Ducted air conditioning marketing: how to sell $10,000+ jobs online

Most ducted air conditioning marketing is split system marketing with a bigger number on it. A stock photo of a smiling family, "ducted specialists", a phone number and a hope that someone rings. Then the office spends the week calling people who wanted a $2,000 wall unit.

Ducted is a different sale. On our planning numbers, a 3 to 4 bedroom ducted install in Sydney is $10,500 to $16,500, with roughly $2,300 to $4,800 gross profit per job. The buyer takes weeks, compares several installers and usually decides as a couple. Every part of the marketing, from the ad to the follow-up text, has to respect that.

This post walks through the buyer, what they need to see, how to build the offer and the qualifier, and why the in-home quote is the conversion that counts. Scale Theory has no clients yet, so everything here is how we plan, with numbers labelled as planning assumptions.

What makes ducted air conditioning marketing different?

Ducted air conditioning marketing sells a considered, five-figure purchase to homeowners who take weeks to decide and compare several installers. It has to reach them before they start searching, give them enough detail to trust you, filter out people who cannot buy, and turn interest into an in-home quote rather than a phone call.

Three things make it different from marketing repairs or splits:

• The value per job is high. One extra ducted win a month can be worth more than a dozen split installs, so you can afford to spend more per booked quote, as long as the quotes are real.
• The decision is slow. Nobody buys ducted from one ad. The job is usually won by the installer who stays in the conversation longest and most helpfully.
• The site visit is the sale. A ducted quote cannot be priced properly from a phone call. Someone has to see the roof space, the layout and the switchboard. That visit is where trust is built.

Who buys ducted air conditioning?

The typical ducted buyer is an owner-occupier in a detached house with three or more bedrooms, often a family, often replacing a tired first-generation system or cooling a house that never had one. They have budget or finance in mind, time to think, and usually a partner who has to agree.

In Sydney, that buyer is concentrated where the houses are big and the summers are hot. The 2021 Census shows separate houses make up 81.2% of dwellings in The Hills Shire and 92.5% in Camden, against 55.8% across Greater Sydney, as we set out on our Sydney HVAC marketing page. That is why a ducted campaign should be planned by region and suburb, not city-wide.

There are three versions of the ducted buyer, and each needs a slightly different message:

1. The replacer. Has an older ducted system that is noisy, expensive to run or failing. Knows what ducted is. Wants a better system, zoning and a clean swap.
2. The first-timer. Has wall splits or nothing, and a house that is too hot upstairs. Needs to understand whether ducted will fit and what it costs.
3. The builder or renovator. Building new or doing a big renovation. Timing is set by the build, and they often come through the builder rather than an ad.

We focus marketing on the first two. The third is a different business.

What does a ducted buyer need to see before they enquire?

A ducted buyer needs enough to trust you with a five-figure job before they give up an evening for a site visit: a realistic price range, the brands you install, how zoning works, proof that a real crew will turn up, reviews, and a clear next step that is useful to them, such as a heat-load assessment.

Getting sizing right matters to the homeowner too. The federal government's energy advice tells householders to "seek expert advice when considering a major investment such as ducted heating/cooling" and to choose "the right sized appliance" for their needs (energy.gov.au). A heat-load assessment is that expert advice, which is why it makes such a good offer.

How do you build an offer for ducted jobs?

A good ducted offer gives the homeowner something useful and gives you a site visit. The strongest options are a free in-home heat-load assessment, a dated install-by promise before summer, a zoning upgrade for existing ducted owners, and the NSW Energy Savings Scheme discount where the system is eligible.

Discounts off a five-figure job rarely move ducted buyers much. Certainty does. The offers we plan around:

• Free in-home heat-load assessment. Measure every room, check the roof space and switchboard, and recommend a system size in writing. It is the site visit you need anyway, framed as advice.
• Install-by date. "[Number] ducted install slots left before [real date]." It only works if the slots and the date are real. Summer is a real deadline for a family with a hot upstairs.
• Zoning upgrade. For homes with older ducted systems that run every room at once. Smaller job, but a warm route into a full replacement later.
• NSW ESS discount, where eligible. The NSW Government describes it as an upfront discount in the quote, indicatively up to $550 for a new 6kW system and up to $560 replacing an old unit with a 6kW split (NSW Climate and Energy Action). Against a ducted quote that is a small number, and eligibility depends on the system. The Energy Savings Scheme rule in effect from 7 September 2026 includes changes to "multi-split system and large air conditioner eligibility" (NSW Climate and Energy Action), so confirm each system with your Accredited Certificate Provider first.

We show how these offers look as real ads in HVAC Facebook ad examples.

What should a ducted qualifier ask?

A ducted qualifier should find out, before anyone drives out, whether the enquiry is a homeowner with a house that suits ducted, a budget in the right range and a timeframe you can meet. Six questions do it: property type, current system, install or repair, urgency, budget and ownership.

For ducted, the answers that matter most:

• Property type: a detached house or large townhouse, not a unit.
• Current system: old ducted (replacement), splits or none (first-time ducted).
• Install or repair: a repair enquiry goes to your service team, not a ducted sales visit.
• Urgency: "this summer" and "next few months" get booked first.
• Budget: a range that matches your price anchor. Someone who picks "under $5,000" needs a different conversation.
• Ownership: owner-occupier. Renters cannot approve a ducted install.

Enquiries that pass go straight into the CRM and get an SMS and a call inside 60 seconds. Enquiries that do not pass get a polite reply. A single-room split enquiry never routes to Priority: it goes to Standard or nurture, and repairs go to your service team. The reasons behind each question are in how to qualify air conditioning leads.

Why is the in-home quote the real conversion?

Because a ducted job is almost never sold on the phone. The in-home quote is where you see the roof space, measure the rooms, meet both decision-makers and show you know what you are doing. A lead is only interest. A booked in-home quote is a real chance at the job.

A booked quote is a qualified homeowner booked in for an in-home quote, in your diary, with a time. It is the unit we report every week, alongside cost per booked quote and jobs won. We do not report leads as a win, because a ducted lead that never books a visit is worth nothing.

That changes what you optimise. The ad is judged on booked quotes, not clicks. The landing page is judged on qualified enquiries, not form fills. The office is judged on how many qualified enquiries become visits. Every step answers one question: did it put a real ducted buyer in the diary?

How do you follow up a ducted quote?

Follow up with short, helpful messages in your business name, sent by the person who did the visit: day 1 to thank them and answer questions, day 3 to check in, day 7 to ask for a decision or a timeframe. Then keep in touch monthly, because ducted buyers often decide after the first week.

Most ducted quotes that are lost are not rejected. They go quiet. Two people need to agree, other quotes are still coming in, and life gets busy. The installer who follows up politely, with something useful, is often the one still in the conversation when they decide.

Useful follow-up for ducted buyers includes a photo of a similar install nearby, an answer to the zoning question they asked on the night, or a reminder of your install-by date. The full sequence, with the texts, is in HVAC quote follow-up.

What is a booked ducted quote worth?

On our planning numbers, a booked ducted quote is worth about $800 to $1,800 in expected gross profit. That comes from a 30 to 40% close rate on exclusive, pre-qualified quotes and $2,300 to $4,800 gross profit per job. It is the number that sets how much you can spend to get one.

Two warnings about that maths. First, it assumes every booked quote is ducted. In real life some will be multi-head or smaller jobs, and those are worth less, so the qualifier matters. Second, these are planning assumptions to be replaced by your own data in the first month. We publish them so you can check our thinking, not as a promise.

The same maths is our fit check on the audit call. We ask your average job value, margin and ducted share. If break-even needs more than about 2 ducted jobs a month, if ducted is under 40% of your work, or if you cannot take on 2 or more extra ducted installs a month, we will not sign.

What are the common mistakes in ducted air conditioning marketing?

The most common mistakes are hiding the price, using stock images, sending every enquiry to the phone without qualifying, replying hours later, and stopping follow-up after one call. Each one costs more on ducted than on splits, because the job is bigger and the buyer is comparing you with others.

A few more we see often:

• One ad for every suburb. A ducted replacement message in an estate built in 2018 falls flat. Match the offer to the housing stock. Our Hills District page shows how that works in one of Sydney's most ducted-heavy areas.
• Booking visits three weeks out. A ducted buyer with three quotes coming will not wait. Keep slots free in the diary for booked quotes.
• Selling specs instead of comfort. Homeowners buy a cool upstairs bedroom and a lower bill, not a model number.
• Treating the ESS discount as the headline. On a five-figure job it is a helpful extra, not the reason to buy.

If you want to see how we put the whole thing together, from the ad to the booked quote, start with our air conditioning marketing page or the HVAC Profit Machine.

Sam

Co-founder. Audits, strategy and media buying

Sam runs every audit and buys every ad. Before going HVAC-only, he ran Scale Theory as a performance marketing agency: SEO, Meta and Google ads, CRM automation.

More about Sam