Roofing Google Ads judged on roofs sold, not leads counted

What roofing searches are worth, and why they look alike

“roof repair near me” and “roof replacement near me” differ by one word. The first may be a few hundred dollars. The second may be tens of thousands. Google’s matching treats them as close relatives, and an account with one campaign will buy both at the same bid.

A roofing account needs at least three separate campaigns.

• Repair. “roof leak repair”, “emergency roof tarp”, “fix missing shingles”. Urgent, by phone.
• Replacement. “new roof estimate”, “roof replacement company”, “metal roof installers”. A form or a call, then an inspection.
• Storm and insurance. “hail damage roof inspection”, “storm damage roofer”, “roof insurance claim help”. Almost silent for months, then very busy for a week.

Each gets its own budget, its own landing page and its own target cost. Our account structure guide shows how the split is built.

What it costs to advertise a roofing company

LocaliQ’s home services search advertising benchmarks cover 3,211 US search campaigns from April 2024 to March 2025. Roofing and gutters had the highest cost per lead of the categories in that report.

The conversion rate is the line to look at. About half the home services average, on clicks that cost more. A roof is a slow decision, so a large share of visitors leave to keep researching. That makes the landing page and the follow-up worth as much as the bidding.

A lead in the table is a call or a form. It is not an inspection and it is not a signed contract. If one inspection in several becomes a roof, your cost per sold job is a multiple of the figure above. Put your own close rate and job value into the Google Ads ROI calculator before setting a budget. Our post on Google Ads cost in 2026 gives wider context.

Mavix does not state a management price here. You get a quote once we have reviewed the account for free, and the ads pricing page sets out how it is worked out.

Where roofing accounts waste money

Searches about other roofs. “roof rack”, “roof box”, “roofing nailer”, “roofing supply near me”, “roofing jobs”, “how to shingle a roof”. Each can match a broad roofing keyword. Google notes that negative keywords do not match to close variants, so singular and plural forms both go on the list.

The account is trained on forms, not roofs. Google’s bidding learns from whatever you count as a conversion. If every form counts the same, it finds more of the cheap ones. Google lets you import conversions from an external system such as a CRM. Feeding back which leads became inspections, and which became jobs, is the change we make first in a roofing account.

Ads reach people outside the storm area. Google can show ads by physical location or by locations a person has shown interest in. A storm campaign should be limited to people who are in the affected area.

The landing page gives no reason to trust. After a storm, the Federal Trade Commission tells homeowners to confirm a contractor’s licence and insurance and to get a written contract. It warns that unlicensed contractors often appear in recovery zones. A page that shows your licence number where one is required, your insurance, and a local address answers that warning directly.

The storm week plan

A storm campaign is written in the quiet months and left paused. It holds the ad copy, the landing page, the blocked searches and a list of the towns you can reach with a crew.

When the storm comes, three things happen the same day. The campaign is switched on for the affected area only. The budget goes up, because Google will spend no more than twice the average daily budget in a day and storm-day search can pass that early. And the phones are staffed, since a tarp call that reaches voicemail is gone.

Google also offers seasonality adjustments, which tell its bidding to expect a short change in conversion rate. It describes them as ideal for short events of 1 to 7 days. A hail week fits that description. We use them with care and remove them when the week ends.

Local Services Ads for roofers

Local Services Ads appear above the search ads and are charged per lead. Before a roofer can run them, Google applies the screening it lists for each category and state, which can include licence, insurance and background checks. It says the process typically takes three to four weeks. Apply well before storm season, because an application started the day after hail will finish after the work has been handed out.

The first three months

Week one. You get last quarter’s search terms sorted into repair, replacement, storm and waste. Tracking is rebuilt so calls count only when connected, and forms carry the service asked for.

Weeks two to four. The three campaigns are separated. Replacement ads point to a page with a cost range and an inspection booking. Negatives are loaded from the real history.

Months two and three. Your office marks each lead as inspection booked, quote sent, job sold. Those outcomes are imported into Google weekly, and bids move toward the searches that produced roofs. The storm campaign is finished and paused.

What you see each month

• Leads by campaign, and how many became inspections.
• Roofs sold from ads, with total job value against total spend.
• Cost per sold job for repair and for replacement.
• Share of spend on blocked or irrelevant searches.
• Calls missed, by hour.

When roofing ads are the wrong first move

If quotes are sent once and never chased, fix that before buying more leads. Each one costs too much in this trade to lose. Our lead follow-up guide has a sequence to start from.

If your budget covers only a handful of clicks a day at the prices above, the account will learn slowly. Roofing local SEO is a better use of a small budget.

If you can plan a season ahead, roofing SEO builds the cost and material pages that replacement buyers read. The roofing marketing page and the Google Ads service page cover the wider picture.