PestWorld 2026 in Grapevine: the marketing questions to bring to the floor

What PestWorld is

PestWorld is the National Pest Management Association's annual conference and the largest pest control trade show in the country. The 2026 edition is at the Gaylord Texan in Grapevine, which puts it inside the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex for the first time in years. The published program runs four days: education sessions, a main stage, and an exhibit hall NPMA describes as the industry's largest, with more than 250 exhibitors across 128,000 square feet. The same week and the same venue host the Texas Roofing Conference, so the hotel will be full of home service owners.

Why pest control marketing is different from the rest of home services

A roofer sells one job. A pest control company sells a route. The economics that matter are the signed recurring plan, the retention rate across quarters, the route density that decides whether a new customer is profitable or a 40-minute drive, and the seasonal spikes (termite swarm season in spring, mosquito and rodent demand through summer and fall) that produce one-off calls which should be converted to plans rather than counted as wins.

Most marketing vendors on the PestWorld floor will talk about leads. The owner's number is different: cost per signed plan, by channel, and the retention of plans that came from each channel a year later. A channel that produces cheap one-off calls that never convert to quarterly service is not a cheap channel.

What the floor will sell you, and the question for each booth

• Lead vendors and marketplaces. Ask whether the lead is exclusive, and ask what share of their leads are one-off treatments versus plan signups. Ask to hear a recorded call.
• Software and routing platforms. Essential for the route. Ask how a signed plan is tied back to the marketing channel that produced it, because most platforms can route a truck and cannot attribute a customer.
• Marketing agencies. Three questions: what they report (leads or signed plans), whether you own the ad accounts when you leave, and whether they run ads for the pest company across town.
• Review and reputation tools. Reviews drive the map pack for "pest control near me" more than anything on the website. Ask how the tool asks at the right moment, which for pest control is after the first service, not after the sale.
• Call answering and AI phone vendors. Ask what happens to the call that arrives during a route, because the missed call is the most expensive lead in the business.

The DFW market specifically

Dallas-Fort Worth is a growth market for pest control for the same reason it is for every home service: new rooftops. Fast-growing suburbs north and east of Dallas add thousands of homes a year, each one a new plan to win before the competitor's truck is on the street. The owners who win those neighborhoods are findable first (Business Profile, Local Services Ads, tracked search) and fast on the phone, and they convert the first termite or mosquito call into a quarterly plan on the first visit.

How DM Marketing fits

DM Marketing is a Dallas-Fort Worth agency that runs the search, Business Profile, call-tracking and follow-up layer for home service companies, and reports cost per signed job, or for pest control, cost per signed plan, by channel. Flat fees: Core $3,000, Growth $4,500, Full Service $9,000 a month. We will be at the Gaylord Texan during the show.