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Painting Marketing · Australia
Marketing for Painters and Decorators
Look up "painters near me" in Semrush's Australian data and the top result isn't a painter. It's Dulux's find-a-painter page, with Wattyl's version at position 6 and Airtasker and hipages in between. A painting business competes in search with the paint brands it buys from, and that shapes the rest of this page.
4,400Monthly Searches, Painters Near Me
15Difficulty, Painters Near Me
720Monthly Searches, Strata Painting
7Difficulty, Strata Painting
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Painting sits in an odd spot for marketing. Almost everyone can picture doing it themselves, so much of the search around it belongs to Bunnings, Dulux and YouTube rather than to painters. The people who do want a professional are usually weighing up several quotes, and some aren't homeowners at all: strata managers, builders and facilities staff buy painting too, in their own words.
We don't have painting results to show you yet. Below is the research we pulled from Semrush's Australian database, and how we would turn it into SEO, Google Ads and Meta Ads for a painting business.
What We Found
What Australian painting search data shows
Five patterns from Semrush's Australian database, checked 9 November 2026.
Paint brands sit above painters
In one national snapshot of "painters near me" (4,400 searches a month), Dulux held position 1 and Wattyl position 6. Airtasker, hipages, Localsearch and two painter networks took most of the rest, and only two of the ten were an independent painting company's own page.
DIY owns the how-to searches
"How to paint a room" gets 2,400 searches a month and "paint calculator" another 2,400. For "interior painting" itself, five of the top ten were YouTube videos or how-to pages from Bunnings and Dulux. Those searchers mostly plan to pick up the brush themselves.
Strata is a separate, easier market
"Strata painting" gets 720 searches at a difficulty of 7, and "strata painters sydney" another 590 at 6. In Queensland the word is body corporate: "body corporate painting" gets 390, also at 6. The buyer is a manager or a committee, not a homeowner.
Painters answer the price question
For "how much does it cost to paint a house" (590 searches), realestate.com.au ranked first, but five of the top ten were painting businesses' own cost guides for Melbourne, Perth, Canberra and Brisbane.
Cities differ more than you'd expect
"Painters sydney" has a difficulty of 58 and "painters melbourne" 56. "Painters adelaide" scores 8, and "house painters brisbane" scores 9. Where you work changes the plan.
How We Help
What each channel does for a painting business
Each channel has its own page with the numbers behind it.
SEO for painters
Near-me rankings, a cost guide built from your own quotes, and separate pages for strata and commercial buyers.
Google Ads for painters
Campaigns split by buyer, with paint-and-sip nights and DIY searches kept out from the first day.
Meta Ads for painters
Before-and-after photos of your own jobs, shown to homeowners inside your travel radius.
The Landscape
The challenges painting businesses face
Most of them come from selling a job people believe they could do on a weekend.
Marketplace leads are contested
Airtasker and hipages rank for the terms you want most, and a job posted there is often quoted by other painters as well. They can fill gaps in the diary, but relying on them means competing on price for most of your work.
The sale is a quote, not a booking
A homeowner asks for a quote, compares it and may decide weeks later. Marketing that stops counting at the enquiry can't tell a one-room touch-up from a full exterior repaint.
Weather moves the diary
Rain delays exterior jobs, and a wet fortnight can push a run of work back. Your marketing needs to swing between interior and exterior work as the diary changes.
Three buyers, three sales
A homeowner wants reassurance and a fair price. A strata manager wants proof of insurance and a plan for working around residents. A builder wants a painter who turns up when the schedule says. One homepage can't serve all three.
Licensing
Licensing differs by state, and it reaches your advertising
In NSW, residential painting work worth more than $5,000 in labour and materials (including GST) needs a contractor licence, though stand-alone internal painting contracts have been exempt since 2015, and a licensee's name and licence number must appear in all advertising. Queensland's QBCC licenses painting and decorating as its own class, with a $3,300 threshold for building work, and wants your licence number in advertising, social media pages included. Western Australia requires registration for painting work over $1,000 where its scheme applies. Victoria doesn't register painting-only work, but does once painting is combined with another trade, such as plastering, on a job over $10,000. We check your state's current rules before any ad goes live.
Our Evidence
What we can show you today
We have no painting work to point to yet, so here is the closest we have. AJ Concreting was a brand-new Adelaide concreting business with no digital footprint. Its Google Ads brought in 61 leads in the first 20 days on $800 of ad spend, and $140,000 worth of jobs were secured in that time. For SEO, Marley Flow, a Western Sydney cooling tower specialist, saw contact form submissions rise 550% within six months. Neither business paints, and neither result is a forecast for yours.
What You Get
A plan built around who is buying the paint job
- We ask where your last 30 jobs came from, and what each was worth, before choosing a channel
- Separate pages and campaigns for homeowners, strata and commercial work, if you do all three
- Your licence number shown wherever your state requires it
- Results reported as quotes requested and jobs won, not clicks
- Google Ads spend paid directly to Google and never marked up
Keyword and ranking figures: Semrush Australian database, checked 9 November 2026. Volumes, difficulty scores and click prices are Semrush estimates, and click prices are shown in US dollars. Rankings are a national snapshot, so local results will differ. Licensing: NSW Government, painting work (updated 23 June 2026) and building trade advertisements; QBCC, when you need a licence, painting and decorating and advertising; WA painters' registration (updated 17 August 2026); Consumer Affairs Victoria (updated 12 December 2025).
Common Questions
Painting marketing, answered
Should we stop paying for marketplace leads?
Not straight away. If they bring work at a price you're happy with, keep them while your own search presence grows, then compare the cost per won job from each source. The aim is to rely on them less, not to switch them off on day one.
Do strata and residential work need separate marketing?
Yes, if you want both. They use different words, buy on different terms and judge you on different things. A strata page that talks about feature walls and living room colours will lose a committee's attention quickly.
Do you already work with painters?
Not yet, and we won't pretend otherwise. Our closest published work is AJ Concreting for Google Ads and Marley Flow for SEO. We also have pages for roofers and plasterers, whose work often sits right next to yours.
Other Industries
Other trades we market
Let's grow together
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