The most proactive outsourced marketing company we've ever used. Thanks for being both creative and also implementing/executing fast to get tangible results 👍
Rodney Doven
Asset building Systems
BUILDING SOMETHING BIGGER
TRADES.
BUILT TO GROW.
Be visible where you work. Give customers the confidence to enquire, then connect every opportunity to a clear follow-up process.
Clients we work with
EXPERIENCE IN YOUR INDUSTRY
THE WORK.
THE RESULTS.
FROM THE PEOPLE WE WORK WITH
GOOD WORK.
GREAT RELATIONSHIPS.
An excellent company to work with for both digital marketing and web development. Their team consistently demonstrates strong expertise, proactively suggesting improvements and making ongoing adjustments to deliver the best possible results.
Trixie Hobson
Allshelter
We’ve been working with XO Digital for nearly a year, and the results speak for themselves. They have done an outstanding job, and their team truly understands how to drive online search performance and deliver real outcomes. I highly recommend them to any business that is serious about search engine success.
Julia Casey
Packserv
Excellent service and transparency. XO really feel like a partner that has our best interests at heart not an agency trying to rinse us for every dollar they can. Technically very sound and helped get our Hubspot into shape and manage our Google Ads account
Steve Cox
Winki Energy
X/o Digital have doubled my appointments in a matter of 30 days. Highly recommended for google ads and SEO.
Adelle Mackintosh
Lumi Lash & Co
X/o has been fantastic. The team has been able to get me ranking on page one for multiple cities in an industry that is extremely competitive. I can't recommend them enough!
Daniel Wakim
DWLF
Highly recommended! They offer unlimited advice and suggestions to enhance the overall marketing performance of a business. They take complete ownership of the success of each campaign, truly dedicated to achieving remarkable results.
Tom Hall
Nodd Solutions
Choosing XO Digital as our web development partner has been a game-changer for our business. Zyran and team are not only incredibly responsive but also exhibits a genuine commitment to understanding our unique needs, something we had struggled to find in previous partnerships. From the outset, XO…
Rezelda Smith
PSC
XO Digital has completely transformed our approach to Google Ads. Previously, we were spending money with little to no results for months. However, once XO Digital took over, we saw a dramatic shift. They delivered great results in a remarkably short time frame, changing the game for us. Will…
Bosco Wong
Integrated Chiropractic
I am continuously impressed by the exceptional service we receive from XO Digital. They proactively manage our entire marketing portfolio, from website oversight to coordinating all marketing channels. It’s a relief having one dedicated person seamlessly handle everything. XO Digital consistently…
Allen Barac
Zgrada Pools
WHAT WE UNDERSTAND ABOUT TRADES
JOBS, NOT LEADS.
AND A FULL DIARY.
Trade businesses rarely have a lead problem. They have a job-mix problem, a response-time problem and a capacity problem, and marketing that ignores those three makes all of them worse.
The phone call is the conversion
Most trade enquiries are calls, and a missed call at two in the afternoon is a booked job for someone else. Reporting that counts only form submissions hides most of the revenue and most of the losses.
Job value varies more than anything else
A tap washer and a full bathroom arrive through the same ad. Volume without a target job mix fills the diary with work that does not pay for the truck, the apprentice or the insurance.
Your service area is a hard boundary
Travel time is margin. A campaign reaching forty minutes past your crews is buying jobs you should be declining, and it drags the average job profitability down quietly.
Weather, season and crews set the ceiling
Rain, heat, holidays and who is available move demand and delivery at the same time. Spend has to move with them rather than sit on a fixed monthly schedule.
THE DETAIL THAT DECIDES THE RESULT
SPEED, PROOF.
AND JOB MIX.
Four things decide a trade account, roughly in the order they go wrong.
Speed to lead
Enquiries go to three or four trades at once, and the first to answer usually wins the job. Response time beats ad spend, creative and price in almost every account we have run.
How we use it
We track it as a campaign metric. Calls route first, missed calls trigger an immediate text back, and after-hours enquiries get an automatic reply with a booking link. If a client cannot answer during the day, we fix that before we increase the budget.
Google Business Profile and reviews
For most trades the map result out-earns everything else in local search. Review volume and recency, categories, service areas and job photos all move it, and a neglected profile quietly undoes good ad work.
How we use it
The profile is run as a channel: categories and services kept current, finished jobs photographed, a review request built into job completion, and questions answered. It is the cheapest thing we do and usually the highest returning.
Job mix and minimum job value
Campaigns that advertise every service at once collect the small, urgent, low-margin work, because that is what most people search for at any given moment.
How we use it
Campaigns are split by job type and value with separate budgets for the work you want more of, and the form or call script qualifies before a crew is committed. Some services are deliberately left to the map profile instead of being paid for.
Proof of workmanship
Trades are bought on risk: licence, insurance, tidiness, turning up when promised. Photographs of finished work, reviews and a clear quoting process do more than any discount.
How we use it
Before-and-after photography and reviews sit on the service and suburb pages that receive the traffic, next to licence numbers and a plain explanation of what happens after the enquiry.
HOW WE RUN A TRADE ACCOUNT
BE LOCAL.
BE FIRST.
Run to fill the diary with the right jobs, at the pace the crews can deliver.
The number we manage to is booked jobs at the value you want, not enquiries. A quieter month with a full, profitable diary is not a failure, and we would rather report it honestly than inflate a lead count.
WHAT THE WORK TAUGHT US
MISTAKES MADE.
LESSONS KEPT.
Three things that cost a client money before they changed how we work.
We filled a diary with the wrong jobs
A campaign doubled enquiries and revenue barely moved. The extra work was small, urgent call-outs that consumed the crew and pushed the profitable installs out by weeks.
What we do now
Every trade account starts with a target job mix and a minimum job value, campaigns are budgeted by job type, and we report revenue by job type rather than enquiry count.
We increased spend before fixing the phone
We scaled a campaign that was working while roughly a third of calls went unanswered at lunchtime and after four o’clock. We were buying calls the business could not take.
What we do now
Answer rate and response time are measured before any budget increase, and missed-call text back and an after-hours path are set up first. If the answer rate slips, we pause the scale-up instead of spending through it.
We let a Google Business Profile drift
On one account the map listing carried most of the calls. A change to categories and service areas quietly cut them, and it took a fortnight to notice because the ad dashboard looked fine.
What we do now
Profile changes, review flow and map performance are monitored alongside the ad accounts, and the profile has a named owner on our side. No trade account is reported on paid metrics alone.
WHERE WE SIT
BUILT FOR CREWS.
NOT FOR CLICKS.
We are a fit for trade businesses that want more of a particular kind of work, and a poor fit for anyone who simply wants the phone to ring more often.
We ask about the diary before the budget
Capacity, job mix and answer rate decide what marketing can do. We would rather fix a follow-up gap for nothing than sell a bigger media plan on top of it.
We are not a cheap lead vendor
Shared leads and directory listings cost less per enquiry. They also sell the same job to your competitors and leave you owning nothing at the end of the month.
Trades sit beside solar and manufacturing
The same disciplines run through all three: local demand, considered purchases, capacity limits and follow-up that decides more than the advertising does.
WHAT IT IS WORTH
- A higher average job value
- Shifting the mix towards the work you want is usually worth more than lifting enquiry volume, and it costs less to do.
- Quotes that actually get followed up
- Structured follow-up on the quotes you have already sent normally finds revenue in the first month, before any new media spend.
- Local presence that keeps earning
- Map rankings, reviews and service pages keep producing work through the weeks when the ad budget is paused for a busy period.
Right fit
Licensed trade businesses with crews to keep busy, a clear service area, and someone who answers the phone or a system that does. Businesses that want a specific kind of job, not simply more jobs.
Not the right fit
One-person operations already booked out, businesses that cannot return calls the same day, and anyone whose plan depends on being the cheapest quote in the street.
LET’S START WITH YOUR BUSINESS
GOOD GROWTH.
STARTS HERE.
Tell us where you are, what you’d like to improve and how you’re currently investing in marketing. We’ll review the details before discussing the right next step.
Zyran ErasmusHead of Growth, XO Digital
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