Issue No. 001
2026
A marketing agency for the trades

The tools to grow your trade.

[ The Short Version ]

A marketing agency for the trades — plumbers, electricians, HVAC techs, roofers, landscapers. You run the business. We keep the phone ringing.

SEO, paid ads, and tracking that adds up to booked jobs. We work like a sub, not an agency — show up, do the work, tell you straight. Month-to-month, every time.

[ By operators, for operators ]

Toolbelt is run by operators, not marketers. The founders came up in electrical shops, painting crews, and renovation companies — blue-collar families, owner-operator businesses. We ran our own in the trades before we ran marketing for them.

Years in the trade
14+
Combined founder experience — trades businesses we ran, then trades marketing we built for other operators
Pipeline built (lifetime)
$42M
Tracked from first lead to signed job, across the founders’ prior work
Long-term contracts
0.
Month-to-month. No 12-month lockup. No early-termination fee.
01 / THE TOOLKIT

Three tools.
Pick the ones you need.

Tool 01 / SEO & Local The Wrench
— Slow, steady, compounds for years.

The long game. We get your business showing up when someone in your zip code types "emergency plumber near me" at 11pm on a Tuesday — and we keep it there. Slow to start, but it pays off for years.

  • Google Business Profile
  • Service-area pages
  • Review pipelines
  • Local citations
  • Technical site fixes
  • Monthly content
Starts at
$2,400/mo
Tool 02 / Paid Acquisition The Nail Gun
— Fast. Loud. Repeatable.

When you need to fill the schedule next week, not next quarter. Google Search, Local Service Ads, Meta retargeting — built around booked jobs, not vanity clicks. We watch your cost-per-job daily.

  • Google Search Ads
  • Local Service Ads
  • Meta & Instagram
  • Landing pages
  • Call tracking
  • Daily optimization
Starts at
$3,200/mo
Tool 03 / Tracking & Reporting The Tape Measure
— You can't fix what you can't see.

Call tracking and attribution wired into your ad platforms. A monthly report on one page, in plain English. A direct line to the team running your work for everything in between.

  • Attribution tracking
  • Call tracking
  • Monthly report
  • Quarterly review
  • Direct line to your team
  • Same-day response
Included with
Every plan
[ 02 / The approach ]

We work like a subcontractor, not an agency.

You get a direct line to the operator running your account. The monthly report is one page — booked jobs, cost per booked job, revenue attributed to channel. Decisions move fast because the person making them is the one doing the work.

Same side of the table as you. We treat your shop like our own crew — because for most of our work, that’s exactly what it’s been.

Month-to-month, every time. No 12-month lockup. No early-termination fee.

[ THE ENGAGEMENT ]

What you’re not paying for

  • An account manager between you and the work
  • A dashboard you’ll never log into
  • A 12-month contract you can’t escape
  • Hourly billing tacked on top of fees
  • Strategy decks dressed up as deliverables

What you’re paying for

  • Direct line to the operator doing the work
  • One report. Real revenue numbers.
  • Month-to-month. Cancel any month.
  • Flat fee. Quoted up front.
  • Plain English. Every conversation.
[ 03 / Why now ]

The landscape is shifting fast. We’ve kept the playbook current.

AI.
Google AI overviews, voice search, conversational queries — half the searches that used to send people to blue links now end somewhere else. We rebuild the playbook every quarter to stay visible across all of it.
Local.
On mobile, the three-pack on Google Maps gets more taps than every blue link below it combined. We get clients into the top of the local pack and defend the position with active GBP work, reviews, and citations.
Wired.
Call tracking and ad-platform attribution have caught up to where the trades need them. You can know which ad call turned into a booked job — instead of guessing. We wire it into every account we run.

Most of what worked for trades marketing five years ago doesn’t move the needle today. AI changed how people search. The local pack outweighs organic blue links on mobile. Attribution finally caught up to what matters — booked jobs, not clicks. Waiting six months to start is choosing to start six months behind.

04 / WHAT CLIENTS SAY

Real shops.
Real numbers.

CASE FILE — 2025
Marino & Sons Heating + Cooling · Calgary, AB
Toolbelt didn’t try to explain marketing to me. They listened to how my shop actually runs, then built the marketing around it. Four months in, our cost-per-job is half what it was — and I haven’t sat through a single slide deck.
JM
Joe Marino
OWNER · 12 TRUCKS · 31 YEARS IN THE TRADE
Cost-per-booked-job
(month 1 vs month 4)
−47%
Booked jobs from paid search
(month 1 vs month 4)
2.8x
Local pack visibility
across service zips
#1/8
[ 05 / The fine print ]

Specs
& specifics.

Most agencies hide this stuff. We put it on the homepage so you can decide if we're a fit before we ever get on a call.

Who we serve
Plumbing, HVAC, electrical, roofing, landscaping, pest control, garage doors, painters, GCs, handyman. Residential and light commercial. Two trucks to twenty.
Where we work
Anywhere in the US or Canada. We’re based in Canada and our clients run from Vancouver to Tampa. Time zones don’t slow us down.
What we charge
Flat monthly fee. No hidden hourly. No setup fees. The number you sign for is the number you pay — same amount every month, no surprises.
What we don’t do
Standalone social media management. Cold outbound. Anything we don’t think actually books more jobs. We focus tight on purpose — if you need work we don’t offer, we’ll point you to someone who does it well.
How fast we start
Most engagements go live within 10 business days of signing. Paid ads are usually the first thing running.
Cancellation
Send an email. 30 days notice. No clawbacks, no penalties.
Ready when you are

Strap in.
Scale up.

Twenty minutes on the phone. You tell us what you're trying to grow. We tell you straight if we can help — and if we can't, who can.

If we can't help, we'll tell you who can.