Lead generation for a removal company is the work of turning people who search Google for a move (quotes, prices, local firms) into survey requests that are tracked, filtered and have a known cost. On 12 Italian removals searches we downloaded on a smartphone on 10 November 2026, quote portals and directories held 46 of 115 organic positions, and at least one sat in the top ten of every search.
The Italian market is the one we measured, but the pattern travels. In the UK, "removal companies near me" gets 9,900 searches a month and "removals quotes" 320, at an average of $18.77 a click (DataForSEO, Google Ads UK, November 2026).
Most removal firms know where their work comes from: word of mouth, the block of flats where they moved someone last spring, the van parked outside with the phone number on the side.
Then someone types "removal company" into Google. On the Italian equivalent, "ditta traslochi", eight of the first nine results were portals and directories.
The mistakes we see most often:
- buying requests from a portal that sends them to four, five or six firms, and finding out later you paid to join a price war;
- a Business Profile that lists only the town where the yard is, while the work covers the whole county;
- no idea how many moves each channel produced, so at the end of the year the wrong one gets cut.
How the website should be built is covered in our guide to a removals website; CPCs, negative keywords and budget in Google Ads for removal companies; organic rankings for trades in SEO for tradesmen. This piece covers what sits in between: which searches you can win, which leads you pay for, how you filter them and what each finished move costs you.
Why listen to us, if we have no removals case studies?
Because we work with businesses that sell quoted jobs with a home visit in the middle. For Valore Solare, a solar installer, Google Ads went from 9 enquiries at €212 each in October 2025 to 1,506 enquiries at an average of €70.78 once tracking was rebuilt.
For Contesini Consulenze, two energy advice desks near Mantua, 299 enquiries at €7.20 each, with 68% becoming sales opportunities.
Let's start with the data.
Where removal enquiries start on Google (46 portal results out of 115)
Portals win generic searches; removal firms win searches with a town and a service in them. On "removal company near me" in Italian, portals had 8 of 10 results; on "office removals Milan", just one.
| Search (Italian) | Monthly searches (Italy) | Portals and directories in top 10 | Removal firms in top 10 | Local map pack |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ditta traslochi (removal company) | 1,600 | 8 of 9 | 1 | yes |
| ditta traslochi vicino a me (near me) | not measured | 8 of 10 | 2 | yes |
| quanto costa un trasloco (how much does a move cost) | 1,000 | 2 of 9 | 2 | no |
| preventivo trasloco (removal quote) | 480 | 2 of 9 | 6 | yes |
| traslochi internazionali (international removals) | 320 | 5 of 10 | 5 | yes |
| traslochi milano (removals Milan) | not measured | 2 of 10 | 4 | yes |
| trasloco ufficio milano (office removals Milan) | not measured | 1 of 10 | 8 | yes |
The reading is simple.
On generic searches you pay the portal, or you pay Google Ads to sit above it.
On searches with a town and a service you can win on your own, with one page per area and one per type of move.
11 of the 12 searches also showed the local pack with the map. That is the third channel, and it is not paid per lead.
Quote portals: how many firms get the same request (4 to 6)
A quote portal collects a customer's request and passes it to several local firms, who pay to receive it or to be listed. We read the public pages of seven Italian portals on 10 November 2026: none of them publishes the price of a request.
| Portal (Italy) | How many firms get the request | How the firm pays | Public price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Traslochi24 | up to 6 quotes for the customer | trial, then per request received | no |
| Sirelo | up to 5 movers | per request received, subscription plans | no |
| Cronoshare | up to 4 professionals | sign-up at no cost, then contact | no |
| Traslochi-Online | up to 4 quotes for the customer | company listing at no cost | no |
| ProntoPro | "4 quotes" on the Turin page | not described on the page we read | no |
| Portale del Traslocatore | up to 10 featured firms per town | requests bought with an account, visibility packages | no |
| Macingo | not stated | "no subscription fee", commission not stated | no |
The UK is more transparent. 9amleads says a shared removals lead usually goes to three to five firms and costs between £15 and £50, and Sirelo runs the same model in Britain as in Italy.
So should you avoid portals?
No. They bring requests from day one, while a Business Profile and website pages take months. The problem is buying without knowing how many competitors get the same customer.
Before you pay, ask in writing:
- how many firms each request goes to, and whether an exclusive option exists;
- whether you can choose the towns and the type of move (no van hire, no house clearances if you do not do them);
- whether requests with a wrong phone number are refunded;
- whether there are fixed costs on top of the requests.
A shared request is won on price or on speed. Both are cheaper to control on your own channels.
Do you know what a finished move really costs you?
Seven portals out of seven do not publish the price of a request, and the same request can reach six firms. Let us look together at where your moves come from today, what each one costs and which channels you can switch off.
Book a strategy callBusiness Profile and reviews: the channel you do not pay per lead
Your Business Profile is what appears in the local pack, above most portals. Google says local ranking depends on relevance, distance and prominence; reviews feed the third.
Three things to fix first.
- A service area with the real towns, not just the city: how to set it without showing your address is in our guide to the Google Business Profile service area.
- A review requested after every finished move, with a ready message and a direct link. The method is in our guide to getting Google reviews.
- Real photos of vans, crews and lifts, kept current: they are what customers compare between one profile and the next.
Then there is the paid version of the profile. In Italy, Google's Local Services Ads list a "Traslochi" (removals) category: you pay per lead, not per click. The UK guide to Local Services Ads lists the categories open in Britain. How they compare with a standard campaign is in our Google Ads guide for removal companies.
The pages that bring quote requests (house clearances: 1,600 Italian searches a month)
Every service you offer is a lead source of its own. The searches with the most volume are not always the ones with "removals" in them.
| Search (Italian) | Monthly searches (Italy) | Average Google Ads CPC |
|---|---|---|
| ditta traslochi (removal company) | 1,600 | $5.06 |
| sgombero cantine (cellar clearance) | 1,600 | $2.86 |
| quanto costa un trasloco (how much does a move cost) | 1,000 | $3.15 |
| preventivo trasloco (removal quote) | 480 | $8.59 |
| piccoli traslochi (small moves) | 390 | $3.30 |
| deposito mobili (furniture storage) | 320 | $6.25 |
| traslochi internazionali (international removals) | 320 | $11.06 |
| trasloco ufficio (office removals) | 90 | $6.52 |
Two things stand out.
International removals cost $11.06 a click, nearly four times a clearance search. If you do them, they deserve their own page and their own form, with the right questions (country, date, volume).
"How much does a move cost" gets 1,000 Italian searches, and two of the six sources cited by the AI Overview on that question were removal firms, next to a property portal and a quote marketplace. An honest price page, listing what changes the bill, is one of the few informational pages that makes the phone ring.
Which pages you need and how to write them is in the removals website guide; why a site full of visits brings no enquiries is in website not generating leads.
When enquiries arrive (UK near-me searches: 6,600 in December, 12,100 in August)
Removal searches have a season, and lead generation should follow it. In Italy "piccoli traslochi" (small moves) went from 110 searches in November and December 2025 to 590 in June, July and September 2026. In the UK, "removal companies near me" went from 6,600 in December 2025 to 12,100 in August and September 2026.
And in the quiet months?
You build what works in the busy ones: area pages, reviews on the profile, the price page. A page published in December has a few months to get found before May. A page published in June arrives late.
The same goes for budget: spending the same every month means paying for December clicks as if they were June clicks, with far fewer searches behind them.
Replying and filtering: the job is won before the survey
A removal enquiry is worth as much as the reply it gets. If the same request also reached three other firms, the customer books the survey with whoever calls back first and asks the right questions.
To filter without wasting time you need a few facts, asked in the form or in the first message:
- pickup and delivery towns, to drop out-of-area jobs straight away;
- floor, lift and van access, which decide whether you need an external lift;
- date or period, to see if the job fits the calendar;
- photos or a video of the rooms, which sometimes replace the first survey.
The full form, field by field, is in the removals website guide. What matters here is the other half: who replies, how fast, and where the outcome is recorded. Without that, none of the sums in the next section hold up.
What a lead costs (and what a finished move costs)
Cost per lead is a channel's spend divided by the requests it brings; cost per move is the same spend divided by confirmed moves. The second number is the one that decides where the money goes.
An example with measured CPCs and stated assumptions. A click on "removals quotes" in the UK costs $18.77 on average. If one visit in ten leaves a request, the request costs about $188; if one quote in four becomes a move, each move carries about $750 of advertising. On a local flat move that does not add up; on a long-distance or international job it can.
What if your real percentages are different?
Exactly: they have to be measured, not guessed. Three columns are enough.
| Channel | How you pay | What to record for each request |
|---|---|---|
| Quote portals | per request or per package | portal, date, quote outcome |
| Local Services Ads | per lead | valid or disputed lead, outcome |
| Google Ads | per click | search term, call or form, outcome |
| Business Profile and website | time and content | which page or the profile, outcome |
Calls are the part most often lost. Google Ads can count them with call reporting; for the profile, a dedicated number or the question "how did you find us?" on every call does the job.
On Valore Solare, when we took over the account, the recorded conversions were 15,267 technical website events against 5,467 clicks: Google was learning from the wrong contacts. First fix what you count, then decide how much to spend. We compared the tools for keeping these numbers in our guide to the best lead generation tools.
What ChatGPT reads when someone asks who should do their move (1 firm in 4 cited from its own site)
ChatGPT and AI Overviews recommend the firms they find described with checkable facts: years trading, services, areas, reviews. On 10 November 2026 we asked ChatGPT, with web search on and in Italian, which firm to call for a three-room flat in Turin.
It named four firms. The first, Move & Go, came from its own website, quoting what the site states plainly: trading since 1988, home survey, itemised written quote, external lift up to 38 metres. The other three came from two directories (traslocami.it and traslocodiretto.com), with ratings and review counts. The price range, €600 to €1,000, came from another Turin firm's price page.
AI Overviews look similar: in the 5 Italian searches where DataForSEO returned the sources, the Macingo marketplace was cited in 4.
So what brings leads also brings citations: a site that states precise facts, a profile with reviews, and a presence in the directories AI tools read. Nobody can guarantee a citation; the method for improving the odds is in our guide to local AI visibility.
Frequently asked questions about lead generation for removal companies
It depends: portals bring requests from day one, but the same request goes to 4 to 6 firms depending on the portal (in Italy Traslochi24 up to 6, Sirelo 5, Cronoshare 4), and none of the seven Italian portals we read on 10 November 2026 publishes its price. In the UK, 9amleads puts shared removals leads at £15 to £50. It is worth it if you track confirmed moves for every pound spent and compare them with your profile, website and ads.
It depends on the channel: Italian portals do not publish prices, while on Google Ads a UK click on "removals quotes" costs $18.77 on average and an Italian click on "preventivo trasloco" $8.59 (DataForSEO, November 2026). Cost per lead is spend divided by requests; the number that matters is spend divided by confirmed moves.
Yes. On searches with a town and a service, such as office removals in Milan, 8 of the top 10 results were removal firms' own sites: without a page for that service you are not on that list. And in our Turin test, ChatGPT picked as its first choice the firm that described its services and equipment on its own site.
From spring to early autumn: in the UK, "removal companies near me" reached 12,100 searches a month in August and September 2026, against 6,600 in December 2025 (Google Ads UK). The quiet months are the time to prepare pages and collect reviews.
Lead generation for removal companies, in short (and the sum to do at month end)
Portals win generic searches: 46 results out of 115 in Italy.
Firms with the right pages win searches with a town and a service.
A portal request also reaches 3 to 5 other firms.
Profile, reviews and service area are the only channel not paid per lead.
Measure the cost per finished move, not per request.
Our view: a removal company does not need to leave the portals; it needs to stop depending on them. If you want to know where your moves come from today and what each one costs, we can look at it together through our lead generation service.
One last thing. Searches drop in December and pick up in spring: the most useful month for a removal firm's lead generation is the one when the phone rings least, because it is the only one with time to write the pages and ask for the reviews that will work in June.
