Local SEO, Google Ads and Google Local Service Ads built for plumbers, sparkies, builders, chippies and every other Australian tradie sick of paying Hipages or Oneflare $50 a pop for shared leads. Owned channels, real call tracking, AUD pricing, AEST account managers — and a proper trade website to back it all up.
Australian business hours (AEST/AEDT) — Monday to Saturday.
The Four Things Killing Most AU Tradie Marketing
We have onboarded enough Australian plumbers, sparkies and builders to see the same four problems on repeat. If even one of these sounds like your business, you are leaving money on the table every week.
Paying $50+ per dud lead to Hipages/Oneflare
You buy the same lead as three other tradies, get ghosted by half of them, and watch the marketplace clip the ticket either way. The cost per actual booked job ends up two or three times what you thought you were paying.
Booked up Mon–Wed, dead Thu–Fri
When the calls come in, they come in all at once — and then go quiet for days. Without a steady pipeline you are forced to over-promise, run on adrenaline, and turn away jobs you would actually love to do.
No website — or it looks dodgy
Half of your customers Google your business before they ring. If they land on a Wix template from 2014, an out-of-date Facebook page, or nothing at all, you lose the job before the phone even rings.
Tried Google Ads but burnt $3K with no calls
You gave it a crack, picked the wrong keywords, sent traffic to a slow homepage, and the agency vanished. Now you assume Google Ads "does not work" — when really, it was just set up wrong from day one.
Why Australian Tradies Choose Madsun Media
We do not run flashy brand campaigns. We build owned channels — Local SEO, Google Maps, Local Service Ads and proper Google Ads — that put your phone in front of customers who already need a tradie right now.
Local SEO + Google Maps Focus
We own your Google Business Profile, suburb-level rankings and Maps pack visibility — so when locals search "plumber near me" you show up first. No marketplace fees, no shared leads, no clipped commissions on every job.
Google Local Service Ads Setup
We get you verified, badged and approved for Google Local Service Ads (LSA) — the "Google Guaranteed" listings that sit above everything else on mobile. You pay per qualified lead, not per click, and Google vouches for you.
Call Tracking + Recording
Every call from every channel is tracked, recorded and tagged — so you know exactly which Google Ad, which keyword, or which suburb is paying for itself. No more guessing where your jobs are coming from.
Branded Website That Converts Trust
A fast, mobile-first tradie website with click-to-call, real photos of your team and vans, suburb pages, before-and-after galleries, and review embeds. Built to look professional on a phone, not award-winning on a designer's monitor.
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AU Tradies
AUD $0.0M+
Jobs Booked
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Avg Call Volume Lift
0.0★
Tradie Rating
Services Built for Australian Tradies
Six core services that work together to fill your diary with high-quality jobs — every one priced in AUD, reported in AEST, and built around the way Australian homeowners and property managers actually search for a tradie.
Local SEO + Google Business Profile
Suburb-by-suburb organic rankings, fully optimised Google Business Profile, citation cleanup across AU directories and ongoing Maps optimisation so you dominate "near me" searches.
Google Local Service Ads
End-to-end LSA setup — Google Guaranteed verification, licence and insurance uploads, badge approval, bid management and lead dispute handling. Pay per lead, not per click.
Google Ads (Search + Call Ads)
AUD-budgeted Google Search and Call-Only campaigns built around emergency keywords ("after hours plumber Bondi", "emergency electrician Brisbane") and high-intent service queries.
Trade Website Build
Mobile-first, fast-loading tradie websites on Next.js or WordPress — click-to-call hero, suburb pages, gallery, reviews, quote form, schema markup. Designed to convert, not just look pretty.
Call Tracking
Dynamic call tracking numbers per channel and per campaign, full call recording, missed-call alerts and integration with Google Ads — so you finally know what works and what is wasting money.
Review Management
Automated post-job review requests via SMS, response templates for the inevitable one-star, and ongoing star-rating monitoring across Google, Facebook and Product Review AU.
Trades We Work With Across Australia
Different trades, same playbook — own the local search, own the maps pack, own the phone. We have run campaigns for every type of tradie business below.
The Real Problem with Hipages and Oneflare
Lead marketplaces are not evil — they are just expensive renting. Here is what is really going on with the numbers.
The pitch from a lead marketplace is simple: you pay AUD $40 to $80 per lead, the platform sends you customers, you win the job, everyone is happy. The maths sounds workable on a tradesman's back-of-the-napkin — until you actually track it. From the books of the AU tradies we have onboarded, the average non-qualified rate sits at roughly 50%. That means half the leads you pay for are out of your service area, looking for a different trade, already had the job done, never answer the phone, or were just price-shopping five competing quotes. Your real cost per qualified lead is double what the platform tells you, and your real cost per booked job is double that again. A AUD $55 lead is closer to AUD $200 by the time you have booked one.
The deeper problem is structural: you are not building anything. Every dollar spent on Hipages or Oneflare buys you one lead and exactly nothing else. There is no compounding asset, no brand equity, no ranking that keeps producing calls next year. The day you turn the spend off, the phone goes quiet — and the day the platform raises its prices (which it does, predictably), your margin gets squeezed and there is nothing you can do about it. You are a tenant in someone else's shop and they own the lease.
The alternative is to own your own channels. Local SEO, your Google Business Profile, Google Maps rankings, branded Google Ads and Local Service Ads are assets that compound. The first 60 to 90 days are slower than buying a lead off Hipages — there is no avoiding that — but by month four or five, the cost per booked job from owned channels is typically 60–75% lower than the marketplace equivalent. We have repeatedly taken AU tradies from AUD $90+ per booked job on Hipages to AUD $20–$30 per booked job on owned channels, with the added bonus that the pipeline keeps producing even when you pause spending for a quiet quarter.
We are not anti-marketplace as a rule — for week-one cash flow they can be useful. We are anti-renting-for-life. Our typical engagement runs the marketplace in parallel for the first 90 days, builds owned channels alongside it, proves the unit economics in writing, then dials marketplace spend down as your own pipeline replaces it. By month six most of our tradies are spending half what they used to on Hipages and booking more jobs than ever.
Sydney Plumbing Co — 24/7 Emergency Plumber
How a Sydney emergency plumber broke a heavy Hipages dependency, cut cost-per-booked-job by 75% and tripled monthly jobs in 12 months.
The Challenge
Sydney Plumbing Co was sourcing roughly 80% of its calls from Hipages at an average lead cost of AUD $55, with only one in five leads converting into a booked job. The blended cost per booked job sat at AUD $98, monthly bookings were stuck at around 45, and the business had no visibility into where any of its non-marketplace calls were coming from. There was no website worth the name, the Google Business Profile had not been touched in two years, and the previous Google Ads agency had quietly burnt AUD $4,000 on broad-match keywords before being sacked.
Our Solution
We rebuilt the Local SEO foundation first — fully optimised Google Business Profile with weekly posts, citation cleanup across 35 AU directories, suburb-level landing pages for the Inner West, Eastern Suburbs and North Shore, and Google Maps optimisation focused on the "emergency plumber near me" intent. Alongside that we launched branded Google Search and Call-Only Ads, set up dynamic call tracking across every channel, and got the business Google Guaranteed for Local Service Ads. Marketplace spend stayed on for 90 days, then was systematically dialled down as owned channels proved out.
12-Month Results
80% → 12%
Hipages dependency
$98 → $24
Cost per booked job (AUD)
45 → 142
Monthly bookings
AUD $890K
Year 1 revenue from owned channels
Case study composite based on real Madsun Media tradie engagements. Client name anonymised for privacy. Results vary by trade, suburb competition, ad spend and existing brand strength.
Tradie Pricing — All in AUD
Transparent monthly retainers in Australian dollars. No lock-in contracts, no surprise add-ons, and no Sydney CBD agency markup. Ad spend is invoiced separately and paid directly to Google.
Tradie Starter
For solo operators or two-van crews wanting to break Hipages dependency.
- Local SEO foundation
- Google Business Profile optimisation
- Citation cleanup across AU directories
- On-page suburb-level content
- Monthly reporting in AEST
- Dedicated AU account manager
- No lock-in contract
Tradie Growth
For established tradies ready to book jobs from owned channels, not marketplaces.
- Everything in Starter
- Google Ads management (min AUD $1.5K ad spend)
- Call tracking + recording
- Conversion-optimised landing pages
- Call-only and Search campaign mix
- Bi-weekly strategy calls (AEST)
- Review request automation
Tradie Premier
For multi-van trade businesses scaling across multiple suburbs or states.
- Everything in Growth
- Google Local Service Ads (LSA) management
- Multi-location Google Business Profiles
- Dedicated weekly reporting calls
- Custom dashboard with live job pipeline
- Review management + dispute handling
- Senior strategist on every call
All prices in AUD, exclusive of GST. Ad spend (Google Ads / Local Service Ads) billed separately and paid directly to Google. Month-to-month engagement — cancel any time with 30 days' notice.
Australian Tradies, Real Results
A few words from the plumbers, sparkies and builders we work with around Australia. Names abbreviated and identifying details kept light — tradies are private about their books and we respect that.
“We were tipping over $4,000 a month into Hipages and still chasing half the leads for a yes-or-no. Madsun rebuilt our Google Business Profile, sorted Local Service Ads and switched on proper Google Ads — within two months our own phone was ringing harder than the marketplace line. Cost per booked job has dropped by more than half.”
D.R.
Plumber, Sydney
“I am a sparky who hates marketing. These guys took it off my plate completely — set up call tracking, rebuilt the site so it actually loads on a phone, and run the Google Ads. I just answer the calls. The reporting is in plain English and the bloke I deal with is on Australian time so I am not getting messages at 2am.”
M.K.
Sparky, Brisbane
“Our build company was leaning entirely on word of mouth and one big referrer. Madsun built us a proper website, ranked us locally for "home extensions Melbourne" and a dozen suburb terms, and now we have a steady book of enquiries we own — not someone else's marketplace. Genuinely changed how we plan the year.”
S.T.
Builder, Melbourne
Tradie FAQs
Related AU Services & Cities
Explore the underlying services we run for tradies, or jump to your city-specific page for local context.
Other Industries We Serve
Our AU marketing programs are tailored for each industry — explore what we do for businesses like yours.
Our AU Services
Individual services available as standalone engagements or bundled into one retainer.
Tradie Marketing Across Australia
We serve tradies in every major Australian city — explore your city page for local pricing, suburb-level SEO and Google Local Service Ads built for your patch.
Ready to Stop Renting Leads?
Book a free 30-minute tradie audit in AEST/AEDT hours. We will pull apart your current marketing, look at your Google Business Profile, your website and your ad accounts, and tell you exactly where the money is leaking — no pitch, no pressure.
Or email us at contact@madsunmedia.com — AEST/AEDT business hours, Monday to Saturday.