Texas HVAC marketing: a season-by-season playbook for contractors

Why does Texas HVAC marketing need a seasonal plan?

Because demand swings hard across the year. In July and August, the four big Texas metros average about 27 to 29 days a month at 90°F or hotter. In January, they average none. One set of ads and one budget split cannot serve both. A seasonal plan changes the offer, the channel mix and the calendar setup as the weather turns.

I'm Sam. I run audits, strategy and media buying at Scale Theory. We are an HVAC-only lead generation agency, new to the US, with no Texas clients yet. My brother Alan and I are based in Sydney, Australia, and work Central Time hours for Texas contractors. So this is not a case study. It is the calendar we plan with, built on public climate data you can check yourself.

The numbers in this post come from NOAA's 1991 to 2020 climate normals for one airport or city station in each metro: DFW Airport, Houston Intercontinental, Austin Camp Mabry and San Antonio International. Neighborhoods and suburbs can run a little hotter or cooler than the station, but the pattern holds.

How hot does each Texas metro get, month by month?

Very hot, for a long time. NOAA normals show all four metros averaging between 106 and 123 days a year at or above 90°F. The heat starts in May, runs almost every day in July and August and holds well into September. That is five months of peak replacement demand.

Average days per month at or above 90°F, 1991 to 2020 normals:

November through February average close to zero days at 90°F in every metro, so they are left out of the table. The last row matters for winter: DFW has nearly three times as many freezing nights as Houston.

What should Texas HVAC contractors run in spring?

Spring, March and April, is for filling your summer install calendar before the heat arrives. Run Meta ads with a pre-summer replacement offer aimed at homeowners with older systems, plus maintenance plan offers. Few days reach 90°F yet, so urgency comes from the calendar, not the weather.

This is the most underused window in Texas. Homeowners who limped through last August with a 15-year-old system know it is coming. A message like "replace before summer, installs booking for April and May" gives them a reason to act while your crews still have room.

What we set up in spring:

• Offer: pre-summer system replacement, with financing if you offer it, and a maintenance plan for anyone not ready to replace.
• Channel: Meta-heavy at our default split of $2,500 Meta and $1,500 Google on $4,000 a month.
• Qualifier: the timing question does the work here. "Within a month" goes to Priority. "Before summer" goes to a booked estimate with a softer follow-up.
• Calendar: agree with your comfort advisors which estimate slots stay protected for replacements from May to September.

What changes when the Texas heat arrives in May and June?

The budget flips toward Google. In May, the metros average 7 to 12 days at 90°F or hotter, and in June about 22 to 24. More homeowners are searching with a system that is struggling or dead. Search ads catch that intent. Meta keeps running to reach homeowners who have not searched yet.

Around the first week of May, we move to $2,500 on Google and $1,500 on Meta. Search campaigns focus on replacement and installation terms, such as AC replacement, new AC unit, heat pump replacement and HVAC replacement in your service area. We add negatives to keep repair-only and window unit searches out, because those leads never route to Priority.

June is also when your CSR team gets buried. The 60-second reply, the text-and-call sequence and the booked estimate with answers attached are what stop replacement leads from sitting in a queue behind tune-up calls.

How do you handle the peak in July and August?

Protect replacement estimate slots and keep the qualifier strict. In July and August, every metro averages about 27 to 29 days at 90°F or hotter, and Austin averages 13 days at 100°F or hotter in August alone. Leads are plentiful. What runs out is calendar space for estimates and installs.

Three things matter most at the peak:

1. Speed. A homeowner whose system died at 4 p.m. on a Saturday is filling in several forms. The first company to call gets the conversation.
2. Capacity. If your earliest estimate slot is 9 days out, homeowners will book whoever can come Thursday. Watch booked estimates against advisor capacity every week, and cut ad spend before you let leads wait.
3. Filtering. Repairs pour in during the peak. Send them to your service line, not your comfort advisors.

The Friday report matters most in these weeks: ad spend by channel, qualified leads, booked estimates, cost per booked estimate and jobs sold.

What should run in September and October?

September is still summer in Texas. The metros average 16 to 20 days at 90°F or hotter, so keep the Google-heavy split through the month. In October, the heat drops to 4 to 6 days, and it is time to move back to Meta and start the off-peak offers.

September is also when you ask for reviews from every summer install, if the automated review request after each install has not already done it. More recent reviews on your Google Business Profile help in every season after.

October is the handover month: flip the budget back to $2,500 Meta and $1,500 Google, send a last "summer is over, your system is not getting younger" message to everyone who got an estimate in summer and did not buy, and start the winter offers.

What should Texas HVAC contractors run in winter?

Winter, November to February, is for heat pump heating, AC and furnace changeouts and maintenance plans. Texas homes need real heat for a few months, especially in DFW. We call this Off-Peak Fill: shoulder and winter offers that keep install crews working and seed the spring calendar.

The winter offer depends on how homes in the metro heat. The Census Bureau's 2024 American Community Survey shows how occupied homes heat in each metro:

• San Antonio: about 71% electricity, 25% utility gas. Mostly heat pump and electric heat territory.
• DFW: about 60% electricity, 37% utility gas.
• Austin: about 57% electricity, 38% utility gas.
• Houston: about 53% electricity, 44% utility gas. The biggest furnace share of the four.

So a DFW or Houston winter campaign should run both a heat pump offer and an AC plus furnace changeout offer. In San Antonio, heat pumps lead. DFW also has the coldest winters of the four: about 2,220 heating degree days a year in the NOAA normals, against about 1,266 in Houston, and about 29 nights a year at or below freezing.

Which Texas utility rebates can you mention in ads?

Only the ones you qualify for, named accurately and linked. Austin Energy, CenterPoint and CPS Energy all publish residential HVAC incentives with contractor requirements. Oncor runs efficiency programs in DFW, but we could not verify current residential HVAC rebate amounts. Rebates change, so check the program page before every season.

What each program's own page says, as of September 30, 2026:

• Austin Energy: central and mini-split AC rebates of "$600" to "$800" and heat pumps of "$650" to "$950" by efficiency tier. The existing system and the home must be 10 years old or older, and "You must use an Austin Energy participating contractor."
• CenterPoint Energy (Houston): incentives that "start at $200 and may increase, depending on your installation", for central AC, heat pumps and mini-splits at 15.2 SEER2 and above, applied to the invoice "when you work with a participating contractor".
• CPS Energy (San Antonio): per-ton rebates from "$115/cooling ton" to "$310/cooling ton" for early replacement and "$90/cooling ton" to "$275/cooling ton" on burnout, by SEER2 tier. Equipment must be installed by a Texas-licensed HVAC contractor, and a permit number is required inside San Antonio city limits.
• Oncor (DFW): runs efficiency programs through Take A Load Off Texas. Current residential HVAC rebate amounts were not verified.

A per-ton rebate like CPS Energy's makes a good ad line, because the homeowner can picture it: a bigger, more efficient system earns more. Keep the wording to what the program says and never call it free money.

How does the playbook change for each Texas metro?

The calendar is the same everywhere, but each metro leans differently. DFW has the coldest winters and the most contractors. Houston has the biggest furnace share. Austin has the most 100°F days. San Antonio is the most electric. Each city page covers local detail.

• Dallas-Fort Worth: the biggest market and the strongest winter season of the four, so furnace plus AC changeouts carry more weight from November to February.
• Houston: the highest gas heat share of the four and about 111 days a year at 90°F or hotter, with CenterPoint's participating contractor incentives worth naming if you qualify.
• Austin: about 29 days a year at 100°F or hotter and generous Austin Energy rebates, limited to homes and systems 10 years or older.
• San Antonio: the highest electric heat share and CPS Energy's per-ton rebates, which make heat pumps the lead offer all year.

All four sit under our Texas HVAC marketing hub. The system that runs the ads, qualifier, 60-second reply and follow-up in every season is the HVAC Profit Machine.

Sam

Co-founder. Audits, strategy and media buying

Sam runs every strategy call and buys every ad. Before going HVAC-only, he ran a performance marketing agency: SEO, Meta and Google ads, CRM automation.

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