Most contractors asking me about Google Ads shouldn't run Google Ads. Not yet.
Not because ads don't work. I've spent ten years managing ad budgets, and since 2021 Kung Pow has run paid search for 63+ clients at a 3.7x average return. Ads work fine.
They shouldn't run ads because they'd be paying Google full price to lose a comparison.
The click you're buying isn't the click you think
Here's what actually happens when someone clicks your ad for "roof repair near me."
They don't call you. They open you in one tab, then open the two companies next to you. They see your 12 reviews next to a competitor's 90. They call the competitor. You paid for that click. You funded your competitor's sales process.
Or they do call you — at 2pm on a Tuesday while you're on a roof — and it goes to voicemail. Nobody with a leak leaves a voicemail. They call the next number. You paid for that one too.
Google Ads doesn't create a good business. It puts your business in front of people who compare. If you lose the comparison, ads just help you lose faster and at retail prices.
The readiness gate: three things before your first dollar
Before I'll turn on paid search for any contractor, three boxes get checked. No exceptions — I've watched owners burn $10k learning why.
1. Roughly 50 Google reviews
Fifty isn't magic, but it's the neighborhood where you stop auto-losing the side-by-side. Under 20 reviews, you look like a risk. Around 50 with a strong average, you look like a safe choice — and safe choices get the call.
Getting there is a system, not a personality trait. Ask at the moment of peak happiness, make it a two-tap process, and make it every tech's job. I wrote the full playbook in how to get more Google reviews.
2. Answered calls — or a 2-minute text-back
If you can't answer the phone, don't buy phone calls. Simple as that.
The fix doesn't require a receptionist. A missed-call text-back that fires within 2 minutes — "This is Mike at Ridgeline Roofing, sorry I missed you, what's going on with the roof?" — keeps the lead alive while you climb down the ladder. Most "my ads don't work" cases I audit are actually answer-rate and follow-up cases. My speed to lead playbook covers the whole setup.
3. Call tracking in place
You're about to spend real money. If you can't tell which calls came from ads versus referrals versus the truck wrap, you can't compute your cost per lead, which means you can't manage anything. Tracking numbers cost almost nothing and take an afternoon. Non-negotiable.
Pass all three? Now we can talk about spending money.
What leads actually cost, by trade
Nobody selling you ad management wants to say these numbers out loud, so I will. On Google Ads, cost per lead for contractors roughly runs:
- Painting, pest control: around $60 per lead
- Plumbing, HVAC service, garage doors: somewhere in the middle, commonly $80-$150
- Remodeling, roofing: up to $300 per lead
Your market and season move these numbers, but that's the honest range. And here's the part that matters:
A $300 cost per lead can be phenomenal business.
The ticket math (do this before you judge any CPL)
CPL is a vanity number. Cost per job against ticket size is the real number. Run it:
- Average ticket. A roof replacement runs five figures. A pest control visit doesn't.
- Close rate on leads. Say you close 1 in 4.
- Cost per job = CPL × leads per close. $300 CPL at 1-in-4 = $1,200 per job.
- Compare to gross profit per job. $1,200 to acquire a $15,000 roof with healthy margin? You'd take that trade all day and twice on Saturday.
Meanwhile a painter paying $60 per lead who closes 1 in 5 on a $900 job is losing money and doesn't know it. High CPL on big tickets beats low CPL on small ones. It's ticket math, not CPL vanity.
The 3X rule: when to keep it, when to pull the plug
Once ads are live, one rule governs everything: if you're sure the channel returns more than 3X collected revenue against all its costs — ad spend, management, your time — keep it running. If you're not sure, pause it and fix the system before spending more.
Notice: "not sure" triggers a pause, not just "bad numbers." If your tracking can't tell you the return, that itself is the problem. Fix measurement, then resume.
And "collected revenue" means money in the bank, not signed estimates. Contractors lie to themselves with pipeline numbers. Bank deposits don't lie.
A sane starter structure
You don't need 400 keywords and a "full-funnel omnichannel strategy." For a contractor's first campaign, here's what actually works:
Tight match types
Start with exact and phrase match on the searches that mean money: "roof replacement [your city]," "emergency roof repair near me." Skip broad match at launch — it's how Google spends your budget on "how to fix a roof yourself" searches. Add negatives weekly: free, DIY, jobs, salary, how to.
Tight geography
Target only the area you actually want to drive to, and set location targeting to people in your area — not people "interested in" it. That one setting quietly wastes more contractor budgets than any other.
Call-focused everything
Your buyer is standing in a wet kitchen holding a phone. Call ads, call extensions, a mobile page where the number is the biggest thing on screen. Forms are backup. The phone call is the product.
Budget reality
Fund at least 10-15 clicks a day or don't start — starving a campaign below that means you'll never collect enough data to judge it. Work backward from the CPL ranges above: if clicks in your trade run $15-$25, that's a real daily number, and it's why "I'll test it with $200" tests nothing.
And give it a fair window: our best case study, 654 appointments in 90 days from a brand-new account, started with three full weeks of silence. New accounts need time to gather data before they can optimize. If we'd panicked in week two, that result never happens. Commit to 60-90 days of honest data before you pass judgment — anything less and you're reading tea leaves.
The order of operations
Here's the whole post in five lines:
- Get to ~50 reviews.
- Fix your answer rate — 2-minute text-back minimum.
- Install call tracking.
- Launch tight: exact-ish match, tight geo, call-focused, real budget.
- Judge by ticket math and the 3X rule. Sure it clears 3X? Scale. Not sure? Pause and fix.
Ads aren't a slot machine and they aren't a scam. They're a multiplier. Multiply a ready business and you get growth. Multiply an unready one and you get a faster way to lose money.
And here's the good news buried in all this: the readiness work is cheap. Fifty reviews, a text-back automation, and tracking numbers cost less than most contractors blow on their first bad month of ads. Do the boring work first and every ad dollar you ever spend works harder for it.
If you'd rather build the foundation yourself, The No-Agency Kit is my $27 field manual for doing exactly that without hiring anyone.
Want me to tell you which side of the gate you're on? Book a call and I'll walk your numbers with you.