The Plan · Get the Call · Step 16 of 30
Retarget the Ones Who Didn't Call
Here's the hard truth about your website: most people who land on it leave without calling. They're comparing three plumbers, or their drain isn't fully backed up yet, or they got interrupted. Studies put it around 96 to 98 percent of first-time visitors who don't convert. That's not a broken site. That's normal.
Retargeting (also called remarketing) is how you stay on their screen until the drain actually backs up and they're ready to call. It shows your ad to people who already visited your site, as they browse other sites and scroll social media. For a drain company, the timing matters: a slow drain becomes an emergency on its own schedule, and you want to be the name they remember when it does.
Drop the pixel first
A pixel is a small snippet of code you paste into your website that quietly tags visitors so you can advertise to them later. You want two: the Google tag (for Google/YouTube retargeting) and the Meta Pixel (for Facebook and Instagram). Install both even before you run a single ad, because they start building your audience the day they go live. No visitors tagged today means no one to retarget next month.
Add the Google tag through Google Ads > Tools > Google tag, and the Meta Pixel through Meta Events Manager. Most drain-company sites on WordPress can drop both in with a free plugin or the theme's header section in about 15 minutes.
Write ads that assume they already know you
These people already saw your site, so don't re-introduce yourself from scratch. Remind and reassure. Lead with the reason they were on your site: a clog, a recurring backup, a camera inspection they were pricing.
"Still dealing with that slow drain? We hydro-jet the whole line clean, not just poke a hole in it. Same-day service in [City]. Tap to call." Clear job, clear method, clear next step.
"[Company Name] — Quality Plumbing Services. Family owned since 1998. Call us today!" Generic, forgettable, and it ignores that they were on your drain page for a reason.
Keep it cheap and simple
You don't need a big budget. Retargeting audiences are small (only past visitors), so even $5 to $15 a day keeps you in front of everyone who's been to your site in the last 30 to 60 days. Cap how often the ad shows so you remind people without annoying them, three to four times a day is plenty. Point the ad straight at your phone number or a short service page, not your homepage.
Retarget the people worth the most
Not every visitor is equal. Someone who read your hydro-jetting page or your commercial-services page is closer to a big-ticket job than someone who bounced off your homepage. As your traffic grows, build a separate audience for high-value pages (jetting, sewer repair, commercial) and spend a little more to bring those visitors back.
Pipeline On lays out retargeting specifically for home-service businesses: install the pixel, build audiences from past site visitors, and run reminder ads that bring window-shoppers back when they're ready to book. It's a clean, contractor-focused walkthrough of the exact motion above.
Do this: Install the Google tag and Meta Pixel on your site today so you start collecting a retargeting audience, even if you don't turn on ads until next week.
Don't want to do this yourself?
We'll set it up and run it for you — this step and the rest of the plan — so you can stay on the truck. Built for jetting and drain-line companies only.
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