Jon-Torrey

Quick thread in response to @garyvee biggest challenge getting ppl to execute his advice. I hope this helps many of you. 2 yrs ago I started to get bad anxiety. Stuck in my job. Wanted to do more. Randomly put on GV + he spoke about garage sales as a start-now way to build skills

Eagles agree to 1-year deal with CB Riq Woolen. (via @CameronWolfe)

GPT vs Gemini vs Claude vs ClaraT: Which AI Model Performs Best for Lead Grading in Home Services? We ran 6,000 real home service transcripts through every major AI model: GPT-4o-mini GPT-5.2 Gemini 3 Flash Claude Opus 4.6 Claude Sonnet 4.6 ClaraT™ (SearchLight’s domain-trained model with an ensemble architecture) and measured how accurately each one classified leads into three categories: Whether the lead was bookable Why it was unbookable (if applicable) Why a bookable lead did not convert Why? Because our clients make real decisions based on this data. Staffing decisions. Budget decisions. Decisions about which marketing channels to keep and which to cut. If the classification underneath those decisions is wrong even 10% of the time, the downstream cost is significant. General-purpose models clustered between 73–90% accuracy on bookable vs. unbookable. That's impressive for tools built to do everything, but for a GM trying to figure out why Tuesday's phones were slow, "pretty good" isn't good enough. ClaraT™, SearchLight's domain-trained model built on years of structured home services data and human experience, achieved 98.05%, more than 8% higher accuracy than the next-highest general model. That gap led us to explore a concept we're calling Decision-Grade Intelligence (DGI). Decision-Grade Intelligence is the point where data becomes accurate enough that you'd actually change how you run your business based on it. We've worked in data for over half a decade, and a core reason why we've been able to drive success for our clients is the willingness to get into the weeds and the details to maintain a standard of accuracy. Artificial intelligence, specifically LLMs, unlocks a new wave of productivity, and we're here to figure out how to close the accuracy gap between general models and domain-trained outputs. You can read the full analysis here: searchlightdigital.io/ai-lead-gradin…

ICYMI, we broke out Cost per Lead for Google Ads (averages from 816 HVAC/Plumbing businesses) in January 2026 across Brande campaigns, non-branded, PMax, and a blended average. Read more here: searchlightdigital.io/what-is-a-good…

Compared 3 AI CSR providers across on-call book rate, human transfer request rate, planned follow-up rate, and more in my latest newsletter. I also provide some commentary on 'book rate' - there's a lot more nuance that meets the eye and digging into that nuance can help stop revenue leaks. TheDataDrivenTrades dot Substack dot com

@Seth_Parker_ 🤝honored for that call out. Our team has poured so much of our lives into searchlight. To stay bootstrapped and solve messy data problems isn’t easy but we do genuinely care. Kevin’s dad is a plumber and that’s the seed for everything we do.

@jon_torrey I’ll never forget you being kind to me about our situation and hope to work with you all in the next 3 months

In January, HVAC and plumbing contractors paid an average of $104 just to show up at the front door of a new customer. Before paying for wages, vehicle, insurance, overhead… The “Google tax” is real, and painful for customers and contractors alike.

@MSUKyleBrown @SMBDistribution @STLChrisH Ah I see - no we don’t. Haven’t gotten there yet - we are still bootstrapped and growing like crazy so just have to prioritize but should that change I’ll let you know! Always happy to try and help where I can

@jon_torrey @SMBDistribution @STLChrisH Wholesale distribution businesses like Grainger, Fastenal, Ferguson, Uline, etc.

@MSUKyleBrown @SMBDistribution @STLChrisH Our largest sample is hvac/plumbing but we have roofers lawn care garage door pest control, but it’s a battle of time to get all that out, can you clarify what you mean by distribution?

@jon_torrey @SMBDistribution @STLChrisH Do you look at distribution at all? Or only HVAC/plumbing/electrical service businesses

Humbled that @STLChrisH shared this content - Substack being down right now sucks but all my channel analysis for contractors lives here - thedatadriventrades.substack.com

@SMBDistribution @STLChrisH The 5x is blended - I broke ROAS down by unbranded pmax etc - thedatadriventrades.substack.com

@STLChrisH Is it really a tax if you generate a 5x ROAS though ? Seems excellent, especially given scale against smaller competitors, no ?

@HockJohannes @STLChrisH Service type details are in the article but Substack is down right now :( - thedatadriventrades.substack.com

@STLChrisH $104 seems incredibly cheap for hvac. Is that a lot of service keywords? I’ve seen hvac replacement at $100 per click. The point about Google tax is very real and even higher than people think. If consumers would just scroll past the ads, their service could be 10% cheaper.

We tracked LLM-referred customers across 1,000 home service companies through December. The results are a bit of Jekyll and Hyde. Top performers are seeing real pipeline. The average contractor is getting almost nothing. Read more here: thedatadriventrades.substack.com/p/hvac-demand-… #hvacmarketing #trades #ai #marketing

Unbranded vs. Branded Google Ads performance for December is now LIVE in our latest newsletter! Just going 'one level deeper' with data can yield much more insight, but it always comes back to the fact that your business, your goals, your market, etc. are unique and have different needs. Read more here: thedatadriventrades.substack.com/p/unbranded-go… #hvacmarketing #homeservices

Does Facebook drive revenue for HVAC contractors? We analyzed $2.3M in Facebook ad spend across 262 HVAC advertisers to answer it, using closed revenue only, not modeled or view-through conversions. The results surprised us (especially the gap between average and top performers). It CAN work, but there's a gap and it needs to be monitored w/ proper expectations (demand gen vs. demand capture) Full breakdown, methodology, and 2025 benchmarks: searchlightdigital.io/what-is-a-good…

AI CSRs 'fumbled' 9% of bookable conversions from Google Local Service Ads in December 48% of bookable GLSAs in December did NOT book at the time of conversion. But the Closed ROAS in this sample was a 10x. That's a solid return that most of us would call a win and move on. That's the false positive. If I had one takeaway from these benchmarks, it's that removing friction at booking would significantly improve performance. Planned follow-up (the majority is business-to-customer, not the other way around) is one of the most frequent friction items, followed by pricing concerns and availability not aligning with the customer's needs. As we begin grading AI CSRs, similar patterns are emerging. The strategy is to remove the friction, the tactics may look different in your business...whether it is AI CSRs or Human CSRs the foundation is still what helps you win. Read more here: thedatadriventrades.substack.com/p/hvac-demand-…

I’ve never had an article rank as the top organic result on Google within 24 hours, until now. ...and I built and sold a blog for 5-figures in 18 months just a few years ago! Whenever I create content, the goal isn't to rank, sell, or feed my ego, as tempting as that can be during the process. The goal is to power-use the SearchLight platform and surface the most valuable, real-world insights from our data to help contractors make better decisions. The natural consequence of that process is highly ranked content and a lot of highly qualified inbound leads that do lead to sales. It’s SO hard not to drift toward writing what you think will rank. When that happens, I reset by asking a simple question: “Would I confidently email this to our top clients?” Of course, the content is structured for Google and LLMs, but those systems optimize for the best answers, not shortcuts. When you focus on answering fundamental questions with real data, the rankings tend to take care of themselves. You can read the article here: searchlightdigital.io/hvac-seo/ #hvacmarketing #HVAC #Trades

Pumped to start 2026 with LLM citing and landing the top organic slot on Google from an article that’s just a few days old. searchlightdigital.io/what-is-a-good…

Direct Mail outperformed Google Ads for this sample of HVAC contractors. ...sort've. Different sample sizes. But the median data for a 12-company sample running direct mail is very intriguing. Read more (free): TheDataDrivenTrades dot Substack dot com #hvacmarketing #hvac #directmail #trades #datadriventrades

LLMs generated 37% as much closed revenue as Google Organic for the top 1% of contractors in this November sample. On average, these businesses generated just over $22k in LLM-driven revenue opportunity and over $13k in closed revenue. Read the full November LLM performance breakdown at TheDataDrivenTrades. substack. com #hvacmarketing #hvac #trades #homeservices #LLM

@BlazeBTC For sure - we are excited to continue to track this and post monthly articles covering the trends

@jon_torrey curious to see lead generation a year from now in similar groups

76% of HVAC businesses in this 1k company sample got 0 unique leads from LLMs in November. But, the top 1% saw LLMs generated 37% as much closed rev as Google Organic. LLMs aren't performing just yet in aggregate - TheDataDrivenTrades dot Substack dot com #hvacmarketing