Marketing for geothermal contractors: three in five of your competitors install the same brand
Of the installers who name a brand, 60.8% name WaterFurnace — so the equipment cannot be your differentiator. Only 35% state their loop types.
Canada & the United States
Marketing for geothermal &
Marketing for geothermal &
ground-source heat pump contractors
Loop fields, ground-source heat pump installs, retrofits. High-ticket work with long decisions — which is exactly why the enquiry path and follow-up matter more than ad volume.
10m
who it's for
Built for ground-source work.
Groundline Marketing is a marketing agency for geothermal and ground-source heat pump contractors in Canada and the United States. Whether you drill the loops, install the heat pumps, or both — residential and light-commercial, new builds and retrofits. Plenty of loop crews come from water well drilling; that path is welcome here.
Loop field installation
Ground-source heat pump installs
Geothermal drilling
Two starting points, one pilot
First crew. Nothing to measure against, so we set a launch baseline rather than invent a comparison, and build the enquiry path before spending on demand. Being new is not a disqualifier — unfinished operating basics are, and those get scoped separately rather than buried inside the pilot.
Established installer. There is history, and in this trade the leak is almost always follow-up: the quote sent in March that closed in September for somebody else, the enquiry that went cold because nobody touched it for six weeks. We find that first. In a trade with a long decision, chasing properly is worth more than more enquiries.
20m
we know this trade
We already live
We already live
in your industry.
The founder operates GeothermalFinder, a working directory of this exact trade — a live, growing window into how ground-source work gets found, compared, and bought.
2,355
Geothermal contractors listed
GeothermalFinder — the founder’s directory · database, verified 2 August 2026 · directory measurement, not client results
1,671
Google clicks in 30 days
GeothermalFinder · 30 days ending July 2026 · Google Search Console · directory traffic, not client results
3,242
Visits in 30 days
GeothermalFinder · 30 days ending July 2026 · site analytics · directory traffic, not client results
Listings counted from the directory's own database; clicks and visits from its Google Search Console and analytics, 30 days ending July 2026. Shown as industry familiarity, not client results. The directory and this agency are separate: listings are never used as sales leads. Full provenance for these figures.
Figures on this page last reviewed 1 August 2026.
30m
why this trade is different
Generic marketing burns out
Generic marketing burns out
before a geo buyer decides.
01
The sale is a project, not a call-out
A ground-source decision takes site visits, engineering, quotes, and family math — often across seasons. Most agencies are built for tomorrow's phone call and quietly give up in the gap. The work that wins geo is staying credibly present between quote and decision.
FIG. 01 — the long saleillustrative
02
Education wins the job
Geo buyers research payback, incentives, and how the system works before they trust anyone with a drill. The contractor whose clear, honest, local answers they keep finding is the one they call when ready.
03
Incentive windows move demand
Rebate programs and grant windows create real surges of serious buyers. Being visible and ready when a window opens beats a year of background noise.
04
One install seeds a neighbourhood
A working system next door is your best salesman. Every finished install deserves visibility — reviews, local proof, a homeowner who'll take a call.
05
The buyer needs a guide, not a pitch
A ground-source heat pump is a five-figure decision most homeowners make once. Straight answers about cost, disruption, and payback beat glossy promises every time.
40m
what changed in 2026
The federal residential credit
The federal residential credit
is gone. That changes the pitch.
If your marketing still leans on “30% back from the government”, it is selling something that no longer exists for new residential installs — and a homeowner who finds that out after a quote does not come back.
What ended, precisely
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed 4 July 2025, terminated the Section 25D residential credit for expenditures made after 31 December 2025, cancelling the 30%-through-2032 schedule the Inflation Reduction Act had set. A system placed in service on or before that date still qualified. A system placed in service on 1 January 2026 or later does not.
So the single most-used line in residential geothermal marketing stopped being true partway through last year. Plenty of pages still run it.
What survived — and why it changes which work is worth chasing
The same act explicitly preserved the Section 48 commercial investment tax credit (and its technology-neutral successor, 48E) for geothermal heat pump systems: 6% base, scalable toward 30% with qualifying bonuses. But it is claimed by the entity that owns the qualifying system — a homeowner does not automatically qualify.
Read commercially, that is not a footnote. The federal incentive picture now favours commercially-owned systems over homeowner-owned ones, while state, provincial and utility programmes carry on varying enormously by location. An agency that has not noticed cannot tell you which half of your pipeline the economics still favour — and in a trade this seasonal and this slow to close, pointing spend at the wrong half for a quarter is expensive.
Loops, accreditation, and the long decision
Vertical bores, horizontal fields and pond loops are different jobs with different site constraints, different crews and different customers, and marketing that treats “geothermal” as one service attracts enquiries you cannot serve. IGSHPA accreditation is worth naming where you hold it — some incentive programmes require accredited installation, and it is a credential a homeowner can actually check.
And the decision is slow. Ground-source is compared against air-source, against doing nothing, and against the price of a new roof. That is why the enquiry path and the follow-up matter more here than raw ad volume: the enquiry you lose in this trade is usually lost in week six, not on the first click.
Incentive detail above is drawn from the founder’s own 2026 incentives guide on GeothermalFinder, which tracks the post-OBBBA federal position and the state-by-state landscape. Programmes change and eligibility is specific: confirm the current position for any individual job before it goes in a quote. Nothing here is tax advice.
50m
the pilot, applied
Ninety days,
Ninety days,
one ground-source goal.
The standard 90-day pilot, adapted to ground-source sales cycles.
STEP 01
Fit review
Your territory, capacity, and job economics — before any pitch.
STEP 02
Fix the enquiry path
Serious prospects captured, tracked, and followed up over months.
STEP 03
One channel, one territory
Where homeowners and builders actually research ground-source.
STEP 04
Day-90 decision
Judged on pipeline quality, not closed installs — honest about the sales cycle.
Which channel — named, not implied
The main channel is one of these four. One of them, chosen from evidence for your trade and territory — not all four, which is the whole point.
01
Local search and your Google Business Profile
Hours, service areas, reviews, listings and rank tracking. It matters here, but a ground-source decision rarely starts with an urgent local search.
02
Paid search
Campaign build, negatives, ad tests and call tracking. You pay the platforms directly — we never touch your media money.
03
Organic search and content
Usually the starting hypothesis in this trade — and the one trade of the three where it is often not paid search. Short searches like “geothermal” are polluted: they return energy-market reports, not installers. A decision that takes months rarely closes off a single click. Content that answers the questions a homeowner actually has, and follow-up that survives a six-month gap, usually beats buying the click twice. It stays a hypothesis until your own territory says otherwise.
04
Direct approach to named accounts
Builders, developers, architects and mechanical contractors specifying systems years ahead — contacted only where you authorise it, with a sequence you have approved.
before the pilotif the basics aren’t there
Launch Foundation
Some installers don’t need a channel yet — they need something for a six-month decision to land on. If a homeowner researching for half a year finds nothing that answers their questions, the channel spend leaks away, and we’ll say so instead of taking the monthly fee.
The Foundation is a separate, one-off project: a five-to-eight page website built to convert, a starter visual identity drawn from your real one, your Google Business Profile set up or repaired, call and form tracking that works, and a review-request process. Your domain, accounts and data stay yours, and the handoff lists every one of them.
C$6,000–10,000 / US$4,500–7,500, four to six weeks, quoted after the fit review. It is a project you own outright, not a setup fee bolted onto a retainer. Photography, video and full identity programmes aren’t included — we’ll introduce you to someone who does them properly rather than manage them badly.
60m
month by month
What actually happens,
What actually happens,
in the order it happens.
Month 1 — find the leak before buying more enquiries
- Days 1–7: access, a documented baseline, and every call and form route tested — including what happens to an enquiry that goes quiet for a month
- Days 8–14: the one named enquiry-path or measurement fix
- Days 15–30: the chosen channel goes live, and the first commercial review with real numbers
- Yours: access, and naming who answers, who quotes, and who follows up at week six
Month 2 — improve the same channel, add the one supporting task
- No new channels. The one running gets better, or we learn it is the wrong one
- The single quantity-limited supporting activity is completed
- Yours: report which enquiries became site visits, quotes, installs, losses, or are still open
Month 3 — reconcile, then decide
- Still no new channels — adding one now would make the ninety days unreadable
- Investment, pipeline, installs, delivery cost and hours all reconciled
- An honest read on a trade that often closes after day 90: what is genuinely still open, and what was never real
- A continue, change, or stop recommendation — including stop, if that is what the numbers say
Your sales cycle is longer than 90 days. We measure what 90 days can honestly show.
Working measurement, qualified enquiries, quotes in motion — and a day-180 follow-up for the installs that close later. No invented revenue claims.
70m
if you searched for leads
You may have wanted
You may have wanted
geothermal leads.
Search for “ground source heat pump leads” and most of what comes back is lead brokers, a good number of them selling into a different country’s market. We are not that, and the difference is worth being straight about before you spend anything.
| Lead sellers | Generalist retainer | This pilot | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you buy | Contacts, priced per lead, often with no read on whether the site even suits a loop | A bundle of activity | One channel, run for one service and one territory your crew can actually reach |
| Who else gets the same enquiry | Shared-lead products typically sell the same enquiry to several contractors, so you are quoting against whoever else bought it | Not applicable | Nobody — the enquiry comes to you, through your own accounts |
| Who owns the accounts | Them | Often them | You. Written into the agreement |
| What happens if you stop | The flow stops that day | Usually stops | You keep the accounts, the tracking, and any content still answering questions |
| What is guaranteed | A volume of contacts | Activity | Nothing. Not an install, not a season. The work is committed and the numbers are honest |
| Competitor exclusivity | None — that is the model | Rarely | One client per trade per service area |
Descriptions of the shared-lead model are general, not claims about any particular company — check what any specific seller offers before judging it. And there are cases where buying leads is the right call: if you need work this month and have no path of your own, a broker is faster than anything we would build.
And one thing you should know about us.
The founder also runs GeothermalFinder, a directory of this trade. A homeowner requesting a quote there can choose to have it sent to up to three listed installers rather than one — a shared enquiry, which is the model this page has just argued against. Both things are true at once, and we would rather say it than have you find it. A free directory that helps a household reach accredited local installers is a useful thing to run, and we are not apologising for it. It is simply not what this agency does: a pilot builds an enquiry path that belongs to you, where the enquiry arrives at your desk and nowhere else. If shared quotes are what you want, the directory is free and you do not need us for it.
80m
the honest part
When we’d tell you
When we’d tell you
not to buy.
This is not modesty. A pilot that cannot work wastes your money and our ninety days, and we would rather say so at the fit review than three months in.
- You want guaranteed leads, guaranteed results, pay-per-lead or performance pricing. That is a different product, honestly sold by other people.
- You need signed installs inside ninety days. In this trade many enquiries close later than that, and we will not pretend the calendar says otherwise.
- Nobody will chase an enquiry that has gone quiet for a month. In a long-decision trade that is where the work is won, and no channel compensates for it.
- You are not willing to tell us what became a site visit, a quote or an install. Without that, ninety days produces activity and no evidence.
- You need a full website rescue, or several channels at once. Both are real work; neither fits inside this pilot.
- You cannot fund the fee and the advertising separately. Media is paid by you, directly, and we never touch it.
- Your job economics do not leave room for marketing to pay for itself. We work this out with you, and sometimes the answer is no.
- You are hoping this changes how a directory treats you. It cannot, and it never will.
Being new is not on that list. A first crew is a starting point, not a disqualifier.
90m
what you see monthly
Owner numbers
Owner numbers
for a long pipeline.
Every month, one connected count — each stage feeding the next, filled with your real figures during the pilot.
——
Calls & forms
——
Worthwhile opportunities
——
Quotes in motion
——
Installs won
100m
straight answers
Straight answers
Straight answers
on ground-source work.
What if our sales cycle is longer than 90 days?
Then the pilot is built around that rather than pretending otherwise. Ground-source decisions routinely run past ninety days, and we plan for it. Day 90 judges what can honestly be judged: working measurement, qualified enquiries, site visits booked, quotes in motion. A day-180 follow-up catches the installs that close later. Nobody invents revenue attribution to make a report look good.
Do you have case studies in geothermal work?
No. Groundline has no client case studies in geothermal or ground-source work, and we won't invent any. The agency is new; the founder's experience isn't. The pilot exists exactly for this: a bounded, measured 90 days where you judge the work on your own numbers. Founder-owned business results are shown on this site, always labelled as exactly that.
Will you guarantee leads or installs?
No — and in a trade with months-long decisions, anyone promising installs by Friday is selling you something else. The pilot tests whether one properly-run channel can create qualified opportunities for your territory. You see the evidence monthly and decide with a clear head.
What if most of our work comes through HVAC partners and referrals?
Keep them — that base is gold and nothing here replaces it. The pilot adds the homeowner-direct demand your partners never see, and protects you in the months when the referral chain runs quiet. An addition, not a substitution.
Would you take my competitor too?
No. Groundline takes one client per trade per service area, so while you are a client another geothermal installer in your territory is turned away, and we'll tell you if one asks. Exclusivity is written into the agreement.
What does it cost, all-in?
The pilot is one flat monthly fee — C$4,000 a month in Canada, US$3,000 in the United States — committed for ninety days (about C$12,000 / US$9,000 all-in), then month to month. Confirmed in writing at the fit review. How the 90-day pilot works — before you sign anything you see the full picture in writing: our fee, any advertising budget you'd pay directly to the platforms, anything separately quoted — and the situations where we'd tell you not to buy.
What happens if we stop?
Everything built for you stays yours — website fixes, tracking, ad accounts, data, the follow-up system. Ownership is written into the agreement, and handoff happens at any exit, on good terms or bad. No hostages.
Does the end of the federal residential tax credit change what we should market?
Yes, materially. The Section 25D residential credit was terminated for expenditures after 31 December 2025, so "30% back" is no longer true for new residential installs — and any campaign still built on it will lose people at the quote. The Section 48 commercial credit was explicitly preserved for geothermal heat pumps at 6% base, scalable toward 30% with bonuses, but it is claimed by whoever owns the system. That shifts the federal incentive picture toward commercially-owned projects, and it is the first thing we would look at when choosing what to spend against. Confirm the position for any individual job before it goes in a quote — this is not tax advice.
Should we be marketing to homeowners or to commercial owners now?
That is exactly the question the fit review is for, and after 2026 the honest answer differs by business. The federal picture now favours commercially-owned systems, but your crew, your equipment, your territory and your existing pipeline may point the other way — and state, provincial and utility programmes still vary enormously. We would rather work it out from your numbers than assume the federal change settles it.
We do loop drilling and installs — can you market both?
Not both at once, deliberately. The pilot grows one priority service in one territory, because splitting a single channel across two different buyers is how ninety days produces a result nobody can read. Loop drilling and full installs reach different customers and often different decision-makers. We pick one with you at the fit review, and the other is a later decision rather than a hidden extra.
field notes · geothermal
Field notes on the geothermal trade
Our own measurements of this trade. Every figure states how many listings it describes and when it was taken.
Three trades, 9,918 contractors: everyone lists a phone number, and fewer than three in five will say when they are open
99% list a phone number. But no trade reaches 56% on published opening hours, and the trade with the most websites is worst at it.
request a fit review
Ready when you are.
Tell us enough to be honest with you. If the economics don't support a pilot, we'll say so.
Request a fit reviewSeparate from any directory listing — declining changes nothing.