Gastec: How a Local Propane Supplier Achieved a $20 CPL with Targeted Search Ads TX
Introduction
Competing against national energy giants requires more than simply matching their ad spend. For GasTec, throwing money at broad search terms was an easy way to burn through a budget without securing actual contracts. They needed highly qualified local leads but faced a digital environment filled with irrelevant commercial traffic. By applying strict audience targeting and dynamically shifting budgets during key weather events, beMarketing helped GasTec secure genuine residential contracts at a fraction of the industry average cost.
Challenge
GasTec faced significant structural disadvantages when they resumed paid search advertising. Having been absent from the platform for six years, they had no recent Quality Scores, zero audience data, and no baseline cost per lead to guide initial bidding. We were starting cold against established competitors who possessed years of historical account data.
Furthermore, the propane market attracts an unusually high volume of toxic search traffic. Users frequently search for commercial tank applications, DIY repair tutorials, or suppliers located far outside of GasTec’s service radius. None of these searchers will ever sign a residential contract. Left unmanaged, these irrelevant queries would have quickly drained the budget. GasTec also had to compete directly against well-funded national energy companies with massive advertising budgets and strong brand recognition.
Solutions
Our strategy prioritized ruthless audience qualification over broad search volume. We built a tightly constrained account structure using only exact and phrase match types to harvest clean conversion data rapidly. Our core search budget targeted long-tail, geographically qualified queries like “residential propane delivery near me” to ensure high local intent.
To intercept users actively looking to switch providers, we launched a dedicated conquest campaign. This ad group targeted branded searches for competing local suppliers and used ad copy highlighting GasTec’s local reliability.
We also implemented daily search term reviews as a core discipline. Our team continuously added negative keywords to filter out DIY repairs, commercial buyers, and out-of-radius searches before they could consume valuable budget.
Budget pacing played a major role in our strategy. We front-loaded the total media budget into the peak December through February heating season. We actively monitored weather forecasts and shifted funds dynamically into cold snaps when homeowners were most likely to call. Finally, we deployed a low-cost Display Remarketing campaign to maintain brand presence and recapture site visitors who did not convert on their first visit.
Results
The disciplined strategy proved that precise targeting drives results better than raw spend. Over the seven-month campaign, GasTec generated 430.41 total conversions from an all-inclusive investment of $16,952.83. The blended cost per lead across the entire campaign landed at $39.39.
Performance peaked exactly when heating demand surged. During the crucial winter period, GasTec captured 257 conversions at a search CPL of just $20.25. This figure is vastly lower than the $65 to $120 industry average for home energy services. It also marks a 38 percent reduction from their historical 2019 baseline. Search conversion rates during this three-month window averaged 17.33 percent.
Our Display Remarketing campaign provided an effective safety net, generating 433,899 high-impact local impressions at an average CPC of $1.46. Most importantly, GasTec cross-referenced these form fills and phone calls against their internal offline records, confirming that the tracked conversions translated directly into genuine residential customer contracts.
Conclusion
Starting from scratch in a highly commoditized market does not require an exorbitant monthly budget. By focusing exclusively on high-intent local queries and concentrating spend during critical weather events, beMarketing established a sustainable and highly profitable customer acquisition engine for GasTec. The campaign successfully turned paid search into a predictable, auditable source of verified new business.