Facebook ads for HVAC: how aircon installers book ducted quotes on Meta

Why do Facebook ads work for ducted and multi-head air conditioning?

Ducted and multi-head systems are considered purchases. A homeowner spends weeks thinking about a $10,500 to $16,500 install before they ask anyone for a price. Facebook and Instagram reach them during that thinking time, in their suburb, with your vans and your offer, before they start comparing quotes on Google.

Search ads catch people who already know what they want and are ringing three installers. That matters for breakdowns and heatwaves, so we run Google Ads for HVAC alongside Meta. But for ducted, you also want to be the first conversation, not only the third quote, and that is Meta's job.

Meta also lets the ad do more selling than a text ad can. A 20-second video of the owner in a roof space, a photo of a finished bulkhead, a quote with the rebate line circled. Homeowners buying a big system want to see who will be in their house.

The catch is that Meta enquiries start colder than search enquiries. That is why the ad is only step one of the HVAC Profit Machine. Without a qualifier and a fast reply, Meta leads look cheap and turn out expensive.

What offers work in HVAC Facebook ads?

Offers that work give a homeowner a real reason to act this week and cost you little to honour. We use three: the NSW Energy Savings Scheme discount off the quote, a free in-home heat-load assessment, and a dated install-by promise based on your real diary. Discount codes and fake countdowns do not work.

The NSW Energy Savings Scheme discount

The NSW Government's air conditioner incentive is an upfront discount on the quote. It is indicatively up to $550 for a new 6kW system and up to $560 for replacing an old unit with a 6kW split, and there is no current closing date (NSW Climate and Energy Action).

Two things matter for your ads. First, installers who want to offer it must partner with an Accredited Certificate Provider. Second, the homeowner signs a nomination form before install. So the honest ad line is "we handle the paperwork and the discount comes off your quote", not "free money". Our write-up on using the NSW air conditioner discount in ads goes further.

In Victoria, the Victorian Energy Upgrades program offers up to $1,610 off upfront on an efficient reverse cycle system (energy.vic.gov.au). Queensland has no equivalent statewide aircon discount to lead with.

A free in-home heat-load assessment

A lot of homeowners do not know what size system they need. A heat-load assessment, where you measure the rooms, check the roof space and the switchboard, and tell them what will actually work, is useful to them and is the site visit you wanted anyway.

A dated install-by promise

"Installed before the first hot week" works if the date is real. We set it from your diary, not the calendar. If you cannot install before 15 December, the ad does not say so.

What are the creative rules for HVAC Facebook ads?

Use real photos and video of your vans, crews and finished installs. Show the owner's face. Put one offer and one price anchor in each ad. Refresh creative every three weeks. Never use stock images, AI imagery, or a guarantee you cannot back. Scale Theory's logo never appears on your ads.

Our rules, in order:

1. Real vans, real crews. A phone photo of your ute outside a job beats a studio shot of someone else's.
2. The owner on camera. Thirty seconds, in the van or the workshop: who you are, how long you have been doing ducted in the area, what the visit involves.
3. One offer per ad. The rebate, or the assessment, or the date. Not all three.
4. One price anchor. "Ducted from $X" sets expectations and filters out people shopping for $1,500 systems.
5. New creative every three weeks per ad set, alternating photo and video, because the audience in a suburb radius is small and people tire of the same image.

We collect examples of what works in HVAC Facebook ad examples.

How should HVAC Facebook ads be targeted?

Target by radius around the suburbs you actually service, not a whole city. Set an age floor that matches home owners, exclude your past customers from prospecting ads, and run separate ad sets for new ducted and replacement work. Let the offer and the qualifier do the filtering that targeting cannot.

A typical client setup:

Why don't we use Meta instant forms by default?

Instant forms fill in the homeowner's name, email and phone for them. That makes enquiring almost effortless, which lifts volume and drops quality. People tap through without reading, forget they enquired, or never meant to buy. We send traffic to a landing page with a six-question qualifier instead.

The page asks for six taps before the name and mobile: property type, current system, install or repair, urgency, budget and ownership. Anyone who gets through that is worth a call. Anyone who does not was never going to book.

We do not rule instant forms out. If a landing page cannot be made fast enough on a client's domain, we run the same six questions inside the form as custom questions and compare the numbers. We explain the trade-off in instant forms vs landing pages, and the page itself on our HVAC landing pages breakdown.

What mistakes waste money on HVAC Facebook ads?

The costly mistakes are sending ads to a home page, running the same creative for months, using stock photos, targeting a whole city instead of your service area, and replying to enquiries hours later. Each one makes Meta enquiries look cheap on the dashboard and expensive in the diary.

Two more are worth naming. Boosting posts is not the same as running an ad campaign: a boosted post has no qualifier, no landing page and no tracking of booked quotes. And judging an ad after two days and $40 of spend tells you nothing. We give each ad enough spend to show a pattern before we kill it or scale it.

How much of the ad budget goes to Meta?

Ad spend is a minimum of $4,000 a month across Meta and Google combined, paid by you directly to each. By default Meta gets $2,500 and Google Search $1,500. From December to February we flip it, Google $2,500 and Meta $1,500, because people search when systems break. It is separate from our fee.

Why flip it? Outside summer, a ducted buyer is usually still weighing it up, and Meta reaches them first. In a Sydney heatwave, a homeowner with a dead system searches for help now, so Search gets the bigger share. In winter and the shoulder months Meta carries Off-Peak Fill: heating, service and pre-summer install slots. How the Google side is built is on our Google Ads for HVAC page.

These numbers are planning assumptions. We do not yet have a separate Meta figure we can stand behind, so we plan on one blended cost per enquiry and replace it with your real numbers, channel by channel, within the first month.

What do the first 30, 60 and 90 days look like?

The first 30 days are build, test and launch. Days 31 to 60 are cutting what does not work and doubling down on what does. Days 61 to 90 are about settling your real cost per booked quote so you can decide, with numbers, whether to carry on month to month.

We do not switch ads on until the 60-second SMS has arrived on a test phone. There is no point paying Meta or Google for enquiries nobody answers.

If you are in Sydney, our Sydney HVAC marketing page covers which suburbs and territories are still open.