Plumber advertising: which job searches happen in 5 US cities?

Who this is for: Plumbing shop owners who want more of certain jobs and are thinking about paying for ads What you’ll get: How often people search for twelve plumbing jobs in five US cities, and a way to size up the jobs you want

Among the searches we checked in five cities, the biggest were broad, like “plumber” and “plumber near me”. Searches that name a job were much smaller. The biggest were drain cleaning, emergency plumber and water heater repair. Sewer line repair stayed at 90 searches a month or fewer. So before you advertise for bigger jobs, add up how often people in your city search for them.

Searches for each job in five cities

We pulled average monthly searches from Google’s Keyword Planner on 2026-10-18. Each city was set as the location, and the language was English. Keyword Planner gives estimates of how many searches a keyword gets each month (Google’s explanation).

Search	Dallas	Phoenix	Columbus	Knoxville	Boise
plumber	4,400	5,400	1,900	880	720
plumber near me	3,600	3,600	2,400	1,900	880
emergency plumber	480	720	260	110	210
24 hour plumber	40	30	20	10	20
plumbing repair	90	210	110	20	20
water heater repair	590	480	260	70	170
water heater replacement	110	480	110	40	40
drain cleaning	590	590	390	170	110
sewer line repair	70	90	90	10	20
leak detection	90	140	30	50	70
clogged drain	50	50	30	10	10
slab leak repair	30	20	10	70	10

Source: Google Ads Keyword Planner, average monthly searches (https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7337243) (each city as the location; retrieved 2026-10-18). Compiled by Wrench & Ring.

A few things stand out. “Plumber near me” beat plain “plumber” in Columbus, Knoxville and Boise. Water heater replacement had 480 searches in Phoenix, but only 40 to 110 in the other four cities. Slab leak repair was higher in Knoxville than in Dallas.

Treat small numbers like 10 or 20 as “a few searches a month”. They tell you a job is rare in search, not the exact count.

Searches that name the city

People also add the city name. Here are the same jobs with the city added, such as “plumber columbus”.

Search	Dallas	Phoenix	Columbus	Knoxville	Boise
plumber [city]	1,600	2,400	1,900	1,600	880
emergency plumber [city]	320	140	10	70	10
water heater repair [city]	110	260	50	70	30
drain cleaning [city]	140	90	90	70	10
sewer line repair [city]	50	30	20	10	10

Source: Google Ads Keyword Planner, average monthly searches (https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7337243) (each city as the location; retrieved 2026-10-18). Compiled by Wrench & Ring.

“Plumber” plus the city name was large everywhere. In Knoxville it had 1,600 searches, compared with 880 for plain “plumber”. Job searches with the city name were small, from 10 to 320 a month.

We also asked for two other word orders, such as “dallas plumber” and “plumbers in dallas”. Keyword Planner did not return a separate number for them in any of the five cities. So they are not in the table.

Add up the searches for the jobs you want

The tables are only useful once you apply them to your own shop. Here is a quick way to do that.

1. Write down the two or three jobs that pay best in your shop.
2. Find their rows in the first table for your city, or the closest city.
3. Add the city-name rows for the same jobs.
4. Compare the total with the broad searches for “plumber”.

Here is an example for water heater work. In Phoenix, water heater repair, water heater replacement and water heater repair with the city name add up to 1,220 searches a month. In Columbus the same three add up to 420. In Knoxville they add up to 180.

That is a big spread for the same kind of job. A shop that wants water heater work has far more searches to win in Phoenix than in Knoxville.

What this means for your ad budget

Searches set a ceiling on what ads can do. If only a few people search for your best jobs, no budget can create more of them.

We saw this in Google’s forecast for the same five cities. In Knoxville and Boise, a low bid cap spent only about a third of a monthly budget. That suggests there were not enough searches to win at that price. Forecasts are estimates based on your bid, budget and past searches (how forecasts work).

So in a smaller city, think wider before you spend more. Add related jobs, nearby towns, or the “plumber” searches with a careful list of words to block.

The bigger cities looked different. In Dallas, Phoenix and Columbus, job searches alone used the whole budget at every bid cap in the forecast.

Get the numbers for your own city

Your city’s numbers will differ from these five. Wrench & Ring builds a free page for your shop and emails a forecast, with the job searches for your area and what a month of ads might buy. See your free page.