We read two piles of text from the same example market, Columbus, Ohio. The first was every readable ad that local electricians, franchises and multi-trade companies had run on Google, pulled from Google's Ads Transparency Center. The second was 670 Google reviews of 17 electrical contractors in the same metro.
The ads mostly talk about the company: its star rating, its years in business, its trucks running around the clock. The reviews mostly talk about the visit: whether the electrician showed up, explained what was wrong, and charged what they said they would. When the reviews complain about price, the complaint they repeat most isn't the size of the bill. It's a fee to show up that nobody mentioned.
Those two piles describe two different businesses. This chapter writes the ad from the second one. Your market's names will differ. Your customers' words probably won't.
Half the Electrical Ads Lead With a Star Rating. The Busiest Shops All Sit Between 4.6 and 4.9, So Stars Don't Pick the Winner.
Of the 140 ads in the example market whose text named electrical work, 68 carried a star rating or a review count, from 23 of the 25 advertisers. Thirty bragged about years in business: "since 1994," "22+ years." Plenty promised 24/7 service.
None of that is false, and none of it sets anyone apart. The 11 listings in our sample with more than 100 Google reviews all rate between 4.6 and 4.9 stars. The three that show up most in the map pack rate 4.9, 4.8 and 4.6. A homeowner comparing three ads that all say "4.8 stars" learns nothing about which electrician to call.
The stars can also mean less than they look. Three of the busiest names in the example market are multi-trade companies that sell plumbing and heating and cooling alongside electrical work. At those three listings, 50 of the 62 low-star reviews were about furnaces, drains and water heaters. A rating earned on furnace tune-ups says very little about a panel swap.
Five-Star Reviews Praise the Electrician Who Explained the Job. Not One of 372 Contractor Ads Said "Explain."
So what do happy customers actually write about? Across the 459 four- and five-star reviews in the sample, sorted by theme:
- Friendly and professional: 213 reviews. True of nearly every good shop, so it's weak ad copy.
- Got the job done fast: 124.
- Explained the problem, or was honest about it: 113, at all 17 businesses.
- Knew their stuff: 82.
- Fair price: 51.
- On time: 42.
- Same or next day: 36.
- Clean and careful in the house: 34.
The phrases are plain and specific. "Explained the problem in simple terms," one Mister Sparky customer wrote. "They never 'talk down' to you, they do a great job explaining everything," wrote a Graham Electric customer.
Now the ads. We searched the text of all 372 contractor ads we pulled from the Transparency Center for the example market's advertisers. The word "explain" appears in none of them.
There's a reason explanation carries so much weight in this trade. The low-star reviews show what homeowners are afraid of. Ten of the 125 low-star reviews about electrical work describe a small call or a "safety check" that turned into a pitch for a new panel, a whole-house surge protector or every outlet in the house. In three of those, a second electrician or the utility fixed the real problem for little or nothing. A homeowner who has heard that story is shopping for the electrician who'll tell them what's actually wrong. Chapter 3 found the same pattern from the other side: it's the honest explanation that wins the quote. "Every Option Explained First" is a headline. "4.8 stars" is a decoration.
The Fee to Show Up Is the Price Complaint Reviewers Repeat. Google Already Requires Electricians to Disclose It.
Forty-two of the 125 low-star electrical reviews complain about money in some form. The most common version isn't "too expensive." It's a trip, service, diagnostic or "estimate" fee the customer didn't expect: 18 reviews, at 7 of the 17 businesses, with amounts from $69 to $411. Sixteen more say another electrician quoted a fraction of the price.
Six of the 18 are about a "free estimate" that wasn't free. "I showed him the door and before leaving he mentioned the $69 service fee. FOR A QUOTE?!" read one. A second homeowner: "we were shocked to find out that the neither the trip fee ($69) nor the diagnostic fee ($364) would go toward any repairs."
Here's the part many electricians don't know: Google already has a rule for this. Its dishonest pricing policy carries a note aimed at urgent work done at the customer's home, emergency repairs included. The ad or the page it leads to has to show what the visit will cost before the homeowner books it: the call-out charge, any premium for nights and weekends, and whether the quote you give on site is binding.
In the example market, one electrical ad out of 372 named a fee: "$69 service fee waived with repair."
That gap is an opening. A fee stated up front reads as honesty, which is exactly what the five-star reviews praise. One Quality Electric customer put it this way: "There is a trip fee added to the work, but this was disclosed up front." So write it in, inside the 30-character limit: "$89 Trip Fee, Credited to Job." "Firm Quote Before Any Work." "Night Calls: Price Told First." Every one of those has to be true at your shop, and the details belong on the landing page too.
One more honest note from the same reviews. The single biggest complaint wasn't price at all. It was a no-show, a late arrival or a same-day cancellation: 33 of the 125. "On Time or We Call Ahead" is a strong headline for a shop whose schedule backs it up, and a fast route to more one-star reviews for a shop whose schedule doesn't.
Your Service Page and Your Reviews Hold Most of Your Fifteen Headlines. A Competitor's Ad Is Only a Third Source.
Each ad holds as many as 15 headlines, none longer than 30 characters, plus as many as 4 descriptions of 90 characters or fewer. Google shuffles those pieces and shows a different mix to different searchers. Fifteen is a lot of lines to fill, and the temptation is to open a competitor's ad and borrow. Work in this order instead:
- Your own service page. If Chapter 4's EV charger page says "Level 2 install, permit pulled, inspection scheduled," those words go in the EV charger ad group's headlines. Trust signals belong here too: your license, the brands you're certified to install, a warranty you really honor.
- Your reviews. Read your Google reviews for the phrases customers repeat, then the sites homeowners also read: Thumbtack, HomeAdvisor, Angi, BBB and Nextdoor. Short review phrases often fit a headline with only light trimming.
- Your dispatcher. Whoever answers the phone knows the questions callers ask before they'll book: "Do you charge to come out?" "Can you do it this week?" "Do you pull the permit?" Each question is a headline waiting to be answered.
- Competitors' ads. Tap the three dots beside a rival's ad on Google and choose to see more of its ads, or search its name in the Ads Transparency Center and set the date range to recent months. If a business's ads come up empty, an agency may be running them under its own name. The ad preview tool from Chapter 5 shows what's showing in your town right now, without costing anyone a click. SpyFu and Semrush can show more, at a price. Read competitors to find the gap, not to copy the line.
- AI tools, last. Use them to tighten a headline to 30 characters or catch a typo, never to write the first draft. An AI tool has never read your reviews.
The four descriptions do a different job. Headlines catch the eye; descriptions answer the doubt that stops the call. Use them for the dispatcher's questions, in full sentences: "We explain the problem and quote it before work starts. Trip fee credited to the repair." That's 88 characters, and every word of it came from a review or a phone call, not a brainstorm.
Each service ad group from Chapter 4 gets its own ad in its own words. The panel ad talks about panels. The generator ad talks about generators. A homeowner who searched "ev charger installation" should see "EV Chargers, Permit Pulled" before anything about your years in business.
A Headline Pinned on Launch Day Is a Guess. Pin Only the Line Your Phone Calls Have Already Proven.
Pinning locks a headline into one slot, first or second, on every impression. It's tempting to pin your favorite line on day one. Don't. A pinned line can only ever show in its spot, which leaves Google fewer combinations to match to each search, and Google's own guidance says most advertisers shouldn't pin.
New accounts launch unpinned, so Google can test the combinations against real searches. Pin later, and only a line with proof behind it: one your shop already knows works from years of yard signs and truck wraps, or one the data shows is pulling calls.
Ignore the Ad Strength score while you do it. It's feedback on how varied your headlines are. By Google's own account, it has nothing to do with where your ad ranks, what Quality Score your keyword gets, or whether the ad wins. An ad rated "Poor" with three honest, specific headlines can beat an "Excellent" ad full of filler.
Then keep going. Every few weeks, look at which headlines show up in the combinations that get calls and which never do, and replace the weakest. The franchises will keep selling 24/7, and the multi-trade brands will keep selling stars. Your ad can sell the thing your own customers already praise: the electrician who explains the job and tells you the fee before the truck leaves the shop.
Next: Google Runs a New Campaign Around the Clock. Chapter 9 Sets It to the Hours Your Phone Gets Answered.
The best headline in the market can't help an ad that rings an empty office at 2 a.m. Chapter 9 walks through the switches an electrical account should flip before spending its first dollar. Chapter 7 set the bids these ads will run on, and Chapter 4 built the service pages they point to.
The full set of sixteen chapters is gathered on the guide's home page.
An electrical contractor that hands us its Google Ads management gets launch ads built out of its own five-star reviews and service pages, and the trip fee goes in wherever the shop charges one. Writing your own? Open your last 50 five-star reviews and count how many say "explained." Then check whether your ads ever do.
