Google Ads in New York, where every wasted click costs double.
New York is the most expensive search market in the country for most lead-gen niches. A personal injury click in Manhattan can run $150 or more, and even a plumber pays two to three times what the same click costs in Ohio. That changes how an account has to be built: tighter geography, stricter negatives, faster intake, and tracking that proves which boroughs and which searches actually turn into jobs. We make sure yours don't.
LEADSTACK™ Five layers. One account that keeps growing.
Most Google Ads accounts are one campaign wearing five hats. LEADSTACK is how we build a lead-gen account instead: the campaign types stacked in the order that pays, each layer fed by the booked jobs the layer below it produced. Below, the stack as we build it for a New York lead-gen business.
Remarketing · videoSupport
Remarketing · displaySupport
Performance MaxScale
Local Services AdsCore
SearchCore
One campaign, five jobs
Booked jobs → Google
0:00 · The leak
You are paying for clicks. You need booked jobs.
Most accounts we audit have one campaign doing five jobs, broad match with no negative list, and Google optimizing toward form fills it never sees close. That is where the budget goes.
0:38 · Layer 1 · Search
Capture the demand that already exists.
Exact and phrase match, split by service value and urgency, with call ads while someone answers the phone. The base of the stack and usually 55 to 70 percent of the budget.
1:12 · Layer 2 · Local Services Ads
Pay per lead, above the ads.
Where the category qualifies, the Google Screened or Guaranteed badge sits above every search ad. We run it beside search, dispute junk leads weekly and compare cost per booked job each month.
1:40 · Layer 3 · Performance Max
Scale, but only on real data.
Performance Max finds more of the people who already book with you, if it is fed booked-job conversions and fenced with brand exclusions and search themes. Switched on in month two or three, never on day one.
2:10 · Layer 4 · Remarketing on display
Bring back the 95 percent who left.
Most visitors do not call on the first visit. A small display budget, 30-day windows and one message per service keeps the quote request alive for a few dollars a day.
2:35 · Layer 5 · Remarketing on YouTube
Be the name they remember.
For long decisions like a roof, an implant or an injury case, six-second bumpers to past visitors cost cents per view and lift branded search and close rate.
3:05 · The loop
Booked jobs flow back to Google. Bids follow revenue.
Offline conversion imports tell Google which clicks became customers, so every layer bids toward the cases that pay. By month three the target is hit, or our fee drops to zero until it is.
Film in production · storyboard preview0:00 / 3:40
The film is being shot with Hamid this quarter. Until it is live, the storyboard above walks the same chapters.
The figures that shape every account we build here. Population and income set demand and job values; the click index sets what noise costs.
Languages that matter in campaigns
English
Spanish (Queens, the Bronx, Washington Heights, North Jersey)
Chinese (Flushing, Sunset Park)
Russian (Brighton Beach)
City population
8.3M
Metro population
19.5M
Median household income
$76k
Cost of living index (US = 100)
187
Click cost index (US = 1.0)
1.8×
Time zone
Eastern
Areas we build around
8
Strongest lead-gen niches
Dentists, Personal injury lawyers, Plumbers, HVAC
New York market dynamics
What is different about New York.
Population 19.5M in the metro, cost of living 187 against a US average of 100, clicks at about 1.8× the national average. Here is how that changes the account.
Geography is the whole game
A radius around the office is useless here. Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island, Long Island, Westchester and North Jersey each have different costs, different job values and different competition. We build campaigns by borough and neighborhood cluster and bid where your close rate is highest.
People here decide fast and compare hard
New Yorkers call from the search results, expect an answer on the first ring and will call the next result if they do not get one. Speed to lead matters more than in any other market. Landing pages need the phone number, reviews and availability in the first screen.
Clicks are expensive, so noise is expensive
At New York prices, a search term that could never become a job costs real money every day. Weekly search term reviews and shared negative lists are not optional here; they are the difference between a profitable account and an expensive one.
Mobile and commute hours
A large share of service searches happen on phones during commute windows and evenings. We schedule bids around when your intake team can answer, and use call-only formats where forms underperform.
Clients in the New York metro include an HVAC company in Queens, a personal injury firm in Manhattan and a dental group with offices in Brooklyn and Long Island.
Cost by industry in New York
What a lead costs here
Our national benchmarks by niche adjusted for New York's click index of 1.8×. Cost per booked job assumes the typical close rate for that niche. Use these to sanity-check any proposal you receive.
Which Google Ads campaign types we run for a New York lead-gen business, and which we skip.
Every campaign type Google offers has a job. Most accounts we audit run the wrong ones, or run the right ones in the wrong order. This is the mix for a New York lead-gen business, in the order it is switched on.
CoreRuns from day one and carries most of the budget.
ScaleAdded once booked-job tracking is proven, usually month two or three.
SupportA small budget with one specific job.
Not hereWe would not run it for this account, and we say why.
SearchLSAPMaxDisplay RMKVideo RMK
Starting split of the monthly budget in New York, rebalanced every month by cost per booked job. Shares are the midpoint of each range.
Core55–70%of budget
Search
Responsive search ads · exact and phrase match
Why it is core
Captures people typing the problem into Google right now. Split by service value and urgency so bids follow revenue.
New York: At 1.8× national click costs, exact match and borough-level ad groups matter more here than anywhere else. A Manhattan implant click is not a Staten Island cleaning click.
How we set it up
One campaign per intent tier, never one campaign for everything
Exact and phrase match with a shared negative list from day one
Ad schedule and bid adjustments around open hours
Location targeting by service area, not a city-wide radius
Core10–25%of budget
Local Services Ads
Google Screened / Google Guaranteed · pay per lead
Why it is core
The badge unit above the search ads for eligible service categories. You pay per lead, not per click.
New York: New York LSA slots are crowded. Ranking depends on review velocity and answering the phone inside 30 seconds, so we set the response-time targets with your front desk before launch.
How we set it up
License, insurance and background checks submitted and kept current
Junk leads disputed every week
Reviews synced from Google Business Profile
Cost per booked job compared with search every month
Scale10–20%of budget
Performance Max
Asset groups across Search, YouTube, Display, Gmail and Maps
Why it is a scale layer
Finds more of the people who already convert with you. Only useful after it has clean booked-job data to learn from.
How we set it up
Never switched on before offline conversions are flowing
Brand exclusions and search themes on every asset group
One asset group per service, with real photos rather than stock
Lead form questions that filter price shoppers
SupportInside search
Call ads
Call-only ads and call assets on mobile
Why it is a support layer
Puts a tap-to-call number in front of people on their phone during the hours someone will answer. Every call is recorded and scored.
How we set it up
Runs only while the phone is staffed
Calls under 60 seconds left out of the conversion count
Recordings scored weekly so the ad group learns from booked calls
Support3–6%of budget
Remarketing (display)
Display ads to past visitors and past callers
Why it is a support layer
Brings back the visitors who did not call or book the first time. Cheap, and it lifts the conversion rate of every other layer.
New York: When a first click costs $12 to $40, bringing the same visitor back for a few cents is the cheapest lead in the account. We give remarketing a slightly bigger share in New York.
How we set it up
Audiences by page visited at 7, 30 and 90 days
Frequency capped at three a day
One message per service, with the offer in the headline
Customers who already booked are excluded
Support2–5%of budget
Remarketing (video)
YouTube bumpers and skippable in-stream to past visitors
Why it is a support layer
Keeps your name in front of people mid-decision for a few cents a view. Best where the buying decision takes days or weeks.
New York: Commute-time YouTube on phones reaches New Yorkers mid-decision. Bumpers geofenced to your boroughs cost well under a dollar per hundred views.
How we set it up
Six-second bumper cut from a phone-shot founder video
Audiences shared from the search and display campaigns
Measured on branded search lift and assisted bookings, not views
Not here0–10%of budget
Demand Gen
Visual prospecting across YouTube, Discover and Gmail
Why we skip it
Puts a visual offer in front of lookalike and in-market audiences before they search. Earns its place only for high-ticket, image-led services.
What would change our mind
Lookalikes built from booked customers, not site visitors. Job-site or before-and-after creative. Capped at ten percent of budget until cost per booked job matches search.
A radius around the office is not a strategy in New York. Each tier gets its own campaigns and budget so bids follow where jobs actually come from. Tiers move as your data comes in.
Tier 1 · bid up
Manhattan
Brooklyn (North & Central)
Westchester
Highest job values and close rates for most clients; expect the highest CPCs
Tier 2 · core
Queens
The Bronx
Long Island (Nassau)
Strong volume, moderate CPCs, strong Spanish-language demand in parts
Tier 3 · test
Staten Island
Long Island (Suffolk)
Northern New Jersey
Added when capacity allows; separate budgets so they cannot drain Tier 1
Competition in New York
What the top advertisers here do, and how a smaller operator beats them.
You do not need the biggest budget in New York. You need the tightest account and the fastest phone.
National lead-gen aggregators and franchise brands bid on the top home-services terms in every borough; local operators win by naming the neighborhood and answering faster
Personal injury firms run some of the most expensive campaigns in the country; smaller firms win on case-type specificity (construction accidents, MTA, rideshare)
Dental groups with 10+ locations dominate generic terms; single practices win on treatment pages, reviews and area-specific ads
Many competitors run ads 24/7 with voicemail after hours; running only when you answer beats them on cost per booked job
Seasonality
The New York calendar
Budgets that stay flat all year waste money in quiet weeks and starve the account in busy ones. We plan by week around these moves.
January–February
Furnace, boiler and burst-pipe emergencies; plumbing and HVAC costs spike.
Spring
Roofing, pest control and remodeling searches rise; legal intake steady year-round.
June–August
AC repair and installation peak; expect the highest HVAC CPCs of the year.
Q4
Dental benefits deadline, estate planning and tax-related legal searches.
Landing pages in New York
Borough or neighborhood named in the headline and the ad, not just "NYC"
Reviews, license and insurance visible without scrolling
Spanish-language variants for Queens, the Bronx and North Jersey where relevant
Transit and parking details for clinics and offices; service area map for trades
Minimum budgets in New York
Our national minimums adjusted for local click costs.
HVAC: $7,000 a month
Plumbing: $5,500 a month
Roofing: $11,000 a month
Electrical: $5,500 a month
Pest control: $5,500 a month
Water damage / restoration: $14,500 a month
Your numbers
What a monthly budget produces for a lead-gen business in New York
Benchmarks from our accounts. Move the slider. Estimates, not promises.
With DGENCY—leads / month—customers / month—revenue / month
Assumes cost per lead $110 → −30% and lead-to-customer rate 30% → +25% after tracking and structure are fixed, at $2,200 per customer. Open the full projector to use your own numbers.
Proof
The proof is in the booked jobs
Numbers our clients get paid on, from accounts in home services, legal and healthcare.
HVAC
Summit Air & Heat
Phoenix, AZ · $9,000/mo ad budget
−58%Cost per booked job ($142 to $59)
+188%Booked jobs per month in 5 months
Rebuilt call tracking, cut 1,900 wasted search terms in month one, moved budget to AC replacement in summer and furnace in winter.
8 client stories
★★★★★
“Three agencies before DGENCY. Every one of them sent me a report with a bunch of graphs. Hamid sent me a spreadsheet of booked jobs and what each one cost. That was the whole difference.”
Rick MorenoOwner, Canyon Air Conditioning
★★★★★
“They told me in the first call that my landing page was the problem, not the ads. I did not want to hear it. They were right, and signed cases went from four a month to fourteen.”
Danielle HarperManaging Partner, Harbor Injury Law
★★★★★
“We are a small practice. I was worried we would be too small for a real agency. Hamid looks at our account personally and my front desk knows exactly which new patients came from ads.”
Dr. Sana PatelOwner, Bright Smile Dental
★★★★★
“Our old agency reported clicks. DGENCY reports booked jobs, and the number went from 61 to 140 a month on the same budget once the tracking was honest.”
ME
Marcus EllisonOwner, Summit Air & Heat
★★★★★
“Hamid called our office as a customer before we signed and told us we missed a 4pm call. That is the level of detail. Cost per booked job is down 38 percent.”
LO
Lena OrtizGeneral Manager, TrueLine Plumbing
★★★★★
“Three quotes a week became eleven. The difference was the search terms they cut and the financing line they put in the ad. Nothing fancy, just correct.”
GW
Grant WhitakerOwner, Bluegrass Roofing
★★★★★
“We are a two-attorney firm. They gave us a plan for $5,000 a month and did not try to sell us $20,000. Consults are up 70 percent and the fee is flat.”
PN
Meera NairPartner, Keystone Estate Law
★★★★★
“Quarterly plans at $41 each from Local Services Ads and search together. Our previous agency never turned LSAs on. They did it in week two.”
The same process on every account. Management from $999 a month, never a percentage of spend; your ad budget is paid to Google in your own account. Three-month minimum, then month to month, with the fee dropping to zero if we miss the written target.
01
Weeks 1–2
Audit and tracking rebuild
We audit the account line by line and rebuild the measurement so that only real leads count.
02
Week 2
Blueprint
A written plan that maps your budget to the services and areas that make you the most money.
03
Weeks 3–4
Build
New campaign structure, ad copy and landing pages, built in your account, owned by you.
04
Month 2 onward
Run, learn, scale
Weekly hands-on optimization with AI doing the heavy lifting and Hamid making the calls that matter.
One-time
$299
Account audit
A line-by-line review of your existing Google Ads account, tracking and landing pages, with a written list of what to fix and what it is costing you. Credited toward setup if you continue.
Full hands-on management by Hamid and an experienced Google Ads strategist. Fee scales with the complexity of the account (service lines, locations, campaign types), not with your ad spend.
Everything in phases one to three: tracking rebuild, blueprint, campaign build and the first landing pages. Priced by the number of service lines and locations.
More on the FAQ page, or send your numbers with the growth plan request.
How much does Google Ads cost in New York?
Roughly 1.5 to 2 times the national average per click. Legal and financial niches are the most expensive; home services and dental sit in the middle. A well-built account offsets that with tighter targeting and higher job values.
What budget do I need to start in New York?
At least $150 a day for most niches, and $5,000 or more a month for legal. Below that the account cannot buy enough clicks to learn.
Do you target all five boroughs?
Only the ones you serve and can reach quickly. Each borough gets its own campaign or ad group so budget and bids follow where your jobs close.
Are you based in New York?
We are a remote-first US team with clients across the country, including New York. Every call is with Hamid or your account strategist, on Eastern time.
Do you run ads in Spanish or other languages in New York?
Yes. Where a client serves Spanish-, Chinese- or Russian-speaking neighborhoods we run separate campaigns with matching landing pages and intake, and report cost per booked job by language.
Should I use Local Services Ads in New York?
For home services, legal and dental, yes. LSAs appear above the search ads with the Google Screened or Guaranteed badge and charge per lead. In New York the per-lead cost is higher than average but still often below search. We run both and compare cost per booked job.
How do you handle the boroughs I do not serve?
We exclude them explicitly and add location negatives so a Staten Island search cannot spend Manhattan budget. Service-area settings alone are not precise enough in New York.
What do the top advertisers in New York do differently?
They name the neighborhood in the ad and on the page, answer the phone live, use call-only ads for emergencies, and track calls to booked jobs so they can outbid everyone else on the searches that actually close.
Ask Hamid directly
Send your numbers and get straight answers in the written plan.
Send your details and Hamid reviews your account, your New York market and your competitors before the call, then walks you through the five changes that would move your cost per booked job the most. Twenty minutes, a written plan, no obligation.
Step 01
Tell us about your business
Two minutes on the form.
Step 02
We do our homework
Website, landing pages, market and, with read access, your account.
Step 03
You get the plan in writing
A one-page plan you keep either way, and a call to walk through it if you want one.
