The situation
A national pest control company hires field technicians and sales staff and every spring its hiring needs jump. The goal was to target branches that needed applicants most and grow hiring through the busy season without letting the cost of each application creep up.
What we changed
We started with a budget estimate for every branch, built from that branch’s own cost per application and instead of spreading evenly across each branch, we took a predictive look at what it actually took to get applicant volume that was needed.
We also standardized job titles across every branch to ensure visibility and simplicity for candidates. This simplification made it easier to compare when using our reporting platform.
The results
With the organic marketplace changes from Indeed and a reduction in additional organic flow, we knew 2026 was going to be challenging and expected an increase in our costs to acquire a candidate.
However, for January through September 2026, spending and its applications both grew about 5 to 10% percent over the same months in 2025, cost per application held steady near $9.80. In other words, the added budget bought a matching number of added applicants.
Why it worked
Hyper-targeted budgets allowed this client to maintain strong visibility overall and reduce paid traffic to branches that did not need the support. The predictive marketing platform that we have deployed allowed the local teams to understand their expected candidate flow and allocate accordingly.
The team sees every result by branch and role, so there’s never a question about where the budget went. You can read more about how we work with pest control companies.
Hiring across a lot of branches? Let us know, and we’ll walk you through how we’d plan it.