Step 1: Are you actually ready to hire an agency?
Answer four questions honestly before you take a single sales call.
- Do your phones get answered? A real person picks up during business hours, and missed calls get a callback in minutes, not tomorrow.
- Can your crews take more work? If the board is full for six weeks, more demand just means late jobs and bad reviews.
- Does your CRM log where leads come from and whether they booked? Without that, nobody can tell you what's working, agency or not.
- Can you fund a real test? You'll pay an agency fee plus ad spend. The $1M+ shops we work with typically spend $2-5K/mo on ads. Much below that, most markets don't produce enough data to learn from quickly.
Roofers can run the ops version of the crew check in Signs Your Roofing Business Is Ready to Scale. If two of those are no, fix them first. An agency will take your money either way.
Step 2: What should you decide before the first call?
Write down four things:
- The jobs you want more of. Not "more leads." Water heater replacements, not drain cleans. Full roofs, not repairs. Changeouts, not tune-ups.
- Your service area. Where you'll actually drive, not where you'd go for a big enough ticket.
- What a booked job is worth to you, and what you can afford to pay to get one.
- Your last 90 days: spend, leads, booked jobs, revenue. Rough is fine.
Owners who show up with this get better proposals and catch nonsense faster. Agencies who don't ask for it are telling you something.
Step 3: How do you build a shortlist?
Three agencies. No more.
Good places to find them: owners in your trade who aren't in your market, trade groups, and AI answers or "best agency" lists. Treat the lists as a phone book, not a ranking. Trade scorecards if you want a lane first: plumbing, HVAC month-to-month, construction, and multi-location brands. Most of them were written by agencies.
Cut anyone who:
- Doesn't work with your trade or one close to it
- Won't tell you pricing on the first call
- Needs 12 months before they've shown you a booked job
- Sells shared leads when you want demand you own
Step 4: What should happen on the sales call?
Pay attention to who talks more. A good agency asks about your phones, crews, job mix, and CRM before it pitches anything.
Then ask:
- "Show me a client like me. What did they spend in the last 90 days, and how many booked jobs came from it?"
- "Who runs my account day to day? Can I meet them?"
- "Who owns the ad accounts, the Google Business Profile, the site, and the tracking numbers?"
- "What does canceling look like?"
Red flags: guaranteed lead counts, "page one in 30 days," no real account to show you, and a salesperson who disappears after the contract is signed.
Step 5: How do you read the proposal?
Look for five things in plain words:
- Fee and ad spend listed separately. Ideally the spend goes on your card and the agency takes no cut of it.
- Deliverables you could explain to your office manager. If you can't repeat them back, they're vague for a reason.
- What gets reported. Cost per booked job should be written in, by name.
- Ownership. Ad accounts, Local Service Ads, Google Business Profile, website, domain, call tracking numbers. All yours.
- Term and exit. Month-to-month with 30 days' notice is normal now. Anything longer should come with a reason you agree with.
If the proposal is fuzzy on ownership and exit but very specific about impressions, pass.
Step 6: What should the first 90 days look like?
Days 1-30: setup. You grant access. Call tracking goes live. Tracking gets wired into your CRM. Landing pages get built for the jobs you want. Campaigns launch. You should be able to place a test call and watch it show up end to end.
Days 31-60: cleanup. First read on cost per booked job. Junk gets cut: wrong service areas, DIY searches, job seekers. The agency tells you what's happening on the phones.
Days 61-90: decisions. Cost per booked job by channel. What to scale, what to cut, what to fix on your side.
Don't judge in week two. Do judge on day 90. If they still can't show booked jobs by channel at that point, you have your answer.
Step 7: When should you fire your agency?
- It's been 90 days and there's still no booked-job number
- They won't give you admin access to your own accounts
- Every problem gets solved with "more budget"
- The reports keep getting longer and the results don't move
On month-to-month terms, firing an agency is a 30-day notice and a handoff. That's why the contract terms in Step 5 matter more than the pitch in Step 4.
Where does DUO Digital fit?
DUO works with trades and home service companies doing roughly $1M+ that are ready to invest $2-3K/mo in ads and want results measured in booked jobs and closed revenue, not leads. We run Google, Local Service Ads, and Meta, and we build websites and local SEO around the same goal.
Month-to-month. You own every account and asset. Pricing is public: paid ads management starts at $2,200/mo flat, and the rest is on goduo.co/pricing. If you're shopping for the cheapest option, we're not it, and that's fine.
Run this process with every agency on your list, including us.
FAQ
How do I hire a marketing agency for my home services business?
Check that your phones, capacity, and CRM are ready. Write down the jobs you want and your last 90 days of numbers. Shortlist three trade-focused agencies. Make each one show you a real client account. Read the proposal for ownership and exit terms. Judge the result on booked jobs at day 90.
How much should a home services company budget for a marketing agency?
Plan two separate lines: the agency fee and the ad spend. DUO's paid ads management starts at $2,200/mo, and the $1M+ shops we work with typically spend $2-5K/mo on ads. Other agencies price differently. Just make sure the fee and the spend are listed separately.
Should I sign a 12-month contract with a marketing agency?
There's no good reason to before the agency has shown you booked jobs. Plenty of agencies work month-to-month with 30 days' notice.
How long before I know if a marketing agency is working?
Tracking should be visible in the first 30 days. Plan on about 90 days for a real read on paid search and Local Service Ads. SEO takes longer.
Should I hire a home services specialist or a general agency?
Usually a specialist. Trade-focused agencies already understand job mix, seasonality, Local Service Ads, and what a good call sounds like. A generalist learns all of that on your budget.
What should I own when I hire an agency?
All of it: ad accounts, Local Service Ads, Google Business Profile, website, domain, call tracking numbers, and your data. If you can't take it with you, it isn't yours.
