The monthly marketing scorecard for HVAC companies

The three blocks of a scorecard

Every scorecard should have three blocks: money, phones and decisions. Anything that doesn't fit in one of those belongs in an appendix.

Block 1: money

Block 2: phones

Block 3: decisions

• Last month's decisions, marked done or not done
• One to three changes for next month, each with an owner and a date

Getting the data: the minimum setup

You need three sources of data, and most HVAC companies already have two of them.

1. Spend. Vendor invoices and ad platform billing. Use the month the money was spent, not the month the invoice was paid.
2. Calls. A call tracking setup that gives each channel its own number or tracks website calls by source. Check that every number still forwards to the right line; broken forwarding is common after phone system changes.
3. Booked jobs with a source. Your field-service or CRM software should have a lead source field. Make it required at booking, with a short dropdown list such as Google Ads, Google profile, website, referral, repeat customer, maintenance agreement and other.

If dispatchers find source tagging tedious, keep the list short and review it with them monthly. A rough source on every job beats a perfect source on half of them. HVAC.run goes deeper on dispatch and CRM setup.

Worked example: reading one month

Here's how a February scorecard might look for an HVAC company with four channels. The numbers are illustrative.

Answer rate: 88% during business hours, 52% after hours.

Three questions come out of this month:

• Social ads cost $667 per booked job. Is that channel meant to book February jobs, or is it building awareness for spring heat pump and cooling quotes? If the second, judge it in May. If the first, pause or rework it.
• After-hours answer rate of 52% means close to half of evening calls go unanswered. In a heating month, that likely costs more booked jobs than any channel change would add.
• Organic looks expensive this month, but SEO is a long-horizon channel. Check its three-month and twelve-month trend before reacting.

Adjusting for the seasons

A scorecard that ignores the seasons will tell you to cut spending at exactly the wrong time. Compare each month with the same month last year, as well as with last month.

• Peak heating months usually produce the lowest cost per booked job, because demand is high and urgent. Don't let a cheap January set your expectations for April.
• Shoulder months produce fewer, more considered jobs, such as planned replacements and maintenance sign-ups. Cost per booked job rises; that's normal.
• Cooling peaks matter more in markets with hot, humid summer spells. Your own call history from past summers tells you more about their size in your market than any rule of thumb.
• Cold snaps and heat waves distort single weeks. Note them on the scorecard so nobody draws conclusions from them.

Our region pages describe the climate and seasonal patterns that shape these numbers in each province.

Running the monthly meeting

The scorecard is only useful if it drives a decision. Keep the meeting to 60 minutes and use the same agenda each time.

1. Last month's decisions (10 minutes). Done, not done, and why.
2. Money block (15 minutes). Which channel moved, and is it seasonal or real?
3. Phone block (10 minutes). Answer and booking rates, and any staffing or process fixes.
4. Changes for next month (20 minutes). One to three, each with an owner and date.
5. Look ahead (5 minutes). Weather, hiring, new programs, vendor renewals.

Write a one-page decision log the same day. Next month's meeting starts by reading it.

Common scorecard mistakes

• Too many metrics. If a number has never changed a decision, move it to the appendix.
• Vendor-supplied numbers only. Use your own call tracking and job data so vendors can't count the same job twice.
• No owner for changes. "We should test new ads" isn't a decision until someone owns it with a date.
• Ignoring the phones. Marketing can't fix a missed call.
• Mixing up leads and jobs. Keep both, but decide on jobs.

Where to go from here

Build last month's scorecard this week, even with rough numbers. If you can't fill in the booked jobs column, that's your first fix. Then use the vendor management guide to bring vendors onto the same measure, and the planning service to set targets for the season. If you'd like us to build the scorecard for you, call, text or email.