To get more leads as a contractor, work the channels you already own first: your Google Business Profile, your reviews, your past customers, referrals, and your trucks and job sites. Then add paid channels one at a time, judge each one by what it costs per booked job, and answer every lead fast so you don’t waste the ones you already pay for.
Below: every channel ranked by cost, one step for each, the cost-per-booked-job math and a 30-day plan. Channels with their own guide get a link, not a repeat.
Every lead channel, ranked by cost
Free and owned channels come first because they cost time, not ad spend, and many of the people they send already know your work. The time and quality columns are rules of thumb, not measured data: your trade, town and season change them.
| Channel | Cost | Time to first lead | Lead quality | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Past customers and maintenance reminders | Your time, a few texts | Days | High: they know your work | Service and repeat work, slow weeks |
| Referrals from customers | Your time, a thank-you | Weeks | High | Bigger jobs, remodels |
| Partners: realtors, property managers, suppliers, other trades | Your time | Weeks to months | High, and repeat | Steady volume, make-ready and repair work |
| Google Business Profile | Free | Weeks | Medium to high | Local “near me” searches |
| Reviews | Free | Supports every other channel | Raises the quality of all of them | Winning the comparison |
| Truck wraps and job-site signs | One-time cost | Months, then ongoing | Medium, local | Neighborhoods you already work in |
| Door hangers around active jobs | Printing | Days | Medium | Neighbors with the same house and the same problem |
| Google Local Services Ads | Pay per lead | Days once approved | Medium to high | Urgent service calls |
| Google Ads | Pay per click | Days | Medium | High-intent searches you choose |
| Meta (Facebook and Instagram) ads | Pay for reach or clicks | Days | Lower: they weren’t searching | Visual work, seasonal offers |
| Lead marketplaces (Angi, Thumbtack and similar) | Pay per lead, often shared | Days | Mixed: you compete for each one | Filling gaps, new businesses |
Start with the free channels you already own
Google Business Profile
Google says that creating a Business Profile is free, and that businesses with complete and accurate info are more likely to show up in local search results. The same page is clear that there’s no way to pay for a better local ranking.
Do this week: fill in every field: primary category, services, service area, hours, phone and website. Add 10 recent job photos with the town in the description. Full walkthrough: local SEO for contractors.
Reviews
Google’s own help page says that more reviews and positive ratings can help your business’s local ranking. Reviews also decide who gets the call when a homeowner compares three names.
Ask at the moment the customer is happiest, usually at the walkthrough or when they pay. Exact words:
“Thanks, [Name]. If you’re happy with the work, a Google review helps us more than anything. I’ll text you the link now. It takes about a minute.”
Then send the link in a text before you leave the driveway. More on timing, replies and the rules you can’t break: how to get more Google reviews.
Past customers and maintenance reminders
Your customer list is the cheapest lead source you have.
Pull a list of every customer from the last 24 months with a job type that repeats: furnace and AC tune-ups, water heater flushes, gutter cleaning, deck sealing, lawn programs, panel checks. Text them:
“Hi [Name], it’s [Your name] from [Company]. It’s been about a year since we serviced your [system]. We’re booking [season] maintenance for [month]. Want me to hold a spot for you? Reply YES and I’ll send two times.”
Better still, turn one-off visits into a yearly agreement, so the reminder goes out on schedule instead of when you remember.
Referrals from customers and partners
A referral arrives warm, but only if you ask for it.
From customers: ask in the same conversation as the review, and make it specific: “Do you know anyone on your street who’s been putting off a [job type]?”
From partners, use this table to know who to call and what to offer:
| Partner | What they need | What to offer |
|---|---|---|
| Realtors | Fast repairs before listing and after inspection | A quote within 48 hours, photos for the file |
| Property managers | One reliable call for many units | A price sheet for common jobs, one point of contact, invoices with unit numbers |
| Suppliers and the counter | Customers asking “who can install this?” | Business cards at the counter, steady orders |
| Other trades | Someone to send the work they don’t do | Send work back. A plumber and an electrician refer each other on remodels |
To make referrals a steady habit instead of luck, set up a simple referral program.
Trucks, job-site signs and door hangers
Every job is an ad in a neighborhood that already buys your service:
- Truck: name, trade, phone and website, readable from across the street. Keep it clean; it’s the ad.
- Job-site sign: in the yard for the length of the job, with the customer’s permission.
- Door hangers: on the day you start, hang them on the 10 to 20 houses closest to the job. Exact text:
“We’re working at [street] this week on a [job type]. If you’ve been thinking about yours, we’re already in the neighborhood: call or text [number] for a quote this week. [Company], [license number if your state requires it].”
Track these leads as “Truck or yard sign” so you can see if the printing pays for itself.
Paid channels: what you pay for and what to watch
Add paid channels one at a time, with a monthly cap, and only after the owned channels above are running.
Google Local Services Ads
Google’s help center says that you’re charged for each valid lead you receive through your Local Services ad: a call you answer or return, a message, a voicemail or a booking request. It also says that leads determined to be invalid or low quality are not charged.
What to watch:
- Set service types and areas tightly. Google’s own advice is to refine your service areas, categories, and service types, and notes that narrowing them may reduce lead volume.
- Answer the phone. Google warns that if you regularly fail to answer calls or respond to messages, your ad ranking may be affected.
Google Ads
With cost-per-click bidding, you pay for each click on your ads, whether or not the person calls. That makes the landing page and the phone answer as important as the ad.
Start small:
- One service and one area per campaign
- Search terms with intent: “[service] repair [town]”, not just “[trade]”
- The click lands on a page about that service, with the phone number at the top
- A monthly cap you can afford to lose while you learn
Meta (Facebook and Instagram) ads
Unlike a search ad, these reach people who weren’t looking for a contractor, so plan for more follow-up. Before you spend: a visual job type (decks, kitchens, landscaping), a clear seasonal offer, your service area as the target, and a weekly cap. Targeting and tracking: Facebook ads tips for contractors.
Lead marketplaces: the shared-lead warning
Angi’s own help center says it will match a homeowner with up to five pros for each project request, and that leads are not guaranteed jobs.
Before you sign up, ask:
- Is each lead sent to me only, or to other pros too? How many?
- What do I pay per lead, and does it change by job type?
- Can I get credit for a wrong number, a job outside my area or a job type I don’t do?
- Can I set a weekly cap and pause anytime?
A shared lead is a race. If you can’t call back within minutes, it can be money spent on someone else’s job.
Cost per booked job: the number that ranks your channels
Cost per lead tells you what a phone call costs. Cost per booked job tells you what a paying customer costs, and that’s the number to compare.
Cost per booked job = what you spent on a channel in a month ÷ jobs booked from that channel in the same month
Example (round numbers to show the method, not industry averages):
| Channel | Monthly spend | Leads | Booked jobs | Cost per lead | Cost per booked job |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Local Services Ads | $1,500 | 30 | 9 | $50 | $167 |
| Google Ads | $2,000 | 25 | 5 | $80 | $400 |
| Lead marketplace | $1,200 | 40 | 4 | $30 | $300 |
| Past-customer texts | $50 | 12 | 6 | $4 | $8 |
In this example the marketplace has the cheapest leads of the paid channels and still costs almost twice as much per booked job as Local Services Ads. Then compare cost per booked job with what a job earns you: if an average service call leaves $300 of gross profit, a channel that costs $400 per booked job loses money on every job.
To get these numbers, record the source of every lead at first contact.
Speed to lead: don’t waste the leads you already get
A lead that waits may call the next name on the list. Set rules your whole team follows:
- Answer live during working hours. If you’re on a roof, someone else answers, or the call forwards to someone who can.
- Every missed call gets a text within 5 minutes.
- Every web form, message and voicemail gets a callback within 1 hour during working hours, and first thing the next morning if it came in after hours.
- Track it. Once a week, check how many leads waited longer than your rule.
Missed-call text, word for word:
“Hi, this is [Name] from [Company]. Sorry we missed your call, we’re on a job right now. What do you need help with, and what’s the address? We’ll call you back by [time today]. You can also reply here.”
Send it only to the number that just called, and keep promotions out of it. When you call back, use the contractor sales script for the call and the visit.
Don’t buy more leads until you fix your close rate
More leads into a leaky process means paying more for the same number of jobs. Check your close rate first: booked jobs ÷ leads.
Example: 40 leads a month at a 25% close rate is 10 booked jobs. Raise the close rate to 35% and the same 40 leads book 14 jobs: 4 more jobs without a dollar more in ads. To get those 4 extra jobs at 25% instead, you’d need 16 more leads; assuming $50 a lead, that’s $800 a month.
If your close rate is low, start with how to close more sales as a contractor: follow-up, options in the proposal and the questions that find the real decision maker.
A 30-day plan
| Week | Do | Done when |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Write your source list. Ask “How did you hear about us?” on every call. Set the missed-call text and the 1-hour callback rule | Every new lead has a source and a response time |
| 2 | Complete your Google Business Profile. Text the review ask to every customer from the last 90 days | Profile complete, review link sent to every recent customer |
| 3 | Text past customers about maintenance. Call five partners from the table. Order door hangers and a job-site sign | Reminder sent to the full list, five partner calls made |
| 4 | Add or review one paid channel with a monthly cap. Calculate cost per booked job and close rate for the month | You know your cheapest channel per booked job and your close rate |
At day 30, put more time or money into the channel with the lowest cost per booked job, and cap or drop the one with the highest.
Your next action
- Write down every place leads came from last month, and how many jobs each one booked.
- Set the missed-call text on your phone or phone system today.
- Send the maintenance text to past customers with a repeating job type.
- Calculate cost per booked job for every paid channel before you renew it.
What to review each month:
- Leads, booked jobs and cost per booked job by channel
- Close rate: booked jobs ÷ leads
- Leads that waited longer than your callback rule
Where MotionOps helps
In MotionOps, every lead keeps its source, so you can see what each channel earns:
- Lead Source Tracking: create and manage your own lead sources and track where leads come from.
- Lead Source Breakdown: analytics on your different lead sources, so you spend marketing money where it works.
- Revenue by Lead Source: see how much revenue each source brings in.
- Recurring Work Order & Invoices: set a weekly, monthly, quarterly or custom schedule for repeat customers, and the system handles the rest.
- Customer Text Messaging (SMS): send proposals, reminders and follow-ups by text, with a log of every message.
See plans and pricing, or try MotionOps free.
