You run the crew.We run the phone.
You didn't get into the trades to learn keyword research. AFC builds the advertising that fills your schedule — search, Google Ads, Local Services Ads and AI search — so you can get back on the job. Campaigns start at $50 a month and scale to whatever your market demands.
Source: SearchLight Digital contractor advertising benchmarks, February 2026 — drawn from $6.72M in tracked Local Services Ads spend across 888 contractors, and $14.9M in Google Ads spend across 816 HVAC and plumbing contractors (January 2026). Figures are national averages; your market will differ. We show you real numbers because guessing is how contractors overpay.
Why does most contractor marketing fail?
Because most of the people selling it have never had to make payroll off a job they bid themselves.
AFC started because our founder got burned. He has run a bath remodeling company since 2012. Over the years he hired marketing companies the way most contractors do — on a promise, a slide deck and a monthly invoice. What he got back were reports full of rankings and impressions and traffic. What he never got was a straight answer to one question: did any of this turn into a sale?
Nobody asked what his average job was worth. Nobody asked what he closed. Nobody asked whether the leads were homeowners with a real budget or tire-kickers pricing a fantasy. The agencies got paid either way, and that was the whole problem — their incentive stopped at the report.
If it doesn't turn into a job, it isn't marketing. It's a bill.
So he built the agency he wanted to hire. Eye To Ad Media launched in 2012 in Denver, and Advertising For Contractors is the arm of it built specifically for the trades. He still runs the remodeling business today, which means every campaign we build gets judged by a contractor who knows what a slow February feels like.
That's the difference, and it's not a slogan. When we say we measure booked jobs instead of impressions, it's because the person who set the standard has to live with the answer. More about how AFC works, or read the longer version on Eye To Ad Media's about page.
What kind of advertising do contractors actually need?
Almost always a combination, not a single channel. Paid search brings work in this week. Local search and SEO build the pipeline that keeps working after you stop paying for clicks. AI search is the new front door, and most of your competitors haven't found it yet. We build the mix that fits your budget and your calendar.
Contractor SEO
Ranking for the searches that produce jobs, not the ones that produce traffic. We map keywords by intent and job value — "roof replacement cost" and "emergency roof repair near me" are two completely different customers with two completely different budgets.
SEO for contractors Win the mapLocal SEO & Google Business Profile
The map pack is where home services jobs are actually won. Category selection, review velocity, service area pages and the profile work that decides whether a homeowner three miles away ever sees your name.
Local SEO for contractors Work this weekGoogle Ads & Local Services Ads
Search ads and the pay-per-lead LSA channel that sits above everything else on the page. We handle license and insurance verification, category setup, and the lead disputes most contractors never bother to file — which is exactly why they overpay.
Google Ads for contractors Reach & recallFacebook & Social Ads
Targeted paid social and retargeting for the homeowners who visited your site and left. Useful for seasonal pushes, storm response, financing offers and remodeling work where the decision takes weeks, not minutes.
Contractor Facebook ads Own your pipelineLead Generation Systems
Exclusive leads that belong to you, not shared five ways with the contractors down the road. Call tracking, instant lead alerts, and follow-up that fires whether or not anyone in the office remembers.
Contractor lead generation The new front doorAI Search Optimization
Homeowners now ask ChatGPT and Gemini to recommend a contractor. Research in 2026 estimates only about 1.2% of local businesses get surfaced in those answers. We build the structured data, profile consistency and content that gets you into that group.
AI search for contractorsWhich trades do we build campaigns for?
Roofing, plumbing, HVAC, electrical, solar, general contracting, painting, remodeling, pool building and fencing. Each one gets its own strategy, because the customer behaves differently. A burst pipe is a five-minute decision at eleven at night. A pool build is a six-month conversation with a spouse. The same campaign cannot serve both, and agencies that run one playbook across every trade are the reason contractors think marketing doesn't work.
Roofing
SEO for roofers · storm response
Plumbing
Emergency intent · highest ticket value
HVAC
Seasonal demand · maintenance plans
Electrical
Panel upgrades · EV charger installs
Solar
Long sales cycle · high ticket
General Contracting
Broad scope · referral heavy
Painting
Volume trade · low cost per lead
Remodeling
Kitchen & bath · financing offersPool Builders
Seasonal · six-figure projectsFencing
Fast close · neighborhood clusteringWhat can you actually afford to pay for a lead?
Most contractors have no idea, which is exactly why they either overspend on bad channels or refuse to spend at all. The math is simple. Your break-even cost per lead is your profit per job multiplied by your close rate. Fill in three numbers and you'll have your ceiling — then we'll show you how real 2026 lead costs compare against it.
Break-Even Lead Cost Worksheet
AFC · No. 001At these numbers you need 4 leads to book one job. Anything you pay under $638 per lead earns money on the first job alone — before repeat work, referrals or the maintenance agreement that follows.
Benchmarks: SearchLight Digital, January–February 2026. National averages across 888 contractors (Local Services Ads) and 816 contractors (Google Ads). Your market, your season and your review count will move these numbers meaningfully. Nothing here is stored or sent anywhere — the math runs in your browser.
What free tools can help you figure this out?
Three of them, all free and none of them gated behind a form. Advertising is genuinely confusing when it isn't your job, and most contractors are guessing about where to start. These are built to replace the guessing with arithmetic. Use them and never call us — that's fine.
Marketing Plan Builder
Answer seven questions about your trade, your numbers and your goals. You get a real twelve-month plan back — what to fix first, which channels in what order, how to split the budget, and your break-even measured against your trade's actual 2026 lead costs. Download it or have it emailed to you.
Build my plan Most important assetWebsite Scorecard
Your website is where every channel eventually sends people. If it doesn't convert, everything upstream of it is wasted money. Twenty-five checks across speed, conversion path, trust signals, local SEO and AI readiness. Weighted score, letter grade, and a fix list ordered by what's free versus what's worth paying for.
Score my website Keep it workingLead & Job Tracker
A spreadsheet with the formulas already written. Log leads by source and date; it calculates cost per lead, close rate, cost per booked job and revenue by channel automatically. Most contractors can't answer which channel produced last month's customers. This answers it.
Download the trackerNo email wall, no drip sequence, no "unlock" step. If they're useful, use them. If you'd rather someone just look at your specific situation, that's what the free audit is for. See all free contractor tools.
Should you buy leads, or own them?
Buying leads from a marketplace fills a slow week. It never builds anything. You're renting access to a homeowner who has already been sold to four of your competitors, which turns the first phone call into a price fight. Industry reporting through 2026 shows contractors moving hard toward exclusive, owned lead sources for exactly that reason. Both have a place — just know which one you're buying.
Renting leads
- The same homeowner is sold to several contractors at once
- You compete on price before you've said a word about quality
- Cost per lead is set by the platform and rises when they want it to
- Stop paying and the leads stop the same day
- You build no asset, no ranking, no brand recall
- Disputing junk leads is on you, and most contractors never bother
Owning your pipeline
- Every lead comes to you and only you
- The homeowner found you, so you're the expert, not the fourth quote
- Cost per lead drops as your rankings and review profile mature
- The work compounds — month twelve costs less than month three
- Your Google Business Profile, site and reviews are assets you keep
- Branded search stays cheap forever once people know your name
Here's the honest version: if you need work in the next two weeks and you have nothing built, buy the leads. Cash flow beats theory. But start building the owned side in parallel, because a contracting business whose entire pipeline lives on someone else's platform is one pricing change away from a very bad quarter. That's the whole argument for building a lead generation system you actually control.
What happens after you call?
A conversation about your business, not a pitch about ours. We need to know your average job value, your close rate, your service radius and what your slow season looks like before we can tell you anything useful. Then you get a free audit, a plan with a real number attached, and the choice to walk away.
No pressure calls. No twelve-month agreement. If we look at your market and think you'd be better off spending that money on a second truck, we'll tell you — we've done it before.
The audit
We look at your website, your Google Business Profile, your reviews, your rankings and the three competitors beating you in the map pack. You get the findings in plain language, and you keep them whether you hire us or not.
The numbers
We work out your break-even cost per lead using your real job values and close rate, then tell you which channels can hit it in your market. If the math doesn't work at your budget, we say so instead of selling you a package anyway.
Build and launch
First thirty days is foundation: tracking, profile, conversion path, and whichever channel gets the phone ringing fastest for your trade. Paid search moves in days. Local and organic start compounding underneath it.
Report and scale
Monthly reporting on calls, forms and booked jobs with source attribution — so you know which channel produced which customer. We scale what's working and cut what isn't, and you can leave any month.
How will you know it's working?
Because you'll be able to answer a question most contractors can't: which channel produced last month's customers. We set up call tracking and conversion tracking before we spend a dollar on traffic, so every call and form is tagged to its source.
Your monthly report covers ranking and map pack movement, calls and form fills with attribution, traffic by channel and what it did, AI search visibility, and a plain-language note on what we did and what we're changing. No forty-page PDF. No screenshot of a rankings chart standing in for revenue.
The uncomfortable part of attribution is that it sometimes tells you the channel you love is producing nothing, and the one you were about to cut is producing half your work. We'd rather show you a real number with a caveat than a flattering one that's fiction. See how we report on results.
How much does contractor advertising cost?
We build campaigns from about $50 a month up to several thousand, scoped to your goals and your market. A painter working one town needs a very different budget than a roofing company covering three counties. There is no package, no tier chart and no long-term contract — we quote what it takes to win where you operate, and we tell you honestly when the math doesn't support it.
Small and steady
Around $50–$500 a month. Usually Google Business Profile work, review systems and a tight local search footprint. Slow, cheap and genuinely effective for a one-truck operation working a single town.
Multi-channel
Several hundred to a few thousand a month. Paid search or Local Services Ads for immediate work, plus SEO and content compounding underneath it. This is where most contractors who want a second or third crew land.
Market domination
Several thousand a month and up. Multi-city service area coverage, full paid and organic, AI search, and the reporting infrastructure to run it like a department instead of a line item.
For context on what the wider market charges: industry guidance in 2026 puts typical contractor SEO budgets between $2,500 and $7,500 a month depending on competition and service area size. We sit deliberately across a wider range than that, because a contractor with a $50 budget and a good profile can still beat the guy down the road who has neither. Full pricing details, or ask about the Eye To Ad Media VIP membership — $69.99 a month, month to month, which unlocks member pricing across every service we offer.
Are we a good match for your company?
We work best with contracting companies that want to scale and are willing to invest consistently to get there. We're a poor match for anyone looking for a quick fix or a thirty-day miracle. Being honest about this saves us both a bad six months.
We're a strong fit if
- You want to grow, not just fill next week's schedule
- You know roughly what a job is worth and what you close
- Someone answers the phone, fast — marketing can't fix a voicemail box
- You can commit to a realistic runway, not just one month
- You'd rather hear an uncomfortable number than a flattering one
- You want to own your leads instead of renting them forever
We're probably not for you if
- You need the phone ringing this week and have nothing built — buy leads first
- You want a guarantee of page one rankings; nobody controls Google
- Leads sit for two days before anyone calls them back
- You're looking for the cheapest possible option regardless of outcome
- You want to sign for twelve months and never look at the reporting
We work with contractors across the United States and internationally — we're based in Denver but the market matters more than the map. If you'd like to see the full picture of who we take on and why, read who we work with.
Contractor advertising questions
How much does advertising for contractors cost?
What is a good cost per lead for a contractor?
How long does contractor SEO take to work?
Should contractors buy leads from Angi or Thumbtack?
Do you only work with contractors in Denver?
What trades do you work with?
Why does AI search matter for contractors?
Do you require a long-term contract?
More definitions and plain-English explanations in the contractor marketing glossary.
Find out what's leaking before you spend a dollar
Tell us about your business and we'll audit your website, your Google Business Profile, your review profile and the competitors currently outranking you. You get the findings in plain language, and you keep them whether you hire us or not.
It takes us about a day. There's no obligation attached and no drip sequence waiting for you — a real person reads it and calls you back, usually the same day.
Prefer to just talk? 1-800-481-8638. A human answers. If you'd rather email, we're at info@eyetoad.com.
Request your free audit
No cost, no contract, no pitch deck.
Let's get the phone ringing.
One call. We'll look at your market, tell you what it takes to win it, and give you a real number. If it isn't worth it, we'll say so.