What Did This Roofer's Marketing Look Like Before?
A residential and storm-restoration roofer doing about $4.2M a year in a competitive Sun Belt metro. The previous agency ran a single Google Ads campaign pointed at the homepage, a Local Services Ads account set up once and never optimized, and a Facebook page posting job photos to nobody. Spend was $9,000 a month, producing roughly 48 leads at an effective CPL of $186 -- and the owner could not tell you which leads turned into signed contracts.
The real damage was structural. Every lead -- LSA call, form fill, Meta message -- landed somewhere different, none of it tied to revenue. With no call tracking, the owner was optimizing on lead volume, not closed jobs. In roofing, where only 3-7% of raw leads become customers and a single replacement is worth $10K-$20K, optimizing on volume is how you go broke profitably.
What Got Fixed in the First 30 Days?
We did not touch the ad budget for the first month. Based on DUO Digital's management of ad spend across 15+ trades companies, the infrastructure underneath the spend matters more than the spend itself. Three priorities came first:
Service-specific landing pages. We built 8 landing pages in 2 days -- replacement, storm and hail, repair, insurance claims, commercial, metal, gutters, and free inspection. Each matched one search intent with one clear call to action. DUO's landing pages convert at 2-3x the industry standard because they answer the specific question behind the click. A generic homepage converts at 2-3%; a focused roofing page should clear 8-12%.
Call tracking and attribution. Every page and every LSA got a unique tracking number, and every form was tagged by campaign and keyword. For the first time the owner could see which dollars produced signed contracts -- not just phone calls.
Speed to lead. We set a 60-second response target with instant notifications and an automated text-back for any lead that slipped past it. In a market where a homeowner calls three roofers, the first to respond books the inspection -- worth more than any bid adjustment we made later.
How Did the Google Ads and LSA Strategy Change?
With the foundation in place, we restructured paid acquisition in month two. The old account dumped broad-match traffic into one campaign and one homepage. Here is what replaced it:
Local Services Ads first. For roofing, LSA is the highest-intent paid channel available. Google-Guaranteed leads close at roughly 31%, far above the 6-8% you see on standard search clicks. We rebuilt the profile, fixed the service categories, drove reviews, and disputed junk leads weekly. LSA cost per lead settled around $71 -- and those leads booked inspections.
Segmentation by job type. Replacement and storm searches got their own budgets because the ticket size and close rate justify a higher CPL. Repair searches ran on tighter controls. Branded and non-branded traffic were split, which stopped the old habit of paying premium clicks for people already searching the company name.
Retargeting the rest. Roofing is a considered purchase -- almost nobody signs a $15K contract on the first visit. A Meta retargeting campaign hit every landing-page visitor who did not convert, with testimonial creative and a "Still comparing roofers?" angle. Cost per lead came in at $26, because these people were already in the market and simply had not decided.
What Were the Results After 90 Days?
The numbers, with nothing left out:
| Metric | Before | After (90 Days) | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly Ad Spend | $9,000 | $9,500 | +6% |
| Total Leads/Month | 48 | 120 | +150% |
| Cost Per Lead | $186 | $79 | -58% |
| Lead-to-Job Rate | ~5% | 8% | +60% |
| Revenue from Ads | ~$28K/mo | ~$110K/mo | +293% |
Ad spend went up 6%. Leads more than doubled, cost per lead dropped 58%, and revenue from paid nearly quadrupled -- not from a magic keyword, but from the right pages catching the right traffic with real follow-up behind them. That is the difference between running ads and running a growth system.
Why Does an Integrated System Beat Isolated Channels?
In most metros, 40 or more contractors bid on the same replacement searches. The winners are not the ones spending the most on ads -- they are the ones where every piece works together. At DUO we call this The Build: Be Found (Google Ads, LSA, SEO), Be Seen (Meta Ads, retargeting, YouTube), Be Chosen (landing pages, positioning, CRO), and Be Booked (lead nurture, pipeline, attribution). Most agencies sell one or two stages in isolation and call it a strategy. This teardown came from running all four at once -- the way we apply it to roofing companies specifically, where the long sales cycle and high ticket make the follow-up stages worth more than the ad spend.
The Bottom Line
The $124-$186 cost per lead in roofing is not a number you are stuck with. It is the price of a fragmented setup -- what most agencies run by default. With an integrated system, a blended $70-90 CPL is realistic for most residential and storm roofers, and lead quality climbs at the same time because you are matching intent at every stage instead of buying clicks and hoping.
If your roofing company is spending $8K+ a month on ads and you cannot say which campaigns produce signed contracts, you do not have a marketing problem. You have a systems problem. Book a call with DUO and we will show you exactly where the gaps are.
What is a good cost per lead for a roofing company?
The 2026 benchmark is roughly $124 per lead on non-branded Google Ads, and competitive metros push past $200. With optimized landing pages, tight segmentation, and retargeting, strong roofers should target a blended $70-90 per lead. Local Services Ads supplement that at $45-130 per lead and close around 31%.
Are Local Services Ads worth it for roofers?
Yes -- for most roofers LSA is the single highest-intent paid channel. The Google-Guaranteed badge builds trust on a high-ticket purchase, leads close at roughly 31% versus 6-8% on standard clicks, and you only pay for valid leads you can dispute. The catch: LSA rewards reviews and fast response, so it works best inside a system, not as an account you set and forget.
How long until a roofing company sees results from a new system?
Expect 30 days of infrastructure buildout with little performance change, then measurable improvement in months two and three. Most of DUO's roofing clients see a 40-60% drop in cost per lead within 90 days, with the full effect by month six as SEO and brand positioning compound on top of paid.
