license number as grounds for discipline. If you work in either state, every ad, page and profile the agency touches should carry it.
• Heat claims. The Toxics Use Reduction Institute at UMass Lowell reviewed the research in 2016 and found that all synthetic turf reaches higher temperatures than natural grass, whatever the infill. One study at BYU recorded a surface of 200 degrees on a 98-degree day. Those were sports fields, but an agency that writes “stays cool” without the manufacturer’s test data is writing a claim you may have to defend.
• Chemical claims. Since January 1, Vermont’s Act 131 has barred the sale of artificial turf containing PFAS. “Non-toxic” in an ad should rest on the product’s test results, and a careful agency asks you for them before it writes the line.

How will you get reviews, and what will you refuse to do?

BrightLocal’s Local Consumer Review Survey, published last month, sets out the stakes. It found that 47% of consumers will not use a business with fewer than 20 reviews, and 31% will only use one rated 4.5 stars or higher, up from 17% a year earlier.

The wrong answer is any shortcut. The FTC’s rule on fake reviews, announced in August 2024, bans fake reviews and bans rewarding customers for reviews that say something positive. An agency offering to lift your rating with gift cards for five stars is offering to put your company’s name on a violation.

The right answer is plain and it works: ask every customer the week the job finishes, with a link that opens straight to the review form, and reply to each review. Then add something only a turf company has. If your crew leads hold the Synthetic Turf Council’s Certified Synthetic Turf Installer credential, which involves eligibility requirements, an exam and renewal every two years, show it on the profile and the site. The rest of how we handle this is on our reviews page.

What the first ninety days should look like

Ask any agency to lay out its first three months in writing. For a turf installer heading into spring, ours would read roughly like this:

• Weeks one to three. Calls and forms tracked by source, one agreed definition of a lead (a booked estimate at the property), and the Local Services application filed under Landscaping.
• Weeks two to six. The Google Business Profile and website rebuilt around the work you actually sell, with pet turf, putting greens and rebate conversions named, real photos from your installs, product spec sheets and the license number where the law asks for it.
• Weeks four to twelve. Search campaigns for “artificial grass installation” style searches in your cities, with mowing and sod searches excluded, and separate ad groups for pet turf and putting greens running before April, when both searches peak.
• Every month after that. A report showing calls answered, estimates booked, jobs signed and the cost of each, by channel.

If a proposal skips the tracking step, or opens with a logo refresh and a posting calendar, you will not be able to tell in June whether the spring worked.

What to do this month

• Ask every agency that calls which Local Services category it would use and how it would keep mowing requests out of your account.
• Ask for the source behind any cost-per-lead figure, and compare it with LocaliQ’s Landscaping median of $117.92.
• If you install in California or Nevada, check every live ad and page for your license number today.
• Collect the manufacturer’s heat and PFAS test documents for each product you sell, so your marketing can cite them.
• Send a review request to every customer you installed for since last fall, before the spring searchers start reading.
• If you have no Local Services account yet, start the screening paperwork this week.

These are the same questions we expect to be asked ourselves. Our plan for artificial turf installers answers them section by section, and the way we run Local Services and search ads has its own page. Whoever you hire, get the answers in writing before the April calls arrive.