The renovation sector in Spain is going through an odd moment. Demand keeps growing (over 380,000 homes were renovated in 2024 according to the Ministry of Housing) and at the same time almost every company in the sector still acquires clients the same way they did 20 years ago: word of mouth, cold-call sales reps, and not much else.
You know the result if you work in renovations: when there’s a project on you have too much work, when a big project ends you spend three weeks watching the phone. That workload roller coaster goes away with proper digital marketing. The keyword is “proper”, because most renovation companies that try Google Ads end up burning €1,500/month without a single qualified quote request.
This guide explains how digital marketing works specifically for renovation companies, which channels actually pay off and which are traps, and how to build a system that brings you 5-15 qualified quote requests a month without depending on intermediaries like Houzz or Habitissimo.
The real problem of the renovation sector (what almost nobody tells you)
Before talking about channels, there are three realities of the sector that completely change what works and what doesn’t.
Word of mouth is saturated. It’s still important, but it’s no longer enough. Clients who 10 years ago asked their brother-in-law now ask Google first and the brother-in-law afterwards. If you don’t appear on Google, you don’t even enter the conversation.
Intermediaries are eating your margin. Platforms like Houzz, Habitissimo, Reformas.com or newer ones like Reform Group operate as a toll road: they pass you leads but at the cost of 30-50% of the first project’s margin, they put you head-to-head with 5 other companies on price, and you never keep the client’s data to retain them. Anyone who plays that game lowers prices until they stop earning.
The purchase is highly emotional. A renovation is the second most expensive purchase of most Spaniards’ lives, after the home itself. The client does NOT compare prices coldly: they compare the feeling of being able to sleep at night during the 3-6 months the project lasts. That means the marketing that works in renovation is not the cheapest or the most aggressive: it’s the one that conveys “these guys won’t give me problems”.
If you understand those three points, digital investment decisions become much simpler.
The 4 channels that actually work in renovation
There are many digital channels and almost every guru will tell you you need to be on all of them. That’s not true and, on a limited budget, it’s ruinous. After working with several renovation companies, these are the four that pay off:
1. Local SEO. Showing up when someone searches “full renovation [your city]” or “kitchen renovation [your neighbourhood]” is pure gold: traffic is free, sustainable and highly qualified. Someone searching for that has already decided they need a renovation, now they’re just choosing the company.
2. Local search Google Ads. To cover the short term while SEO loads (which takes 4-9 months), search campaigns with geographic targeting work. Do NOT confuse with Performance Max or display ads: those usually burn budget in renovation.
3. Website with visual before/after tour. Your website is where the client decides whether to call you or close the tab. The difference between a generic renovation website and one with a strong gallery of before/after projects can be 200% more quote requests.
4. Google Business Profile + reviews. 78% of clients read at least 6 reviews before calling. A well-optimised Google profile with 30+ authentic reviews is worth more than any campaign.
The rest (Facebook Ads, organic Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, mass mailing) are usually distractions for renovation companies. If you have budget left after dominating the four above, we can talk.
Local SEO: how to rank for “renovations in [your city]”
Local SEO is the highest-ROI investment in the medium term for renovation. The reason is simple: searches are ultra-qualified (no one searches “renovations in Sant Cugat” without thinking about doing one) and costs are zero per click.
The 3-phase plan:
Phase 1: max out your Google Business Profile. Even before touching the website, optimise your Google profile: correct primary category (“Renovation company” or “General contractor”), secondary categories (carpentry, plumbing, electrical work if you do them in-house), service area defined city by city, 20-30 real photos of finished projects, updated hours and phone. This is the foundation.
Phase 2: local pages on your website. One page for each city or neighbourhood you want to work in, with specific content. It’s not “renovations in Catalonia” copied 50 times; it’s “Full renovations in Sant Cugat: how we work in 1970s flats” with real neighbourhood data (what type of housing dominates, what problems they typically have, examples of your projects in the area). One well-built 800-1,200 word page per zone.
Phase 3: pillar content and satellites. Blog articles answering the real questions of someone who’s about to renovate: “how much does it cost to renovate a bathroom in Barcelona”, “how long does a full renovation take in an 80m² flat”, “what does a serious renovation quote include”. Each article links to your local pages and to your service pages. This builds topical authority in Google’s eyes.
Realistic timeline: 4-6 months to start seeing traction, 9-12 months to have a stable flow. Anyone promising you “first page in 60 days” in renovation SEO is selling smoke.
For depth: we have a tactical guide on local SEO for renovation companies step by step with field-by-field Google Business Profile setup, a city page template and a geo-distributed review system.
Google Ads for renovation: campaign types that convert and the ones that burn money
Google Ads is the fastest weapon but also the most dangerous. I’ve seen renovation companies burn €3,000/month for half a year without a single client, and others bill €80,000 with €800/month invested. The difference isn’t luck: it’s the configuration.
What does work:
- Search campaigns with high-intent keywords: “full renovation [city]”, “kitchen renovation quote [area]”, “turnkey bathroom renovation [city]”. Exact or phrase match, NOT broad. Manual bidding or “maximise conversions” with target CPA, NEVER “maximise clicks”.
- Strict radial geographic targeting: 15-25 km around your operating base. Renovation is a local business; appearing in another province is throwing money away.
- Ads with call extension and form: a client about to request a quote isn’t going to navigate your website for 10 minutes. They want to call or leave their number.
- Specific landing pages by renovation type: someone searching “kitchen renovation” doesn’t want to land on a generic homepage. They want to see photos of finished kitchens and a short form.
What burns money (and what almost every company gets wrong):
- Performance Max: Google promises it learns on its own. In renovation, what it learns is to spend your budget on cheap but irrelevant clicks (people searching “DIY renovations” or tutorials). If they recommend it to you, ask for the real data before accepting.
- Mass display: banner ads on cooking blogs or DIY websites. Low CPCs but virtually no conversion.
- YouTube Ads without surgical targeting: brand videos when you don’t yet have awareness is like throwing notes in the air.
- Broad keyword match: showing up when someone searches “labour reform” or “education reform” is what happens when you let Google decide.
If you’re going to start with Google Ads in renovation, set a minimum budget of €500-700/month and don’t expect clear results before the first 2 months. Before that it’s algorithm learning and yours.
If you want to better understand sensible investment ranges, we have a full guide on how much Google Ads costs in 2026 with real figures by sector. And if you need the full technical setup specific to the sector (match types, mandatory negative keywords, account structure and landings by project type), it is all in Google Ads for renovation companies step by step.
Content that sells renovations: the “before/after visual tour” angle
The mistake 90% of renovation websites make is showing perfect “after” photos with no context. The white minimalist kitchen rendered by the architect looks beautiful, but does NOT sell: the potential client doesn’t recognise themselves in it.
What does sell is the before/after contrast. A photo of the old bathroom with damp, pink tiles and a half-broken bathtub, next to the finished new bathroom: that connects. The client thinks “my bathroom looks more like the before than the after”, imagines the result in their own home, and requests a quote.
Content pieces to produce each month:
- 2-3 complete cases with 8-15 before/after photos per project, real figures (project days, budget range, main technical decisions), optionally with time-lapse video.
- 1-2 pillar articles on frequent doubts (“can you live at home during a renovation?”, “what happens if they discover asbestos in my flat”, “how to choose between full and partial renovation”).
- 1 monthly reel showing the progress of a project with your face and the site manager’s face explaining decisions.
Visual content is what differentiates your brand most from anonymous competition. A renovation company with a face, with timelapses, with site managers appearing to explain decisions, conveys seriousness and reduces client anxiety. Anxiety is the main reason people postpone their renovations for years.
Real case: Ibossim Ibiza (premium villa renovations)
Ibossim is a client of ours in Ibiza specialising in full renovations and rehabilitation of high-end villas. Their problem when we started: they depended 80% on word of mouth among international clients and recommendations from a couple of estate agencies.
What we applied:
- New website with a strong gallery of finished projects, in Spanish + English (their target client buys from the UK, Germany and France).
- Local SEO optimised for “full renovations Ibiza”, “villa rehabilitation Ibiza”, “Santa Eulalia renovations” and similar.
- Google Ads in low seasons (October-March) when owners plan works for the next summer season.
- Content marketing focused on technical pieces: “rehabilitation of traditional Ibizan rooftops”, “how to renovate a villa with solar panels respecting original aesthetics”.
Results after 14 months:
- Organic traffic: +411% (from 1,800 to 9,200 visits/month).
- Qualified leads: +267% (from 15 to 55 per month).
- Reduction of dependence on the estate agency intermediary: dropped from 80% of leads via referral to 35%.
Full case in success stories.
Real case: Reformas en Pedralbes (premium residential renovations in Barcelona)
Reformas en Pedralbes is the second client we have in the sector. Here the context is different: premium residential in upper Barcelona, average ticket between €80,000 and €350,000, local client who lives in the city all year.
What we applied:
- Ultra local SEO (Pedralbes, Sarrià, Tres Torres, Sant Gervasi) with specific pages by neighbourhood and by property type.
- Search Google Ads with much more concentrated budget: €600/month but with CPA below €35 per quote requested.
- Highly polished visual cases: every finished project is documented with a professional photo session.
- Schema markup for localBusiness and Review optimised so Google reviews appear in results.
The key difference between Ibossim and Reformas en Pedralbes: at Ibossim the client buys from abroad, so the website has to sell on its own. At Reformas en Pedralbes the client lives 5 minutes from the office and only needs trust to call; the website acts as a pre-filter and the close happens at the first technical visit.
That difference shows in how we configure the two Ads accounts, the main CTAs of each website and the tone of the content. Same sector, almost the same core keyword, fairly different strategies. Don’t copy another renovation company’s marketing without first asking about their commercial context.
90-day plan for a small renovation company
If you read all this and think “all good but where do I start if we’re only 3 people and projects of €30,000-€80,000?”, here’s the minimum viable plan.
Days 1-30: Foundations
- Optimise your full Google Business Profile. 20 real photos minimum. Correct categories. Service area defined.
- Ask for reviews from your last 8-10 finished clients. Goal: go from 0-5 reviews to 15+ detailed reviews (not “very good” but “they renovated my 80m² flat in Sarrià in 3 months, no surprises”). See our guide on how to build authority on Google with content and local signals.
- Install Google Analytics 4 and Google Search Console on your current website. No measurement, no decision. Full step-by-step GA4 tutorial.
Days 31-60: Acquisition
- Create or rebuild a “Full renovations in [your city]” landing page with 8-15 before/after photos of real projects and a short form (4 fields max: name, phone, approximate m², city).
- Launch a single Google Ads search campaign with €200-300 initial monthly budget, strict geographic targeting and high-intent keywords. Measure it weekly.
- Start publishing 1 real case per month on the website, with before/after photos and a brief narrative (what the client asked for, what we proposed, budget range, project days).
Days 61-90: Honest scaling
- If the Ads campaign is delivering an acceptable CPA (in renovation, below €60-80 per quote requested), raise the budget to €500-700/month.
- Start content SEO: 2 articles per month answering real doubts of someone who’s about to renovate. Background work that pays off from month 6-9.
- Implement a simple lead tracking system (an Excel or a free CRM like HubSpot) to measure how many quotes are signed, average ticket and real profitability per channel.
By day 90 you should have the basic mechanics working and enough data to decide where to scale. If after 90 days you see NOTHING, there’s a configuration or brand differentiation issue, and the most profitable thing is to review it with someone external before continuing to throw money.
What we DON’T recommend in renovation digital marketing
If you’ve made it this far, we also owe you the things we usually see fail:
- Platforms like Habitissimo or Houzz as a main channel. It’s fine to start and test your offer, but if you don’t have a decent own website and depend 100% on them, they’re eating your margin.
- Advertising on Facebook Ads without a funnel behind. A renovation isn’t bought on impulse from Instagram. The most Facebook Ads serves in renovation is for retargeting people who already visited your website.
- Websites built with generic Wix/WordPress templates without strategy. A renovation website that doesn’t show finished projects with good photos doesn’t convert, no matter how much traffic it has.
- Positioning yourself as “the cheapest”. In renovation, being the cheapest is the worst strategy: it attracts problematic clients, burns your margin, and when they discover the project costs more than budgeted they get angry with you. Better to position yourself by seriousness, photos of finished projects without surprises and real reviews.
If you want to talk about digital marketing for your renovation company
We work with renovation companies in Barcelona, Ibiza and other cities in Spain, with tickets between €30,000 and €350,000. We’re not for everyone: if what you’re looking for is “the cheapest SEO on the market” or “200 leads/month in 30 days”, we don’t fit. If what you’re looking for is a sustainable system that gives you between 5 and 20 qualified quote requests per month, we can sit down to talk.
Book a 45-minute consultation with no commitment with José and we’ll see if your case fits how we work. If it doesn’t fit, we’ll tell you in the first 10 minutes. If it does, we’ll explain what would make sense to do in your specific case, in what order and with what realistic budget. No long-term contracts, no blocked agreements, no mass linkbuilding. Just SEO and Ads done well.
What you see is what you pay. Period.