What they search when the furnace quits on the first cold night. Why one heat pump quote makes sense to them and the next one doesn't. Who else has to agree before a new system goes in. We model it from that research, run over 10 years across more than 500 businesses, then aim it at a full schedule through spring and fall, not only the coldest and hottest weeks. You see the read before you commit a dollar.
HVAC SEO and the map
Google and Meta ads for both peaks
Maintenance plans and email
577%
ROI in 67 days. $224,219 in camp enrolments on $33,100 of ad spend.
Pear Tree Camps · Education · Summer camps
2,500%
return on ad spend, with 292 job applications in 30 days.
NH New Horizons Staffing · Healthcare staffing
$20M
in sales by DŌST Bikes. We built the brand, the store and the marketing it ran on.
E-commerce · E-bikes
Agency-wide results from three different industries.
A design-build general contractor working on homes across Greater Vancouver. Paid search with us turned $6,700 in Google Ads spend into $28,500 in tracked leads. We also rebuilt the website and ran SEO alongside the ads.
A window-coverings company in Surrey, BC, running SEO and Google Ads with us. We found more than 8,000 broken pages holding the site back and cleaned them up. Ranking keywords went from 5 to 32 in two months, with 3 in the top 10.
Most HVAC marketing is built around the equipment brand on the van and a seasonal coupon. We start with the person standing over a cold vent at night, and what they need to hear before they let a technician into the house.
HVAC searches follow the thermometer, twice a year. In SE Ranking's Canadian data, searches for "furnace repair" ran between 9,900 and 18,100 a month over the last year, and "air conditioning repair near me" reached 1,900 in September 2026, up from 40 in February. The urgent search happens when the furnace stops on a cold night or the house hits 30 degrees in a heat warning. It is typed on a phone, and the caller picks from the first few names in the map. The planned search is quieter and runs all year: a furnace past fifteen years, a gas bill that keeps climbing, a neighbour's new heat pump, a rebate they read about. Those people search for cost and compare for weeks. Put both on one budget and one report, and you cannot tell which one is paying.
Nobody can judge a furnace or a heat pump by looking at it, so they judge the company. Did someone answer, or did it go to voicemail? Did the technician explain what failed in words they understood? On a replacement they line up the quotes. Does it name the make and model? Is the size based on measuring the house, or copied from the old unit? Who fills in the rebate paperwork, and is the warranty registered for them? Quotes for the same heat pump can sit thousands of dollars apart, and the homeowner usually picks the one they can follow.
A no-heat call is decided in one phone call, by whoever answers first. A new system is a household decision. A couple weighs the price today against the monthly bill for the next fifteen years. In a rental the tenant calls and the landlord pays. In a strata building, a heat pump on a balcony or a roof can need council approval before anyone signs. On light commercial work, the property manager gives the job to whoever already does the spring and fall maintenance. The company that did last year's tune-up is usually the first one asked to quote the replacement.
This is modelled from research we have done over 10 years across more than 500 businesses. It is the part of what we do that a competitor cannot copy in an afternoon.
Service vans, a dispatcher, and a phone that rings all day on the first cold weekend and the first hot one, then goes quiet in April and October. Repairs keep the trucks moving, and a good repair visit is where most replacement jobs start. We track the peak weeks and the quiet ones separately, so a busy January does not hide an empty spring, and we keep your no-heat and no-cooling lines easy to find the day the weather turns.
Bigger tickets and slower decisions. The homeowner reads about rebates, gets three quotes and may take a month to choose. You win it with a quote they understand, photos of installs in homes like theirs, and a follow-up that lands while they are still comparing. Most of the budget belongs here, because one install is worth a season of tune-ups.
Rooftop units, small offices, restaurants and strata buildings. You answer to property managers and owners who keep an approved vendor list and rarely change it. They choose on maintenance done on schedule, service reports that make sense, and someone who answers when a unit fails on a hot afternoon. The marketing job is to be the name on their list before the current one slips.
Run HVAC inside a larger building or renovation company? Our construction marketing page covers the wider build.
Start with whichever one is losing you the most calls before the next peak. Each is set up around your service area and the work you want more of: repairs, installs or maintenance plans.
Your Google Business Profile, a page for each area you serve, and service pages for furnace repair, AC repair, heat pumps and maintenance that answer what homeowners ask about cost, rebates and warranties. So you appear in the map for urgent searches, and get named when someone asks an AI assistant who to call.
Search ads for no-heat and no-cooling calls, with their own budgets and hours, kept apart from heat pump and replacement campaigns. Meta ads that keep your installs in front of nearby homeowners who looked but did not call. Every campaign is judged on booked jobs, not clicks.
Tune-up reminders before each heating and cooling season, renewal emails before a plan lapses, and a short note to every homeowner who got a quote and went quiet. The customer on a maintenance plan is the one who calls you first, and the one who asks you to quote the next system.
Call and form tracking on every ad and listing, matched against your job list. You see which calls became service visits, which became install quotes, and what each signed install cost to win.
The sourced read of your market and your customer is shown to you before any delivery work is paid for. If the numbers do not hold up, you will know before you have committed anything.
Scope, timeline and price are set in a client-approved 90-day plan. An itemised scope, not an estimate that moves. It is the same thing your customers want from a quote for a new system.
Month to month. 30 days’ notice. Nobody is locked in. Your accounts, data and content stay yours.
Live dashboards with projection against actual, including the months we miss. You do not have to take our word for any of it.
10 Years in Business$100M+ revenue generated500+ clients
B Corp Certified
Google Partner
30 minutes, free.
Start with a call. We’ll dig into your HVAC business, your service area, and what’s holding your numbers back, and you’ll leave knowing exactly what to fix first. If it makes sense to go further, our strategists then build your full Growth Strategy and present it with the complete plan.
10 years · $100M+ revenue generated · 500+ clients
Before the call, we run a 200+ point audit of your full online presence, so we arrive already knowing your starting point. On the call, we’ll walk you through:
Bring your goals and challenges. We’ll bring the data.
Not ready for a call?Get a free digital audit covering your website, search visibility, competitor ad activity and conversion setup.We do not share or sell your information. Your details are used to build your audit and share it with you.
Setsail is a digital marketing agency in Vancouver, British Columbia, with a 30+ person in-house team running paid ads, SEO, websites, email and social for owner-led businesses across Canada and the US.
10 years · $100M+ revenue generated · 500+ clients
In their words · Reviews ★★★★★
From political campaigns to nationwide rebrands and massive product launches: an in-house team that moves fast and delivers, across North America and worldwide.
“If I have a client who needs something up in three weeks, you guys will just do it… I never hear no, or ‘it can’t be done’.”
Theodora Jean
Founder & CEO, Coldwater Communications
“Everything that Setsail has designed for us, we try to incorporate that now in all of our presentations, including investor materials.”
Dorthy Cheng
Executive Assistant, CleanDesign
“You made yourselves part of Charlo. You made yourselves part of my story.”
Lia Psomiadis
Founder, Charlo
“We changed our direction of our business and Setsail has been matching that pace each and every time that we made that adjustment.”
Blake Voyer
Microworks Handyman
“From the beginning they were so easy to talk to. Really transparent about the whole process… I’m so proud of my website now.”
Heather LaRoy
Owner, James Crossing
“I’ll immediately hear from somebody… It’s just handled. It’s just white glove considerate handled without a white glove price tag.”
Melanie Clarance
Co-Founder, AetherEV
“Creating a real strategy with KPIs that aren’t out of touch… this isn’t a pie in the sky story, this is an actionable work plan.”
Lucas Ens
Economic Development Officer, City of Prince George
“We’ve been working with Setsail for 7 years for all our marketing materials, website design, product design, videos, photos. They’ve been great. Responsive, responsible, great materials.”
Larry Knurik
VP Logistics, GVA Brands
“It’s been really easy, smooth, and it’s been a great time, and I’d recommend it to anyone.”
Antonio Zivanovic
Founder, ElektraFi
“Tom and Jason are a thrill to work with… The direction and strategy that they bring to the table is top notch.”
Gordon Lai
Surface 604
“If you’re looking for a marketing team that really gets it and delivers outstanding results, Setsail Marketing is the way to go.”
Sam Atakhanov
Founder, DŌST Bikes
Account Strategist
Owns your 90-day plan, models how homeowners in your service area choose an HVAC company, and reports in booked jobs and installs, not clicks.
Paid Media Specialist
Runs your Google and Meta campaigns, sets heating and cooling budgets ahead of each peak, and pulls money from anything that isn't booking service visits.
SEO & Local Specialist
Keeps your Google Business Profile, area pages and reviews current, so you hold the map where you want the work.
Email & Content Specialist
Writes your tune-up reminders and renewal emails, and turns your technicians' job photos into posts a homeowner can judge you by.
Strategy, ads, SEO, email and your website are built in-house.
You're on service calls, quoting installs or covering the phones most of the day, so the reporting has to work on your phone. Open the live portal, read the monthly report, book a call, or send a quick message when something comes up.
Starting numbers
Day one: you know where you stand
We record your starting numbers before we touch anything, so every win after that is one you can see.
Live progress
Every week: you see it moving
Progress shows up in your portal as it happens, so you never wait for a report to know.
Monthly report
Every month: you know what your money bought
What we expected next to what happened, in a report you can understand in 2 minutes.
90‑day plan
Every cycle: steered
Every 90 days the plan re-forms around what’s working, so your budget keeps flowing to the work that pays.
Monthly plans, from one part of this to the whole system. What each plan covers, and its pricing, is published on the pricing page.
Every plan starts the same way: a Growth Strategy call. 30 minutes, free. You’ll know whether we’re a fit and what we’d look at first.
What’s included depends on the plan you pick.
A BC Hydro heat pump rebate thumbnail we designed, on an iPad among rocksBC HydroIf one of these sounds like your week, the call is worth it. If none do, we'll say so, and we won't try to sell you anything.
Setsail Marketing
Vancouver, BC + Beaverton, OR
