Your organic traffic is down. Your rankings haven't moved much. The phone is quieter. What changed? AI search has rewritten the rules for how pest control buyers find you, and most of the metrics you've tracked since 2020 don't measure the things that actually matter now. In this episode, Adam Bennett and Elisabeth Pallante from Cube Creative Design break down the six categories of trust signals that decide whether ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity recommend your business: Identity, Authority, Proof, Transparency, Structure, and Visibility. They explain why 90%+ of companies have hidden NAP inconsistencies, why 92-93% of pest control sites still hide pricing (and what it's costing them), and why your structure can be quietly broken without you knowing. Then they introduce The Cube Score, a free tool that grades your site across all six sides on a 600-point scale in about 60 seconds. You'll learn how to read your score, which side to fix first, and how to set a 90-day target that puts you ahead of 80% of your local competition. Get your score at thecubescore.com. Get your free pest control marketing audit at marketingthatactuallyworks.ai.

Your home market is humming. You're at six or eight trucks. The next city over looks like the obvious move. So why do most pest control companies lose money for six months when they expand?

In this episode, Adam Bennett and Elisabeth Pallante break down why service area expansion is a brand-new business problem rather than a marketing problem, how to pick the right expansion market using density and drive time instead of raw population, and what a real city page looks like compared to the thin service-area pages that hurt more than they help.

You'll learn why the cost per acquired customer in a new market is typically 2 to 3 times what it costs at home for the first six months, why review velocity is the leading indicator of whether you're going to win, and the 90-day launch playbook that gets you from zero presence to a credible local foothold. Plus the one filter that talks most owners out of the wrong expansion before they spend a dollar.

Get your free pest control marketing audit at marketingthatactuallyworks.ai. Score your website's AI search trust signals free at thecubescore.com.

92 to 93 percent of pest control websites don't show pricing anywhere on the site. Not a starting range. Not a service-by-service breakdown. Not even a "most customers pay between this and this." Just nothing.

Meanwhile, the number one question pest control buyers have when they hit your site is "what is this going to cost me." The gap costs you leads you never even knew were looking.

In Episode 26, Adam Bennett, Elisabeth Pallante, and Chad Treadway break down why hiding pricing actually protects your competition rather than your margin. You'll hear the three objections pest control owners raise about transparent pricing and why each one is wrong:

• "My competitors will see my prices and undercut me." (They already know what you charge.)
• "My pricing is too variable." (80 percent of your residential jobs fall within a tight band.)
• "I want them to call me so I can sell them." (The sale happens before the phone call.)

Then they walk through the four formats pest control companies can use to show pricing without committing to a rigid price list: the starting range, the most-customers-pay range, the treatment-by-treatment breakdown, and the estimator. You'll get the exact language that works and the language that doesn't.

You'll also hear about a Southeast pest control company that added starting pricing to its service pages last fall. No other changes. Their form conversion rate went from 3.1 percent to 7.4 percent over four months, and their cost per lead from Google Ads dropped 41 percent. Same traffic, same ad spend, completely different outcomes.

The episode closes with transparency beyond pricing. Policies, the humans behind the company, and your point of view. Plus Chad's one-sentence change you can make on your highest-traffic page this week that will measurably move your form fill rate within 30 days.

Get your free pest control marketing audit at marketingthatactuallyworks.ai

Score your website's AI search trust signals free at thecubescore.com

70 to 80 percent of pest control leads don't book on the first contact. They fill out a form, get a quote, then go quiet. Most pest control companies have no system for recovering those leads. They sit in a spreadsheet until someone gives up on them.

In Episode 25, Adam Bennett, Elisabeth Pallante, and Chad Treadway walk through the three email automation sequences every pest control company should have running.

Sequence one: the new-lead nurture. Four to five emails over two weeks for leads who filled out a form but didn't book within 24 hours. Open rates typically run 35 to 50 percent on the first email and settle around 20 to 25 percent by email four.

Sequence two: the quote follow-up. Four emails over two weeks for leads who got a quote but didn't sign. Cube Creative clients pull an additional 18 to 25 percent close rate on quotes they would have lost.

Sequence three: customer reactivation. Three emails over three weeks for past customers who haven't booked a service in 12 months or more. Response rates run 12 to 18 percent, which is wildly higher than acquisition because the relationship already exists. The math is brutal in the best way: 800 past customers, 15 percent reactivation, $400 ticket equals $48,000 from a sequence you set up in a weekend.

You'll also learn what actually goes in the emails. The subject line patterns that work for pest control. Why 80 to 150 words beats a 600-word narrative every time. Why personalization beyond the first name matters. And the clear-next-step rule that turns reads into replies.

Then Chad pushes back on the episode title. The "forget it" part is where most pest control companies lose ground. Automations set up two years ago reference last year's pricing, link to deleted pages, and were written by a marketing intern who's been gone for 18 months. You'll get the monthly and quarterly check-ins that keep your sequences working.

If you only have time for one, Chad recommends starting with the quote follow-up. Highest leverage, easiest to justify, one afternoon to build in HubSpot, ActiveCampaign, or any modern email platform.

Get your free pest control marketing audit at marketingthatactuallyworks.ai

Score your website's AI search trust signals free at thecubescore.com

Your Google Business Profile is verified. You've added photos, picked the right categories, and you post a few times a month. So why have your map rankings stopped moving?

In this episode of Marketing That Actually Works, Adam Bennett and Elisabeth Pallante break down what comes after GBP. The plateau most pest control operators hit isn't a Google Business Profile problem. It's a signal problem. Google cross-checks your profile against the rest of the web, and when the rest of the web is messy or thin, your rankings can only go so high.

Adam and Elisabeth walk through the three local SEO signals that move pest control rankings beyond GBP:

1. NAP consistency across directories. Your business name, address, and phone need to match everywhere. Most operators have five to ten inconsistencies they don't know about, and those inconsistencies quietly cap how high they can rank. You'll get the directory list that matters most for pest control and a simple spreadsheet audit method you can run this week.
2. City and service pages on your website. Google ranks pages, not businesses. If you don't have a dedicated page for the next town over, Google has nothing to rank for that town's searches. Adam and Elisabeth cover what real city page content looks like, the on-page basics most pest control sites skip, and how many pages you actually need (hint: five to eight strong ones beat thirty thin ones).
3. Local backlinks from real community involvement. Once citations are clean and city pages are built, local backlinks are what push you past the plateau. Chamber memberships, sponsorships, local press pitches, and partnerships with realtors and property managers all create the geographic signal Google needs. You'll also hear which link-building tactics to avoid.
   

Three Key Takeaways:

1. NAP consistency is the foundation. Audit your top directories and make sure your name, address, and phone match everywhere.
2. Service area and city-specific pages are how you rank in towns where your office isn't located. Five to eight strong pages beat thirty thin ones.
3. Local backlinks from real community involvement push you past the GBP plateau.
   

The full sequence (citations, then city pages, then backlinks) takes a quarter of focused work. Most operators who follow it see ranking movement within 60 to 90 days.

Want help putting this into action? Get your free pest control marketing audit at marketingthatactuallyworks.ai. While you're there, download the 20-point Pest Control Marketing Checklist we use with every client.

Subscribe so you don't miss next Tuesday's episode: Email Automation, Set It and Forget It Lead Nurturing.

Did you spend $800 on Facebook ads and get zero leads? The problem probably isn't Facebook. It's what you asked Facebook to do. In this episode, Adam Bennett and Elisabeth Pallante are joined by Hannah Kilpatrick, Cube Creative's Social Media Manager, to break down what social ads actually do for pest control companies and why most pest control owners are measuring them wrong. You'll learn why Facebook and Instagram are farming, not hunting, why creative matters more than targeting, the three ad shapes that work consistently for pest control, how much a 5-truck company should spend per month, and the three downstream numbers worth watching instead of cost-per-click. Plus Hannah's one-thing-to-try-this-week experiment that costs $50 and tells you whether your social strategy has a chance. Get your free pest control marketing audit at marketingthatactuallyworks.ai. Score your website's AI search trust signals free at thecubescore.com.

Summer is when most pest control operators make their biggest marketing mistake. The trucks are full, the phones are ringing, and it feels like the right time to pause marketing and save the budget. But that pause creates a revenue cliff that hits hard in September and October.

In this episode, Adam Bennett and Elisabeth Pallante break down why going dark on marketing during busy season is the most expensive cycle in pest control, and what to do instead. They walk through the real cost of stopping and restarting: Google Ads campaigns that lose their optimization data, SEO rankings that slip while competitors keep publishing, and referral pipelines that dry up when customers stop hearing from you. The numbers are clear. Restarting a paused ad campaign costs 30 to 50 percent more per lead during the ramp-up period.

Adam and Elisabeth lay out three practical summer strategies that keep your pipeline full without eating into field time. First, a seasonal content plan that turns active pest problems into blog posts and social content that drives traffic today and builds SEO authority for next year. Second, a fall pre-sell strategy using email campaigns to book rodent exclusion, wildlife prevention, and other fall services before the summer ends. They share a real client example: one August email offering 10 percent off fall rodent exclusion booked 40 jobs in three weeks. Third, three low-effort automated systems, Google Business Profile posts, automated review requests, and a lead nurture drip sequence, that run in the background while you focus on the work.

The episode also covers renewal campaign timing, how to turn one blog post into a week of social media content, and why summer is actually the best time to market because your competitors have gone quiet.

Three key takeaways:

1. Summer is not the off-season for marketing. Going dark now builds a revenue cliff you'll hit in September and October.
2. Companies that market year-round spend less per lead than companies that stop and restart. Every pause means paying to rebuild momentum.
3. Seasonal content, pre-selling fall services, and staying active on Google Business Profile keep your pipeline full without requiring much time.

Download the free Summer Marketing Planner at marketingthatactuallyworks.ai. It's a month-by-month checklist covering June through September with content ideas, email campaign timing, and the fall pre-sell strategy from this episode.

Next week: The Truth About Facebook and Instagram Ads with Hannah Kilpatrick.

Most pest control companies treat termites, bed bugs, and wildlife like afterthoughts on their website. One paragraph each, buried under a generic services page. Then they wonder why the calls don't come in.

In Episode 21, Adam Bennett, Elisabeth Pallante, and CMO Chad Treadway break down why specialty services need their own marketing playbook. These services often pay far more per job than recurring pest control, but most operators spend almost nothing marketing them on purpose.

What you'll learn:

• Why termite, bed bug, and wildlife customers search differently and need different content
• The 8 to 10 termite pages every pest control site should have
• Why the WDIR (wood-destroying insect report) market needs its own approach for real estate agents
• How emotional copy and phone-first design win more bed bug jobs
• Why speed to lead matters more for bed bugs than almost any other service
• How state licensing shapes what you can and can't market in wildlife services
• Seasonal timing for squirrel, bat, and rodent campaigns
• Why putting price ranges on wildlife pages saves your phone team hours of dead-end calls
• How to track each specialty as its own profit center

Three key takeaways:

1. Specialty services need their own dedicated marketing. A buried subpage won't cut it.
2. Match your marketing to each service's customer mindset. Termites need education, bed bugs need reassurance, wildlife needs speed.
3. Track each specialty as its own profit center. The economics are different from your recurring pest control work.

This episode is for pest control owners and marketing managers who do termite, bed bug, or wildlife work and want those services to pull their weight in the revenue mix.

Get your free pest control marketing audit at marketingthatactuallyworks.ai. While you're there, download the 20-point Pest Control Marketing Checklist we use with every client.

About the show: Marketing That Actually Works is a 15-minute weekly podcast for pest control operators who want real growth, not empty promises. Adam Bennett and Elisabeth Pallante from Cube Creative Design share practical, tactical marketing strategies you can use between service calls. New episodes drop every Tuesday.

Hosts: Adam Bennett, CEO, and Elisabeth Pallante, Content Operations Manager, Cube Creative Design Guest: Chad Treadway, CMO, Cube Creative Design

Coming next Tuesday: Episode 22 with Emily Porter on website speed and performance.

Is your website fast enough to keep the leads you're paying for? If your site takes more than three seconds to load, nearly half your visitors are leaving before they see your phone number. That's not a tech problem. That's a lead problem.

In this episode, Adam Bennett and Elisabeth Pallante sit down with Cube Creative web project specialist Emily Porter to break down website speed and performance for pest control companies. Emily walks through exactly how to test your site speed using free tools, what the scores mean, and which fixes make the biggest difference.

The conversation covers the three biggest speed killers Emily sees on nearly every pest control site audit: oversized images that balloon page weight to 15 times what it should be, plugin bloat from 30 or 40 plugins when most sites only need 10 to 15, and cheap shared hosting that puts a hard ceiling on how fast your site can load no matter what else you optimize.

Adam and Elisabeth connect the technical side to real business impact. Companies spending thousands per month on Google Ads are losing a huge percentage of that traffic to slow load times, and operators never see the loss because there's no missed call for a visitor who bounced in two seconds. Elisabeth breaks down the revenue math: 1,000 monthly visitors, 40 percent bouncing from speed, and $4,000 in potential revenue walking out the door.

Emily gives operators a clear action plan: test your site at pagespeed.web.dev, check your mobile score, and hand the report to your developer. She provides four specific questions to ask your web developer this week and explains when optimization isn't enough and a rebuild makes more financial sense.

Three key takeaways:

1. A slow website is costing you leads right now. More than three seconds to load and nearly half your visitors are gone before they see anything.
2. You can test your own site speed in under 60 seconds with free tools, and the fixes are usually straightforward.
3. The three biggest speed killers are oversized images, too many plugins, and cheap hosting. Fixing even one can cut your load time in half.

Download the free Website Speed Checklist at marketingthatactuallyworks.ai. It walks you through everything covered in this episode, step by step.

Next week: Marketing Your Specialty Services, Termites, Bed Bugs, and Wildlife, with Chad Treadway.

Video converts better than any other content type across every platform pest control companies use. And right now, most of your local competitors have no video presence at all. That's a first-mover advantage—but it won't last forever.

In this episode, social media manager Hannah Kilpatrick breaks down the four video types every pest control company needs and how to film them without a production budget.

The four types and what each one does:

Company Overview Video. This is your homepage video—60 to 90 seconds. The owner or a key team member on camera answering the question every new visitor is asking: who are you and why should I call you? This is the highest-leverage single video you can have. Build it first.

Service Explainer Videos. One per major service: termite treatment, bed bug heat treatment, rodent exclusion. Two minutes max. Show the process, explain what's happening, and tell the customer what to expect. These reduce pre-call anxiety and post-service complaints.

Customer Testimonial Videos. Real customers on camera—30 to 60 seconds. Just ask two questions: What was the problem before you called us? What was your experience like? Video testimonials are harder to dismiss than written reviews.

Short-Form Field Content. Before-and-afters, educational tips, behind-the-scenes moments. Your ongoing weekly presence on Instagram and Facebook.

We also cover the practical stuff—how to film without looking terrible:

Your phone is the camera. An iPhone or recent Android shoots 4K video. The one upgrade worth making: a $20 tripod. Shaky footage is the most common reason DIY video looks bad.

Lighting: Face a window. Light on your face, not behind you. Filming with a window at your back creates a silhouette effect.

Sound: People tolerate average video quality but won't tolerate bad audio. For longer videos, a $25 lapel mic is worth it.

What to say: Write three bullet points on a sticky note and tape it above the camera. Talk through them naturally. Film 4-5 takes, keep the best one.

Then we cover repurposing—how to get maximum mileage from one video:

Host on YouTube, embed on your website. Pull 30-60 second clips for Instagram and Facebook. Use thumbnails with play buttons in email. One video shoot can produce 4-6 pieces of content if you're intentional about it.

Realistic cadence: Film one batch per month. Two to three videos in a single afternoon gives you 24-36 videos per year—more than enough to build a strong library.

Download our free Video Script Template Pack at marketingthatactuallyworks.ai—pre-written outlines for all four video types so you're not staring at a blank page.