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He Runs the Ads, Closes the Deal, and Installs the Unit. Here’s What He’s Learned.

He Runs the Ads, Closes the Deal, and Installs the Unit. Here’s What He’s Learned.

April 2, 2026

Brandon Cerpa is 26 years old. He’s a field tech at Vandy’s Heating and Air in Huntsville, Alabama. He runs their Facebook ads. He handles sales. He goes out on maintenance calls in the morning and follows up with leads at 9 o’clock at night.

He is not a typical HVAC tech. He’s also not a typical marketer.

Before joining Vandy’s, Brandon owned a digital marketing agency that served HVAC companies. He knew how to generate leads. He could build campaigns, write copy, and track conversions. What he didn’t know was what happened after the lead came in — how long a maintenance took, how to break down a problem for a homeowner, how to actually sell in the field.

So he went and learned.

Two years later, he sits at the intersection of both worlds. He’s the person running the campaign and the person answering the call. That’s a rare perspective. And when he sat down with me on Elevated Trade Secrets, he shared what he’s learned from being on both sides of the transaction.

Here’s what stood out.

Stop Generating Leads and Start Generating Qualified Leads

Most HVAC companies ask for name, email, and address in their lead forms. That’s it. Brandon says that’s a mistake.

The quality of your leads starts at the ad, not at the phone call. If you’re running Facebook ads and getting leads from outside your service area, you’re not just wasting time — you’re actually training Meta’s algorithm to keep sending you the wrong people.

Brandon’s fix is simple. Add a qualifying question to your lead form. Something like: “Do you currently live in [county]?” If they say yes, that data goes back to Meta as a positive signal. If they say no, Meta stops serving that person. Over time, the algorithm learns who your ideal customer actually is and starts finding more of them.

He also asks things like: “Are you comfortable with our tech doing a full diagnostic — air handler, drain lines, capacitor, the works?” If someone says no to that, they’re going to be a difficult customer. Better to know that before you roll a truck.

The point isn’t to scare people off. It’s to make sure the leads you’re spending money on are actually worth chasing.

The Five-Minute Rule

A lead came in while Brandon was in Oregon. He’d been away for a week. His area code is 541. Vandy’s is in Alabama — area code 256. He texted the lead from his Oregon number anyway.

He sent a selfie. “Hey, this is Brandon from Vandy’s — saw you’re interested in a mini split. What room are you trying to cool?”

They responded. He followed up. That lead turned into a closed deal.

The point isn’t the selfie. The point is he responded within five minutes. Research consistently backs this up: the faster you follow up, the higher your chances of booking. Brandon’s seen it firsthand from both the marketing side and the field side. Leads go cold fast. The window to reach someone while they’re still thinking about it is shorter than most business owners realize.

If you can’t respond in five minutes personally, you need automation that can. A properly trained AI bot in Go High Level — one that knows your pricing, your process, and pushes for a booked appointment — is better than a generic drip sequence. Brandon uses both depending on the situation, but the principle is the same: the lead should hear from you before they can call someone else.

Don’t Turn Off Your Ads

Brandon described Meta’s algorithm like training a dog. Every time someone from your target area fills out your form and converts, that’s a positive signal. You’re giving Meta a treat. It learns. It finds more people like them.

When you pause your campaign, you’re giving Meta a negative signal. And when you turn it back on, you don’t pick up where you left off. You restart the learning phase. You lose everything the algorithm figured out about your best customers.

This is a real problem for HVAC companies because the business is seasonal. The temptation to pause ads in slow months is understandable. But the math doesn’t work.

Brandon’s answer is to shift what you’re promoting, not whether you’re promoting. Shoulder season isn’t the time to run emergency AC repair ads. It’s the time to retarget your existing database, push maintenance specials, and keep feeding Meta the signals it needs to stay sharp. Consistent spend, even at a lower level, beats the boom-and-bust approach every time.

$300 In, $3,300 Out

Here’s a real campaign Brandon ran while we were talking.

Vandy’s sells mini splits — Senville brand, 9K and 12K BTU units, mostly garage installs. Standard price: $4,300. But they ran a March special. Homeowners in Alabama get an $800 rebate. Vandy’s stacked a $300 rebate on top for air sealing. Effective price: $3,300.

They spent $300 on Facebook ads. Got 15 leads. Closed one deal on day three. Still following up on the others.

$300 in. $3,300 out. And the campaign is still running.

That’s not luck. That’s a tight offer, a qualifying lead form, fast follow-up, and someone willing to text a lead from a hotel room in Oregon at whatever time a lead comes in.

Your Agency Should Be Asking About Revenue, Not Showing You Charts

This is where Brandon and I are completely aligned.

He said it plainly: don’t pay attention to clicks. Don’t pay attention to views. Don’t pay attention to impressions. Look at what’s generating money. That’s it. That’s the only number that matters.

If your marketing agency sends you a report full of green arrows pointing up but can’t tell you how many jobs closed because of their work, you have a problem. Either they’re not tracking it, or they know the number and don’t want you to see it.

Brandon put it this way: your marketing rep should be up your ass asking how sales are going. They should be proactively pulling your numbers from House Call Pro or ServiceTitan and connecting what they’re doing to what’s showing up in your revenue. If they talk to you twice a month and fill the rest of the time with dashboards that don’t mean anything, find someone else.

His clients know this. Every one of them gets some kind of update from him daily. When metrics are being hit, they know. When something changes — an algorithm shift, a new platform update — they know that too.

That’s what accountability looks like.

Using AI Without Becoming Generic

Brandon uses AI. He’s not against it. But he’s watched too many contractors copy-paste ChatGPT output directly into their ad campaigns without reading it — ads that say “free tune-up” when they charge $50 for a tune-up, copy that contradicts the price listed at the top of the same page.

His take: AI is the output. You’re the brain. If you’re not prompting it with real context — your prices, your process, your market — you’re going to get generic slop that nobody responds to. Worse, Meta reads your ad copy. Generic copy signals to the algorithm that you’re not sure who you’re targeting.

At Vandy’s, they use an AI agent named Vanessa to text existing customers who aren’t on a service plan during slow months. Three follow-ups. Short, direct messages. A booking link. No hard sell.

The result: all three techs — including Brandon — stayed consistently busy during a slow stretch. Three calls per day, every day. Not because they ran a genius campaign. Because they used a simple, well-trained automation to reactivate people who already knew them.

That’s the right use of AI. Not replacing human judgment. Extending it.

The Review Is Worth More Than the Install

Brandon went out to a call where three other companies had already been. Two private equity shops told the homeowner he needed a full replacement — around $6,000. A third company sold him a new board and a contactor that didn’t actually fix the problem.

Brandon diagnosed a bad thermostat. The fix was $500.

The homeowner told him they were going to use the money they’d saved to take their family to the beach.

Some people will say Brandon left money on the table. He doesn’t see it that way. That family is a customer for life. They went home, made a video about it, and posted it. Brandon got a testimonial he couldn’t have manufactured.

He made the point that your techs — especially younger ones — are already on their phones. They’re already on TikTok and Instagram. If you give them a small incentive to grab a video testimonial or a smiling photo after a great call, you’re turning field work into content that sells. Jared does the same thing internally — $100 to any account manager who lands a video testimonial from a client.

It’s not complicated. It just requires someone to think about it.

Brandon is building toward something. He wants to get off the truck and run marketing full-time. He wants to help grow Vandy’s from three trucks to ten. He’s got a business partner in Phoenix running 10 mini split installs a week with zero HVAC background — just strong marketing and reliable installers.

The model works. Marketing knowledge plus operational discipline plus the willingness to actually pick up the phone when a lead comes in.

That combination is rarer than it should be.

About the Author

Jared Tangir is the CEO of Elevated HVAC Marketing, a boutique digital marketing agency that exclusively serves HVAC contractors. With a track record of generating millions in new revenue for clients ranging from sub-$1M to $15M+ businesses, Jared and his team specialize in building predictable, profitable lead generation systems—not just websites. Based in Doylestown, PA, he’s known for his direct, no-fluff approach to marketing strategy and relentless focus on measurable ROI.