Marketing for trades Updated October 2026
Marketing for tradies: the four jobs, in order
Most trades are not badly marketed, they are unevenly marketed: the money goes into one job while the other three sit untouched, and the weakest one sets the result. The free audit on this site reads your live page and asks an AI assistant who it recommends in your suburb.
Marketing for a trade business is four jobs, not one: getting found in search and on Google Maps, getting chosen once someone opens your website and reads your reviews, being quotable by the AI assistants people now ask instead of searching, and answering every enquiry before it goes cold.
Is marketing for tradies different from marketing anything else?
Yes, in one way that changes everything downstream: your customer already knows they need the work. Nothing has to be sold to them. They have to find you, choose you over two others, and get an answer before somebody else picks up.
Which is why trade marketing money belongs in being present and being fast rather than in persuasion. A campaign built to create demand is the wrong instrument for a person standing under a wet ceiling with a phone in their hand.
Where does trade marketing money go missing?
Trade marketing money goes missing in four places, and all four are leaks rather than bad spending: paying for ads before Google can describe you, a profile filled in on verification day and never touched, renting leads from a marketplace, and enquiries that go cold while you are up a ladder.
Spending before you are findable
Ads pointed at a business Google cannot describe are a tap left running. The searches are already happening in your suburbs every day, at no cost per click, and nobody is answering them.
A profile set once and left
The Google Business Profile is the biggest single source of local trade leads. Most were filled in on verification day and never touched again. The listing above you is not doing anything clever, it is doing the basics continuously.
Renting leads instead of owning ground
A lead marketplace sells the same enquiry to four tradies and keeps the customer. Stop paying and you have nothing. The searches you win yourself keep arriving after the invoices stop.
The enquiry that goes cold
Most trade enquiries arrive while you are up a ladder. A missed call nobody texts back is a job that quietly went to whoever answered first, and it never shows up as a loss anywhere you can see.
What are the four jobs, and who does them?
Four jobs: found, chosen, quotable by the machines, followed up. tyso builds and runs all of them except paid search, which is named plainly further down rather than quietly implied. An agency runs your marketing and rents you hours. A studio builds the machine that produces the enquiries and then runs it, which is why the parts below get built here instead of briefed out.
Found: search
Pages written for the jobs you actually do and the suburbs you actually work, a Google profile that ranks, and the technical fixes underneath. This is the cheapest demand there is, because the person searching has already decided the work needs doing.
Chosen: the website
The profile gets you found. The website decides whether you get chosen. Quick on a phone, clear about what you do and where you do it, a number that is always one thumb away, and owned by you rather than rented from a platform.
Chosen: the profile and the reviews
Categories, services, photos, posts and the public questions, kept current instead of set once. Reviews sit beside all of it and get asked for properly, inside the Australian rules: no incentives, nothing filtered, nothing invented.
Found: AI search
People now ask an assistant who to call, and an assistant names two or three businesses instead of returning ten links. The work is making your facts agree and your answers liftable, then measuring what comes back on a dated re-test rather than promising an outcome nobody controls.
Followed up: RELAYX
Every enquiry gets a text back in seconds, missed calls included, so the lead does not cool while you are on a roof. RELAYX is the studio's own lead-response tool. It is in private rollout, so there is no public sign-up yet, and it comes with the packages rather than on its own.
When you want the lot as one job
Two packages carry all four jobs together rather than one at a time. Found & Chosen is the flat-price starter for a trade getting nothing from Google, live in 14 days from content day or your money back. The Growth Engine is for one already getting enquiries and wanting them doubled.
What does tyso not do?
No Google Ads management and no Local Services Ads. That is real work, it is just not sold here, and saying so beats taking the money and learning on your account.
Paid social runs through Sparks and nothing else. Everything else on this page is built in house rather than briefed out to a third supplier, which is the only reason the parts talk to each other at all.
What proof is there that any of this works?
Three things you can open and check: a named client cited in AI answers, a named build whose reviews moved, and the measurement series all of it comes out of. tyso is a one-person Canberra studio launched in 2026, so this is the whole list.
ANT Painting, quoted in AI answers
ANT Painting is a Canberra painting business whose search presence tyso runs. It was cited on 9 of 22 painting questions we measured on 29 August 2026, across Google's AI Overviews and ChatGPT search.
Sophisticated Manes, reviews moving
Sophisticated Manes is a Melbourne cat grooming business and a tyso build, live in production. Its Google reviews went from 3 to 10 in August 2026, its first month live.
A measurement series, published monthly
The AU AI Search Watch put 38 customer questions to two AI engines across three trades in August 2026, 90 in September and 168 in October. The engines shared 11.7 percent of their sources in August, 16.5 percent in September and, on the same 90 questions, 14.1 percent in October, which is why nobody here sells AI visibility as one score.
Where should a trade business start?
Start with the free audit, not a discovery call. It reads your site and asks an AI assistant who it recommends in your suburb, then shows you the score before it asks for an email.
- Give it your business, your trade and your suburb.
- It runs the checks live and scores what it finds.
- You read the findings worst first, in plain English.
- If you want the paid layer underneath, the Deep Audit lands on your desk within five business days.
- If the work is worth doing, we talk. If not, I will say so.
Questions worth asking first
What does a tradie actually need for marketing in Australia?
Four things, in this order: a Google Business Profile that is complete and active, reviews arriving steadily, a fast website that says what you do and where you do it, and something that answers every enquiry immediately. Ads are optional. Those four are not.
Is SEO or paid ads better for a trade business?
Search first, for most trades. The demand for your trade already exists in your suburbs and costs nothing per click once you rank, while ads stop the day the card stops. Ads are worth adding once the profile, the site and the follow-up can convert what they send.
How do I get more leads without a big ad budget?
Work the free surfaces first: the Google profile, reviews, real pages for your services and service areas, and answering enquiries fast. None of them carry a cost per click, all of them compound, and most trades have never had them done properly.
What is the difference between a growth studio and a marketing agency?
An agency runs your marketing and bills you for hours. A studio builds the machine and then runs it, so the website, the Google profile, the search work and the lead response are one system you own, rather than four suppliers who never speak to each other.
Do I still need a website if I am already on hipages?
Yes. A lead marketplace sells the same enquiry to several tradies and keeps the customer relationship, so you are renting access rather than building anything. Stop paying and nothing remains. A website and a Google profile you own keep producing after the invoices stop.
See where you actually stand.
The audit runs in a few minutes and shows you the score before it asks for an email. If it says you are fine, that is a fine answer.
Rather talk it through? Book a call.