Case study · Google Ads for haulage companies
Stears Haulage are a FORS Silver accredited flatbed haulier in Kent, moving bricks, steel and timber around the southeast since 1971. Too many of their enquiries were for one-off jobs, so we rebuilt the account around trade customers who come back with more work. The share of enquiries that became paid jobs went from 1% to 13.9%.
Over the years the account had grown to 26 campaigns, split by county, by project and by type of load. We consolidated them into one flatbed campaign, so that Google’s smart bidding had enough data in one place to learn which searches turned into work.
We also set up StrikeTwice, our call and lead tracking software, so that phone calls counted as leads alongside the forms. John, the Managing Director, started logging what each quote was worth.
Plenty of enquiries were for things Stears don’t carry, like cars, caravans, containers and plant, or for local jobs a long way outside the southeast.
We added a company name field so the form read as a service for businesses, and an automatic reply that lists what Stears don’t move. Irrelevant enquiries fell by around 75%.
The quote form asks for the name of the business.
A single caravan move pays for itself, but it rarely leads to anything else. A builders’ merchant that needs a flatbed every month is worth far more to a haulier.
So we moved the account onto the searches businesses make, like FORS Silver transport, and dropped the consumer ones. We told John to expect fewer enquiries at a higher cost per lead. We also held the new landing page back until the keyword change had settled, so we could see what each change did on its own.
John’s team went back through every enquiry from March 2024 to January 2026 and marked which ones had become paid jobs, so we could compare the months before the switch with the months after it.
There were fewer enquiries after the switch, as we expected. The share that turned into a quote held steady at around 31%, but the share that became a paid job went from 1% to 13.9%, because the people enquiring now had regular loads to move.
Enquiries that became paid jobs, before and after July 2025.
The old page opened with “Keep your business moving with our haulage service”. It sounded friendly, but it could have belonged to any haulier, and it didn’t tell a buyer whether Stears could carry their load.
We tested it against “Experienced, FORS Silver Registered Flatbed Haulage You Can Rely On”, which tells a buyer straight away that Stears run flatbeds and hold the accreditation many London sites ask for. The new headline cut the cost per lead by 42.9%. Across February, the new page turned 40% of its visitors into enquiries against 20% on the old one, and its leads cost £9 each against £17.
The Stears landing page as it looks today.
We tried adding a table to the page that compared Stears with other hauliers. The cost per lead rose by 33.9%, so we took it off again.
At this budget a split test takes months to reach an answer, so we make one change at a time and keep it only if it beats what was there before.
Stears now win regular work from trade customers through Google Ads, and far more of their enquiries turn into paid jobs. In September 2026 we increased the budget by 33%.
The aim is the same as it has been since July 2025, which is to find the businesses that will keep booking flatbeds month after month.
We will go through what is currently live, suggest changes, and tell you if we are a good fit to work together.
