Rewired hired the big agencies. They made his electrician ads worse.
John at Rewired burned through a dozen marketing companies. Twice, bigger agencies rebuilt the site and tanked lead flow. Here's what happened — and the numbers after he stopped shopping.
Rewired, a Des Moines electrical company, went through upwards of a dozen marketing agencies before Local Service Rocket. Twice, bigger “best in class” firms took over with flashy website rebuilds. Organic and paid both tanked. One rebuild soaked tens of thousands of dollars and months of weaker lead flow. John came back each time — and stayed. The company went from roughly $60k to $220k+ average months, 5 to 12 crew, and about 1.5 to 6 booked calls a day over 3+ years.
If you’re an electrician shopping for a marketing partner because the current one “isn’t big enough,” this is the story to read first.
What does a desperate first call with an electrical owner sound like?
John was LSR’s first client. He wasn’t shopping features. He was in a brutal stretch — running jobs himself after an office betrayal, years of paying marketers who never made advertising profitable — and he talked for the better part of an hour before the real ask landed: want to give it a go?
The honest pitch was low budget, maximum effort, no fake certainty. He’d already tried five or six companies. One more experiment wasn’t optimism. It was necessity. Full arc on the Rewired case study, including John’s video.
How do you make Google Ads work when the site is locked?
Early on we were blocked from changing the existing website. So we shipped a conversion-focused landing experience anyway and got Google Ads producing on a small daily budget — after multiple agencies had already failed at the same job.
That matters for electrician marketing specifically. Electrical demand is high-intent and competitive. You do not need a six-month rebrand to prove ads can book work. You need a page that converts and an account someone actually owns.
What happens when you hire the “bigger” agency?
Twice, larger agencies took over with flashy rebuilds. Organic and paid both tanked. One rebuild soaked tens of thousands of dollars and months of weaker lead flow before John pulled the work back.
The hard part wasn’t that the new sites looked bad. It’s that they ignored the URLs, relevance, and ads hygiene that were already paying the bills. A brochure rebuild that kills organic is one of the most expensive mistakes an electrical company can buy — and it usually arrives wrapped as “best in class.”
What kept the partnership alive was a simple rule: if someone else can do it better, they should. Alistair offered to step aside, stay on as a light consultant for context, and return only if the new team couldn’t deliver. They couldn’t. That humility, plus actually making ads print money, is why Rewired stopped cycling agencies.
“My company went through upwards of a dozen other marketing companies prior to landing here, and I can say it’s nice to be home where you’re treated like family.”
What does “own the whole stack” mean for an electrician?
Eventually Rewired stopped shopping. We improved the site for conversion (not just looks), kept ads performing, ran local SEO, and later Facebook hiring campaigns for helpers, apprentices, and salespeople when demand outran the crew.
The outcome that matters isn’t a lead chart. It’s the business numbers:
- Average monthly revenue: about $60k → $220k+
- Crew: 5 → 12
- Booked calls per day: about 1.5 → 6
- Still a client after 3+ years
That’s what electrician marketing is supposed to look like when someone is accountable for the whole account — not a specialist team where fixing the boring foundation is nobody’s job. Same pattern that burned Motha Electric on a single wrong GBP category.
What should electrical owners take from this?
- Bigger agency ≠ better outcome. Ask for recent booked-job proof in your trade.
- Never hand over a site rebuild without a plan for existing URLs and rankings.
- Prove ads on a small budget before you fund a six-figure “transformation.”
- Keep ownership of your Google profile, ads account, and website.
- When demand is healthy, the next bottleneck is usually people, not another pitch deck.
If you’re comparing partners right now, read bad vs good home-service agencies next — then decide whether you want a slideshow or a calendar that fills.
Questions owners ask us about this
Only if they can show recent booked-job results for a trade company like yours, and you keep ownership of your site, ads account, and Google profile. Rewired tried the bigger-name path twice. Flashy rebuilds tanked organic and paid, and months of weaker lead flow followed before John pulled the work back.
One of Rewired’s rebuilds soaked tens of thousands of dollars and months of weaker lead flow — not because the design looked bad, but because it ignored the URLs, relevance, and ads setup that were already producing. The invoice is only part of the cost; the quiet calendar is the rest.
It depends how much of the foundation they broke. In Rewired’s case we had to rebuild lead flow without the showmanship — ads, site conversion, then the fuller stack. The partnership that stuck has now run 3+ years, from roughly $60k months to $220k+ with crew growth from 5 to 12.
Ask how they define a booked job, what one thing you should see in sixty days, who works the account day to day, and what happens to your site and ads account if you leave. Vague answers, big upfront packages, and “our team” with no names are the same pattern that burned Rewired.
No — we work across home service trades — but electrical is where we have the longest continuous proof. Rewired, Honest Hank’s, Hooked Up, and Motha are all electrical or electrician brands. If you are an electrician shopping agencies, start with /for/electrician-marketing and the Rewired case study.
Want this done for your trade business?
See how Local Service Rocket works, then book onboarding. No sales calls.