Google Search Ads for HVAC companies.

Your licence details belong in the advertising

Australian federal law makes the refrigerant handling authorisation number a mandatory element of HVAC advertising. A Google Ads campaign that promotes services is unambiguously advertising, so the exemption that covers a bare directory listing does not reach it.

Breaching that condition is a strict liability criminal offence rather than a paperwork matter, which means intent is not a defence. The Commonwealth penalty unit rose to $364 on 1 July 2026, which is what converts the regulation into a dollar figure.

It is not only Australian. Texas has an HVAC-specific advertising rule and defines an advertisement broadly enough that a services description qualifies. The first job on an HVAC account is therefore making sure the licence and authorisation details are correct and present, before the campaign starts selling anything.

Repair and installation are not the same campaign

A repair search converts in minutes. Something has broken, the house is too hot or too cold, and the decision is made on who answers and how fast they can attend. What wins it is availability, a phone number, and being close.

An installation search behaves nothing like that. It is researched over weeks, compared on price and on equipment, and often involves two people agreeing. Paying repair-level bids for an installation click and judging it on same-day conversions makes a profitable campaign look like waste.

Commercial work is a third pattern again, with longer cycles and larger values. Running all three together produces a blended cost per lead that describes none of them.

The season decides the budget, not the calendar

HVAC demand is not steady and should not be funded as though it were. The first heatwave and the first cold snap produce more qualified searches in a fortnight than the preceding two months combined, and costs per click rise sharply as every competitor turns their campaigns back on at once.

The advantage goes to the account that was already running. Quality signals accumulate, and an account that has been active through the quiet months bids into the spike from a stronger position than one switched on the week demand arrives.

That argues for a modest off-season presence rather than a cold start. It is also when the organic work should be done, so the two channels are not competing for the same weeks of attention.

What about ChatGPT Ads for an HVAC company?

HVAC sits outside the healthcare categories that attract case-by-case review, so eligibility is usually straightforward. Market availability is the real constraint, since the channel is not open everywhere we work.

The Australian authorisation requirement is not platform-specific. If the campaign promotes services, the licence details belong in it wherever it runs.

What we do on an HVAC ads account

• Licence and refrigerant authorisation details checked and placed before anything runs
• Repair, installation and commercial split into separate campaigns and budgets
• Bid scheduling matched to when breakdowns actually happen, including out of hours
• Service area set to the radius you can genuinely reach within your response promise
• A modest off-season presence so the account bids into the spike from strength
• Call tracking, because repair demand converts by phone
• Monthly reporting split by repair and install, with cost per booked job for each

Questions

Sources

• Ozone Protection and Synthetic Greenhouse Gas Management Regulations
• Australian Refrigeration Council
• Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation — ACR

Guides for HVAC companies