How much do generator leads cost?

Across our accounts, tracked leads run roughly $40–$120 depending on market and season, with booked assessments costing $150–$400. Storm-week leads cost more per lead but close at a much higher rate.

Are Local Services Ads better than Google Search Ads?

They are better positioned and priced per lead, but capped in volume and limited in control. Most dealers should run both: Local Services Ads for top-of-page trust, Search Ads for keyword and geographic control.

Should I advertise during storm season only?

No. Accounts with spend history perform better during a surge, and off-season leads are cheaper. Run a base budget year-round and shift into storm gear when the forecast turns.

Does Facebook advertising work for generator dealers?

For awareness, financing offers and post-storm reach, yes. As a primary lead source for a five-figure install, it usually underperforms search unless paired with strong retargeting and follow-up.

How fast can ads start producing calls?

Search Ads can produce calls within 48 hours of approval. Local Services Ads require verification first, which typically takes three to six weeks.

Generator dealer advertising

Generator dealer advertising: where the money actually works

Advertising a five-figure standby install is not the same as advertising a $99 tune-up. The buyer is deliberate until the power goes out, then they are frantic. Good generator dealer advertising covers both states: a steady base that captures planned buyers, and a storm gear that captures the panic.

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Where should generator dealers advertise?

The highest-return advertising channels for whole-home generator dealers, in order, are Local Services Ads (Google Guaranteed, pay per lead), Google Search Ads on install-intent keywords, retargeting to quote viewers, and paid social for storm-season awareness. Radio, print and untargeted display rarely produce trackable installs.

Local Services Ads — top of the page, pay per lead, disputable junk leads.
Google Search Ads — control over keywords, geography and storm-week budgets.
Retargeting — reaches homeowners who read a quote page and went quiet.
Paid social — cheap reach before and during storm season, weak on direct intent.

Channel by channel, with honest tradeoffs

Local Services Ads

Sits above search ads with a Google Guaranteed badge. You pay per lead, not per click, and can dispute wrong numbers and out-of-area calls. Verification takes three to six weeks, so start early.

Google Search Ads

The workhorse. Keywords like 'whole home generator installation near me' carry real intent. Expect $8–$25 per click in competitive metros and $150–$400 per booked assessment.

Retargeting display

Cheap, and effective on a considered purchase. A homeowner who read your pricing page three weeks ago is worth reminding.

Paid social (Meta)

Good for storm-season awareness, financing offers and review proof. Poor for pulling someone off the couch on a sunny Tuesday.

Radio and print

Occasionally works for legacy dealers with a strong local brand. Hard to attribute, expensive to test, and it will not scale on its own.

Building a storm gear

Every dealer we work with runs two ad postures. The base posture runs year-round at a modest budget on install-intent keywords, which keeps account history and quality scores healthy. The storm posture is built, approved and left paused — separate campaigns with emergency copy, wider geography and much larger daily budgets.

When an outage hits, we unpause and raise budgets in minutes. Building campaigns during the storm does not work: Google review takes time, and the buying window closes before your ads clear.

Do not do this

Cutting spend the day power comes back. Intent stays elevated for roughly sixty days after an outage, and that tail is the cheapest inventory of the year.

What to budget

Budget by capacity, not by ambition. If your crews can install six units a week and you are already at five, spend goes toward higher-ticket jobs and better close rates rather than raw volume.

Single county, calm weather: $2,000–$4,000/month in ad spend.
Metro market with national competition: $6,000–$12,000/month.
Storm week: 3–5× your daily base budget for seven to fourteen days.
Reserve 10–15% of annual spend for the post-storm sixty-day tail.

Where dealers waste ad money

Sending clicks to the homepage

An ad about whole-home installs should land on a page about whole-home installs, with a phone number and a form. Not your homepage carousel.

No call tracking

Without dynamic numbers and recordings, you cannot tell which campaign made the phone ring, so you optimize by vibes.

Portable generator keywords

Cheap clicks, wrong buyer. Negative-keyword them out unless you actually sell portables.

Running ads into voicemail

Paying for clicks after hours with no answering system is a straight transfer of money to your competitor.

Questions, answered straight

Keep reading

Related pages worth your time

Each of these goes deeper on one piece of the same system.

All generator dealer marketing services

SEO, Google Ads, Local Services Ads, websites, reviews, social and 24/7 call answering.

Programs and pricing

Storm Ready, Prime Power and Powerhouse — what each one includes and what it costs.

Case study and reviews

5.8× organic clicks, 114 tracked calls in five months, $61 average cost per lead.

Marketing ROI calculator

Model leads, close rate and average ticket to see what a budget should return.

No pitch deck. No pressure.

A 20-minute conversation about your install pipeline: where your calls are going today, and what it takes to make them ring at your shop instead.