A roofing contractor came to us with a familiar frustration: they were spending on Google Ads, getting plenty of clicks, but the phone wasn't ringing with real jobs. The traffic was there. The conversions weren't.
Their cost per lead was $71, and worse, most of those "leads" were tire-kickers who never booked an estimate. Here's exactly what we changed — and why it worked.
The Client
A roofing and exterior contractor serving a suburban metro. Strong crews, solid reviews, and a real backlog of happy customers. They closed well when they got in front of a homeowner with an actual project — the breakdown was everything upstream of that conversation.
What was actually wrong?
The campaign was spending on broad, low-intent searches and sending everyone to a slow homepage. Two problems, both fixable.
Broad keywords burning budget. They were bidding on terms like "roofing" and "roof info" — high volume, low intent. Someone searching "roofing" might be a homeowner with a leak, a student writing a paper, or a competitor. Paying for all of them is expensive and dilutes the numbers.
A slow, generic landing experience. Ads pointed to the homepage. A homeowner with a storm-damaged roof doesn't want to browse an "About Us" — they want to know you handle their problem, in their area, fast. The page took over 7 seconds to load on mobile, and every second of delay bleeds conversions.
No speed-to-lead. When a lead did come in, follow-up took hours. In home services, the contractor who calls back first usually wins the job. Hours-later follow-up loses to whoever called back in five minutes.
What we did
Rebuilt the keyword strategy around intent
We cut the broad terms and rebuilt around high-intent, ready-to-buy searches: "roof replacement near me," "emergency roof repair," "storm damage roof inspection." Fewer impressions, dramatically higher lead quality. We added negative keywords to stop wasting spend on "jobs," "supplies," "DIY," and similar non-customer searches.
Built a dedicated, fast landing page
Instead of the homepage, ads pointed to a single-purpose page: the specific service, the service area, real photos of their work, reviews, and one clear action — request a free inspection. We rebuilt it to load in under 2 seconds on mobile, because most of this traffic is on a phone.
Closed the speed-to-lead gap
We wired the lead form to trigger instant notification and an automated first-touch, so no lead sat waiting. The goal: first human contact within minutes, not hours.
The Results
Over the first 60 days:
- 34 qualified jobs booked (estimates scheduled with real homeowners)
- Cost per lead: $29 — down from $71, a 59% reduction
- Lead-to-booked-estimate rate: 38%, up from ~14%
- Total ad spend: $2,600 over the period (roughly 90 leads)
If anything, the spend went down. Where it went, and what happened after the click, changed completely.
Key Takeaways
Intent beats volume in home services. A handful of "roof replacement near me" searches are worth more than hundreds of "roofing" clicks. Bid on the searches a customer with a project actually types.
The landing page is part of the ad. Sending high-intent traffic to a slow, generic homepage wastes the click you paid for. A fast, specific page focused on one action converts far better.
Speed-to-lead wins jobs. In contracting, the first callback usually gets the contract. Automating instant follow-up turned more leads into booked estimates without spending an extra dollar on ads.
Negative keywords are free money. Every dollar you stop spending on non-customers is a dollar that goes to real leads.
See more of our campaign results at anth.tech/case-studies-ads.
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