What an electrical contractor should ask a marketing agency

March is when the spring remodel calls start and electrical shops begin wondering whether this is the year to hand marketing to someone else. Most of the agencies that call you sell the same home services package to plumbers, roofers and cleaners, with the trade name swapped. That package can work. It can also put an ad on Google that breaks your state’s licensing rule, or bury a panel upgrade inquiry in the same campaign as a 2 a.m. outage call.

You do not need to know marketing to tell the difference, only a few questions that someone who has worked with electrical contractors answers without notes.

Start with the license number, because the law got there first

An agency that has run electrical ads before will bring this up without being asked. In three of the biggest markets it is not optional.

• Texas. Under 16 Texas Administrative Code 73.51, all advertising meant to win electrical work, business cards included, must carry the contractor’s name and license number. Each vehicle shows both on each side, at least two inches tall, with TECL before the number, and proposals, invoices and contracts carry the number as well.
• Florida. Statute 489.521 says the certification or registration number has to appear in every offer of services, business proposal or advertisement, regardless of medium. Florida also separates certified contractors, who hold a state certificate of competency, from registered ones, who may contract only where their registration was issued. A service area set wider than that advertises work you cannot take.
• California. Business and Professions Code 7030.5 puts the license number in all forms of advertising. Labor Code 108.2 requires the people doing electrical work for C-10 contractors to be certified electricians, which gives a California shop two credentials worth naming on its site.

So ask: where exactly will my license number appear? The answer should cover search ad text, the Business Profile, every page footer, Facebook ads, the truck wrap and the proposal template. “We can add it if you like” is the wrong answer.

Five questions that separate electrical experience from a template

What do you need from me for Local Services Ads, and how long will it take? Google lists electricians as their own Local Services category and calls it an urgent one, because people call about exposed wiring and failing equipment. The requirements include general and professional liability insurance, state business and owner licenses where the law requires them, and business and owner checks for some advertisers. Google adds that electricians go through an extra level of screening that includes background checks, and puts the average at three to four weeks after documents are in. A good agency will add that pre-badge ads can run meanwhile, ranked below verified shops, and that the badge has been Google Verified since last October.

How will you separate emergency calls from planned work? A tripped main at dinner time, a 200-amp panel upgrade, a Level 2 charger and a standby generator are four different searches. LocaliQ’s 2025 home services benchmarks, covering April 2024 to March 2025, put the median click for Electricians & Electrical Contractors at $12.18, second only to painting among 16 home service categories, with a median cost per lead of $93.69. Clicks that expensive cannot be spent on the wrong job. Listen for separate campaigns, separate landing pages, negative keywords and ad schedules for each kind of work.

How do you get reviews without breaking the rules? BrightLocal’s 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey, published last month, found that 47% of consumers will not use a business with fewer than 20 reviews, and 74% only care about reviews written in the last three months. The FTC’s 2024 rule on fake reviews bans incentives conditioned on a review expressing a particular sentiment. The right answer is a request after every job, sent to every customer, with no discount attached to a good rating and a reply to every review that comes in.

What will you change on my Business Profile? A shop that works at customers’ homes is a service-area business, and Google’s guidelines say it should hide its address. A rented virtual office is not eligible for a profile, and adding keywords to the business name can get the profile suspended. An agency that promises to rank you by adding “Best Electrician” to your name is offering to risk the asset that brings in your urgent calls.

What would you take down this week? The 25C federal credit, which covered qualifying panelboards of 200 amps or more, ended for property placed in service after December 31, 2025. Any panel page still promising it is wrong today. The 30C credit for home chargers runs only to property placed in service by June 30 this year, so EV charger copy that leans on it has a short shelf life. An agency that has read your site before the meeting will have spotted both.

What the first ninety days should look like

The order matters more than the speed. For an electrical shop, we would expect roughly this:

1. Weeks one and two. Business Profile cleaned up, license number placed wherever your state requires it, and the Local Services application submitted, because screening is the slowest step.
2. Weeks three to six. Call tracking and recording on every number, and search campaigns split by job type, each with its own negatives and hours.
3. Weeks seven to twelve. Pages for panels, chargers and generators that show your own work, a review request after every job, and follow-up on unsigned quotes.

If an agency starts with a new logo or a blog calendar, ask what it plans to do about the phone first.

What a monthly report should show an electrical shop

Clicks and impressions belong in an appendix. The front page should answer the questions you would ask at the counter:

• How many calls came in, how many reached a person, and how many went to voicemail, by hour of the day.
• Booked jobs by type: service calls, panels, chargers, generators and builder work, each with its cost.
• Local Services leads charged, and which ones were reported through Google’s feedback survey.
• New reviews in the last 30 days, and the reply rate.
• Quotes sent, quotes signed and quotes still open.

A report that lumps a quick service call together with a panel replacement cannot tell you where to spend the next dollar.

What to do this month

• Search your own business name and read every listing, ad and page for your license number and, in Texas, the TECL prefix.
• Gather your liability insurance certificates and state license documents so a Local Services application can go in the day you decide.
• Remove any line promising the 25C panel credit, and put an end date on anything that mentions the charger credit.
• Count your Google reviews from the last three months, not the total.
• Call your own number after hours and note what a homeowner reaches.
• Ask any agency you are talking to the five questions above, and write down who answers without looking anything up.

How we set this up for electrical contractors, from verification to the generator pages, is on our electrician marketing page, and the Local Services Ads and search work has its own page.