Marketing Advice for Pool Companies in 2026…

It’s time once again to look at the changes ahead in 2026, and make smarter decisions about how to promote your swimming pool business.

My goal is to (1) help you avoid the shiny-object distractions of today, and (2) stay focused on the few crucial actions that will provide the biggest bang for the buck.

As always, the marketing fundamentals for a pool company remain the same:

• A modern website with great photos and a compelling story.
• A sophisticated marketing automation / sales CRM system that automatically nurtures your prospects while you’re out building pools.
• And a business culture that wins hearts and minds, and drives plenty of referrals, so you don’t have to do a lot of marketing and advertising.

While these marketing fundamentals have remained the same for many years, the marketplace itself has changed, in several ways.

The US pool buyer market remains suppressed, still suffering from what I call “The Post-COVID hangover.” I.e., Homeowners who might have bought a pool in 2025 aren’t buying now, because they already bought their pool in a panic back in 2020-2022.

That means there just aren’t as many new pool buyers today as there were three, five or ten years ago.

In fact, anyone paying attention has seen an undeniable drop-off in new pool leads. While this trend first became noticeable in the sunbelt states, it has now expanded to cover essentially all of the US and beyond. This is most glaringly obvious when you look at the number of local Google searches for “new pool” or “pool builder near me.” They are dramatically DOWN.

Ask any pool builder who ran Google ads in 2025, and they’ll most likely tell you they were disappointed in the results.

There’s a second market trend that exacerbates this problem even further. It’s what I’ve called “the bifurcation of the pool buyer market.” I’m referring to the growing chasm between wealthy buyers who have the cash and want something nice, and the budget-sensitive buyers who need financing, and are stretching to buy a pool they can barely afford.

Digital marketing agencies hate it when I say this, but the cold hard truth is that most wealthy people paying cash for a mid-6-figure backyard project don’t search on Google to find a pool builder. 

Most of these wealthy homeowners ask their architect or home builder or interior designer for a referral. Or they get recommendations from their circle of friends who own multi-million dollar homes like theirs.

That means most of the people who are searching on Google are NOT the affluent buyers. They are mostly the cash-strapped, budget-sensitive homeowners who are shocked to hear that an inground pool might cost more than $50,000.

And there aren’t very many of them.

So the leads are weak, under-qualified, and scarce. And you’ve got more competitors than ever driving up the cost per lead to ridiculous levels, as they desperately try to squeeze every possible lead they can out of Google.

Just like when there are too many lions, and not enough antelope to eat, I consider advertising your pool construction services on Google right now to be akin to fighting for survival on a dry, dusty savannah.

Probably not the best place to be right now, unless (1) you’ve got a really big budget, and (2) you are prepared to fight tooth and nail to win.

My advice? If I were a pool builder, I would be focusing on the people with money who want to spend $250,000 or more to transform their backyard.

Focus on networks and relationships, and go out of your way to win the hearts and minds of your wealthy clients and friends. Let the other builders fight over the scraps on Google.