How To Finally Kill-Off HomeAdvisor And Get Your Own Exclusive Roofing Leads

HomeAdvisor can be a double edged sword. If you really need roofing leads, they can be a blessing. They’ve got the supply, and they’re not timid in telling you about it.

They are the 1,000lb gorilla in the room. Big, powerful, and impossible to ignore.

But if you’re reading this article you probably have your issues with them. You and thousands of other contractors.

There’s videos on YouTube of recorded calls, complaints to the BBB, and more horror stories than HomeAdvisor would care to admit.

Maybe you’re fed up with being charged against your will for bogus leads.

Maybe you’re tired of calling on leads that already had 5 roofers call them before you.

Or maybe you just want a better way of growing your roofing business.

Well, fear not my friend.

Worry not.

Rest easy knowing that there is ALWAYS a better way.

When the masses are heading in one direction and doing one thing, it doesn’t mean you have to do it too.

There are much better ways of generating roofing leads and keeping your sales pipeline full. That is the good news.

I’ve made it my mission to show roofing contractors “the light” in an industry full of darkness, deceit, thievery, and unethical business practices.  I am talking about the roofing lead generation industry to be specific.

Roofers are easy prey for lead generators and marketing companies looking to lock down some high paying clients that will accept shoddy work.

No more. My mission is to do my best to put an end to that.

Since 2016, I’ve been helping roofing contractors wean off of HomeAdvisor’s leads to replace them with high quality, high intent, and most importantly, exclusive roofing leads that are self generated.

It is 100% possible to kill-off HomeAdvisor and re-invest the same marketing budget into a few methods that will produce remarkably good quality roofing leads.

That’s what I want to talk to you about today.

I want to equip you with three different methods that you can use in your roofing business to generate quality and exclusive leads who...and here is the kicker... will reach out and call YOU for a free estimate.

Just the thought of a stream of leads that qualified brings a tear to my eye, but I’m just weird like that - apologies.

Without further ado...

Method #1: Bing.com/Yahoo.com Ads
Bet you weren’t expecting to see this as #1 were you? It’s a strange one that’s for sure.

Most roofing contractors are shocked and surprised when I tell them Bing is my favorite source of roofing leads.
‍
There are a couple wonderful things about Bing.com
‍
For one, the people who use it. For the most part they are over the age of 60, retired, financially secure, and not too tech savvy.

That means you have older homeowners with money and little intentions of searching for a roofing contractor for 2 hours.
‍
In my experience they are very fast to act, won’t price shop as much, and generally a joy to deal with.
‍
The second reason I love Bing.com so much is that your competitors probably haven’t even thought of it more than once. Forget even putting together a lead generation strategy for it!
‍
So it’s essentially wide-open territory. A website will tank much easier on Bing than on Google, and your ad dollars go further on Bing than on Google too.

It’s just not that competitive or difficult to get to the top of the first page. Gotta love that.
‍
The roofing contractors I partner with have had amazing luck with their Bing Ads campaigns. It’s also nice that just one Bing Ads campaign will also reach over to Yahoo and dozens of many smaller search engines.
‍
These search engines come preinstalled on computers or bundled with software, and many folks just don’t remove them or switch to Google. And... they need roofs just like everyone else.

Method #2: Google Ads
Formerly known as AdWords, Google’s ad buying platform is a powerhouse that drives 87% of their revenue.

They’ve done a great job of training us to “just Google it” whenever we need to find out something. ‍

And for this reason they get the lions share of search traffic and attention from homeowners when they need a roof replaced.

Google Ads, when done properly, can be a vending machine of low cost quality and exclusive roofing leads for your roofing business.

Google Ads, when done poorly, can be a marketing budget sucking beast from the depths of hell that feeds off your credit card balance, makes you curse all online advertising forever, makes your wife leave you, and makes the whine from your transmission 10% louder every week...forever.

It can get that bad.

Left to the newbie, Google Ads can suck your credit card dry of $1,750 and give you 3 wrong number calls and a gutter repair lead to show for it. This kind of stuff happens ALL the time.

So you have to be careful.

Most of what I do day to day is tell Google Ads “NO....don’t spend money on that junk keyword”. That’s oversimplified, but my point is somebody’s gotta be watching the beast. Otherwise it’ll go crazy and spend all of your money.
Google Ads is technically complicated but conceptually simple.

You write some ads that you think homeowners will click on if they search for a roofing contractor.

You don’t pay anything UNLESS a homeowner clicks on one of your ads.
You pay $X for a click. Let’s say...$15 per click.

When they click on your ad, you tell google where you want them to be taken - and google will politely take them there.

9/10 roofing contractors drop the ball right here, and send the homeowner to the homepage of their website. NO BUENO.

Your homepage is nice, but it doesn’t have the power to convert a cold visitor who’s never heard of you before into a lead at a rate of more than 5%. That means you need 20 clicks to get a lead - roughly $300/lead.

Pricey...

So instead of doing that, we wanna send them to a “landing page” that’s hyper focused on having them make that call. A good landing page can convert cold visitors to leads at 15% to 25%. So you only need 4 to 7 clicks instead of 20 clicks.

MUCH better... $60 to $105 per lead. We can work with that.

With the right ad, the right keywords, and the right landing page combo it’s easy to get 25 to 50 high quality inbound phone calls per month from Google Ads. With that high quality you can do a lot more with a lot less leads. No need to buy 100+ HomeAdvisor leads, 25 Google leads can give you a similar return.

Just remember, Google Ads isn’t beginner friendly and it will viciously take whatever ad budget you give it. I’ve heard from hundreds of roofers how their ad budget was spent on people looking for paint, roofers looking for work, and telemarketers. It should be left to the professional.

Method #3: Facebook Ads
Facebook is the new Television.

It’s entertainment.

People go to Google when they want to be productive, but they go to Facebook when they want to be distracted.

Understanding the difference is crucial. Trying to advertise on Facebook the same way you would on Google and Bing is...no bueno.

‍
It costs an average of $7.00 to reach 1000 people with TV commercials, but it only costs $0.25 to reach 1000 people with Facebook ads.

You see... Facebook is kind of like a coffee shop. Google is a flea market. It’s ok to sell your stuff at a flea market, but not at a coffee shop.

So you have to come to Facebook with the goal of 1st entertaining the homeowner. That’s how you get their attention and trust. Then and only after then can you make your offer for a free roof inspection.

Getting Facebook to work as a source of roofing leads has been tricky for many. You just need a certain level of finesse otherwise your marketing message will get scrolled over as the homeowner looks for more videos of cute babies or sleepy kittens.

You’ve got some fierce competition there.

So you’re gonna need to a better strategy.

I propose a new rule. A buffer.

“Never Attempt To Pitch Or Sell On Facebook Without First Entertaining Or Educating”

We like the entertain option at RoofEngine.

We’ve found that homeowners love taking quizzes about everything, even their roofs.

We deliver a quiz about their roof right into their Newsfeed, ask them 10 to 14 questions - and offer a free inspection at the end.

Works.
Like.
Gang busters.

Facebook can and does work, most homeowners are on it. It just comes down to having the right strategy and delivering value in the form of entertainment or education first.

So there we have it. A few ways to get quality and exclusive roofing leads without having to deal with HomeAdvisor.

As always, thank you for reading.

To your success,
Max Reznich