The franchises own the generic terms
National haulers bid on “junk removal near me” in every city and can lose money on a job longer than you can. Beating them on the generic term is a bad plan.
Fuel, labor and dump fees eat the margin. Clicks have to bring jobs worth the drive.
A junk removal click runs $8 to $25 in most metros, and the franchise brands with the big trucks bid on all of it. A one-item pickup across town barely covers the dump fee once you count the crew and the diesel.
We aim the budget at cleanouts, hot tubs, construction debris and estate jobs, cut the “free pickup” crowd, and track every call to a hauled, paid load.
Loads from $150 to $1,500, cleanouts more. The upside is real. So is the waste, and here’s where it usually comes from.
National haulers bid on “junk removal near me” in every city and can lose money on a job longer than you can. Beating them on the generic term is a bad plan.
“Free couch removal” and “bulk trash pickup day” are people looking for the municipality. They click and they never pay.
A single mattress 40 minutes away costs you more than it pays. A campaign that treats every call the same sends your trucks all over the map.
Campaigns by load type: Estate cleanouts, garage and basement, hot tub and appliance, construction debris, office cleanouts. Each gets bids that match what the job pays.Radius bids around the dump and the yard: Heavier spend where the drive is short, lighter at the edges. More loads per truck per day is the whole game.Negatives for freebies and the city: “Free”, “donate”, “city pickup”, “dump hours”, job postings and the franchise names. Pruned every week.Track the load, not the ring: Call tracking with recordings plus Jobber, Workiz or Housecall Pro, so Google learns from invoiced loads.Examples from junk removal accounts. The real lists run to hundreds of terms and get reviewed every week.
Your account is run by two PPC pros with 20+ years each. No handoff to a coordinator juggling 35 accounts.
Not quarterly. Not “when the algorithm settles”. Every week, by hand, so the junk never gets a chance to pile up.
Your Google Ads account, your data, your tracking, from day one. Leave anytime and take it all with you.
Who likes 12-month contracts? We don’t. We earn the next quarter by making the last one pay.
Two to four trucks in a mid-size metro usually need $3k to $7k a month to keep the schedule full. One truck can start lower. We size it to how many loads you can actually haul.
No. One junk removal company per metro. We can’t bid you against each other and call it a strategy.
Mostly. Ads that name cleanouts and minimum charges, plus negatives for single items, shift the mix a lot. Some small jobs still come through, and your dispatcher can decide which are worth the drive.
A bucket truck and a crane cost money whether they move or not. Keep them moving.
How we run it →Trucks, crews and a short summer. Every click has to earn a booked date.
How we run it →Plows, salt and overtime are fixed costs. Contracts are how you cover them.
How we run it →Haul fees, landfill tonnage, ten stops a day per truck. Volume close to home wins.
How we run it →Talk to a senior PPC expert who has run junk removal accounts. Never a junior.