In the world of digital marketing, it’s sometimes tough to forecast which campaigns will connect.
For Phillip Kent of Cooper Heating Cooling Plumbing and Electrical in the Denver area, an automated SMS campaign focused on open HVAC estimates opened some eyes.
“Last time I checked, that text message campaign has gotten $1.8 million in revenue year to date,” Kent, Cooper’s Marketing Director, said not yet six months into 2025.
Kent developed the campaign after a discussion with Cooper’s sales director. After studying the data, the pair determined that 10 days was the magic number where interest in a lead may wane, both from a customer and a sales standpoint.
Kent believes strongly in collaboration, so he decided to step in to support the sales team.
“We start out with an SMS on Day 10,” Kent said of the campaign set up in Marketing Pro within ServiceTitan, the cloud-based software for the trades. “Then we follow up with a couple of emails on the 14th day, the 21st day, and then on the 30th day, if it gets that far, which it usually doesn't.
“There's little carrots within the emails, like, ‘We'll give you a year of service for free.’ We try to build in that value as the lead time gets longer, adding a little bit more value for the customer.”
Brand awareness and regeneration
Kent came to Cooper with focused experience in digital marketing, including as founder and principal owner of PK Digital Marketing for almost eight years. He was sold on Cooper after his interview with Luke Cooper, the grandson of the founder.
Luke is a veteran who served in Afghanistan; he remains committed to the principles founder Gary Cooper established in 1978. The business now does $40 million in revenue, and has 150 employees.
Kent’s focus has been on brand awareness and regeneration. Another successful campaign was to refine and expand a simple ‘thank you’ effort via Marketing Pro into an automated campaign.
“There’s no real ROI way to count that, but we have 4,700 five-star reviews with like a 4.8 average,” Kent said. “That really shows thousands of people saying, ‘Hey, you guys are great.’ I leveraged the heck out of that.”
‘Our magic sauce … ’
Given his emphasis on cross-collaboration within the business, Kent said he starts his day with 40 open tabs pondering how everything fits for the ultimate goal.
“Keeping customers aware of what makes us different than any other HVAC company,” he said. “At the same time, being able to easily access our website, and book the services they need, whether it's through social, whether it's through Google Ads, organic SEO, stuff like that.”
He sets up his own campaigns on Marketing Pro, and takes advantage of Marketing Pro’s offerings to maximize a campaign’s potential.
“Our magic sauce,” he said, “is being authentic.”
PK partnered with Savannah Balde, Cooper’s CSR and Dispatcher, to launch an automated marketing campaign that connects directly with the call center workflow. Using Scheduling Pro in ServiceTitan, Savannah manages customer scheduling and real-time availability. Together, they created a system where customers receive personalized text and email messages—making it easy to book appointments at their convenience.
To measure performance, the campaign uses UTM links* to track which messages and channels are driving the most engagement and bookings. This collaboration ensures marketing efforts are aligned with call center operations to maximize results.
*UTM links are tags added to web addresses that help track where web traffic is coming from—like emails, ads, or social posts—so you can see which campaigns are driving results.
“Anytime we're running a special, I go to her to talk about where it is and how we're going to deliver it,” Kent said. “From there they can track that (campaign UTM) in Scheduling Pro. Because of that collaboration, we're better at tracking campaigns.”
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Leveraging successes
Kent compared himself to the guy with the sandwich board outside who draws people into the shop. At that point, Balde takes over.
“I was just building out a campaign for ceiling fans,” he said. “So I could track that and understand how the campaign name translates into ServiceTitan, as an underscore.”
Kent concedes his approach may differ from those who grew up in the trades, but he feels a fresh set of eyes can produce results that benefit everyone. He said the team has been pleasantly surprised at how its involvement benefits the company, and in turn the team.
“How do we leverage our successes?” he said. “We're ambitious enough to ask, how do we continue? How do we expand it?”
In the short term, the open estimate campaign will grow to include the plumbing and electrical divisions. In the long-term, Kent wants to leverage the data provided by ServiceTitan.
“Once we get into the fall, I am going to look more analytically,” he said. “What worked September, October, Q3 and Q4 (of 2024), and let's get that going now. How do we start building for that? What are the numbers of what we did for Q3/4, and what do we want to repeat? What do we want to try differently?
“Set it up. And then, just because of the knowledge I have, I can now set them up better.”
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Set Up A Campaign Like PK's in Minutes
Here’s how: Start by selecting the Open Estimates template in Marketing Pro, then connect it to Scheduling Pro so your customers can instantly book the work they’ve been putting off. With real-time availability and automated follow-up via text and email, you’ll turn open estimates into scheduled jobs—without lifting a finger. Seamlessly align marketing with operations and drive more revenue, from the work already sitting in your system.
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