Who we are
A two person team, and that is the point.
You will not be handed off to an account coordinator who has never run your ads. The person who builds your campaigns is the person who answers your text. We keep the client list short so that stays true.
The short version
We market service businesses, and we are honest about what works.
Built To Optimize started in 2013 in New Jersey. We work with contractors and service companies: roofing, plumbing, landscaping, restoration, doors and glass, fleet services, and more. Some clients are one truck. Some run multiple locations.
The common thread is that they sell a job that starts with a phone call. So that is what we optimize for. Not impressions, not traffic, not a dashboard that looks busy. Booked calls and submitted forms that turn into work.
Google Ads is our specialty and it is usually the fastest path to lead flow. It is not the only tool we use, and if it is not the right first move for your business we will tell you on the first call.
Just getting started, or running solo? Good. Many of our clients started with one truck. We build the foundation first: get you verified, get the phone ringing, then grow it with you.
We take a limited number of accounts at a time. When we are full, we say so instead of hiring our way through it.
The team
The two people you will actually talk to.
Virginia Buechel
Virginia has worked in marketing since 2012, on both sides of the table. She has run marketing inside service companies, so she knows what it costs when the phone does not ring, and she has managed the ad accounts that make it ring. She builds every campaign, handles the weekly optimization, and is the person on your strategy calls.
She is the one who will tell you when a keyword, a service line, or a whole channel is not worth your money.
Jon LiVolsi
Jon supports accounts on the creative and brand side: ad and landing page copy, social and content assets, and keeping the day to day moving so nothing sits waiting. If you send over photos of a finished job, he is usually the one turning them into something you can run.
He is a second set of eyes on your account, not a layer between you and your strategist.
How we work
Four things we do differently.
None of this is complicated. It is just uncommon, because most of it is work that does not scale.
Tracking before spending
Calls and forms are tracked and verified before a campaign goes live. If we cannot prove a lead came from an ad, we will not claim it did, and we will not let you pay for it blind.
We turn Google's defaults off
Google's automatic settings are built to spend your budget, not to protect it. Broad match creep, auto applied recommendations, display partners you never chose. We audit those every week.
Flat fees, no spend percentage
We do not take a cut of your ad budget. A percentage model pays an agency to spend more of your money, which is exactly the wrong incentive.
Plain language reporting
Monthly reports that say how many leads you got, what each one cost, what we changed, and what we are doing next. No forty page PDF you will never open.
What we believe
If it will not make you money, we will say no.
Plenty of agencies will sell you another service because you asked for it. We would rather keep a client for five years than add a line item for three months. That means we sometimes talk owners out of paid ads entirely, and point them at their phone process, their Google Business Profile, or their follow up instead.
It is a slower way to grow an agency. It is also why our clients stay.
- No long term contracts, ever
- No setup fees
- Your ad account and data stay yours
- Direct text and phone access to your strategist
- Honest answers, including the ones that cost us money
Industries we work in
We know how these businesses actually get customers.
Because we work in these trades every day, we know the search terms that waste money before we spend yours.
Talk to the person who would run your account.
Fifteen minutes, no pitch deck, no junior salesperson. You will get an honest read on your account and what we would change first.