Solved: High CPLs for Roofing & Real Estate Ads

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out! Happy to give you some initial thoughts and guidance on your situation. It sounds like you're in a common spot for agencies starting to scale – managing client work, trying to get better results, and figuring out how to grow without everything falling apart. The fact you're seeing high CPLs with home service clients on Meta, especially on those small budgets, doesn't surprise me one bit.

The temptation is to find a "media buyer" who knows the magic buttons for that niche. But I reckon the problem isn't the person pressing the buttons, it's the strategy and the platform you're using in the first place. You're trying to find fish in a pond when they're all swimming in the river next door.

I'll walk you through why I think you're struggling and what I'd do instead. It's a bit of a different way of thinking, but it's what we've seen work time and time again for these types of businesses.

We'll need to look at why you're burning cash on Meta...

First off, let's address the elephant in the room: Meta ads for roofing, remodelling, and seller leads. Can it work? Yes, sometimes. Is it the best place to put a client's £40/day budget? Almost certainly not. You're playing the game on the hardest difficulty setting from the start.

Think about the user's mindset. Someone scrolling through Facebook or Instagram is in a passive, entertainment-seeking mode. They're looking at photos of their grandkids, watching funny videos, or catching up with friends. Then your ad for "Roofing Services in New Jersey" appears. The chances that this person, at that exact moment, has a roofing problem they're ready to solve are incredibly slim. You're interrupting their leisure time with a sales pitch for a high-consideration, often urgent, service. It's the digital equivalent of a cold call.

The Meta algorithm is designed to get you the cheapest results for the objective you select. When you run a lead gen campaign, it's looking for people within your audience who have a history of filling out forms. These are often "form-fillers" who might give their details for a chance to win something or out of mild curiosity, not people with genuine, urgent intent. So you end up with a high CPL because you have to show the ad to thousands of uninterested people to find one person who's even remotely curious. And even then, the quality of that lead is often poor because they weren't actively looking for a solution. You're paying Facebook to find you non-customers.

This is a fundamental mismatch between the platform's nature and your clients' needs. A roofer doesn't need "brand awareness" among thousands of homeowners who are perfectly happy with their current roof. They need to be in front of the one person whose ceiling just started dripping. A real estate agent doesn't need to show up in the feeds of people casually browsing Zillow; they need to connect with the couple who just decided "it's time to sell".

Let me illustrate the difference in user journey. It's a bit of a simplification, but it gets the point across.

So, the first bit of advice is a tough pill to swallow: for these specific client types, you need to seriously question if Meta should be their primary advertising channel. It's not about finding a better media buyer for Meta; it's about being a better strategist and picking the right tool for the job.

I'd say you need to be fishing where the fish are... Google Search

This leads to the obvious solution: Google Search Ads. This is where your clients' customers are when they have money in hand, ready to solve a problem. Nobody Googles "remodeling contractor cost" for fun. They do it because they're seriously considering a project. Nobody searches "best real estate agent to sell my home" on a whim. They're at the start of a massive financial decision.

For service businesses, Google Search is the bread and butter. It's not sexy, but it works. You are directly answering a question or solving a problem the user has *right now*. The intent is baked in. This means your click-through rates will be higher, your conversion rates will be higher, and the quality of your leads will be far superior to anything you get from a passive social media scroller.

You mentioned your clients are on a $40/day budget. That's about $1200/month. Is that enough? For a competitive market, it's tight, but it's a starting point. Based on my experience with consumer services, costs can vary quite a bit. For instance, one campaign we're running for an HVAC company in a competitive area is seeing costs of around $60 per lead. On the other hand, one of our most successful consumer services campaigns was for a home cleaning company, which brought in leads for just £5 each. The actual cost will depend on the market, but even using the higher HVAC figure, a $1200 budget could generate around 20 leads a month. Now, you need to have a conversation with your client: if they close just two or three of those leads, is the campaign profitable? For an HVAC install, absolutely. The same maths applies to roofing and remodelling.

For real estate agents looking for seller leads, the numbers are different, but the principle is the same. Keywords like "what is my home worth" or "how to sell my house without a realtor" can be targeted to capture intent. The CPL might be higher, but a single commission from a closed deal can pay for months of ad spend.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the kind of keywords you should be thinking about for your clients:

The challenge is managing expectations with a small budget. You can't target every keyword. You have to be strategic and focus on the ones with the highest commercial intent. It's about quality over quantity. I'd rather get my client five fantastic leads than 20 tyre-kickers from Facebook.

To help you have these conversations with your clients, I've put together a little interactive calculator. It lets you play with the numbers to see how different CPLs and ad spends translate into actual lead volume. This can help frame the investment and show them what's realistic.

You probably need to think less about demographics and more about nightmares...

Okay, so we've established that Google Search is a better hunting ground. But just showing up for the right keywords isn't enough. You need to speak to the potential customer in a way that resonates with their actual problem. This is where most advertising fails. It's generic.

Forget the idea of an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) based on demographics like "Homeowner, age 45-65, income $100k+". It's useless. It tells you nothing about their motivations, their fears, or their urgent needs. Instead, you need to define your customer by their *pain*. By their nightmare scenario.

Your client's customer isn't thinking, "I require the services of a certified roofing professional." They're thinking, "Oh god, the weather forecast says thunderstorms all week and that brown spot on the ceiling is getting bigger. I'm terrified my kid's bedroom is going to get ruined."

That fear, that urgency, that specific, costly, and emotionally draining problem—that's what you target. That's what you write your ads about. Let's break it down:

• For Roofing: The nightmare isn't needing a new roof. It's the catastrophic failure of the old one. It's water damage, mould, destroyed possessions, and battles with insurance companies. Your ad shouldn't sell shingles; it should sell peace of mind before the next storm hits.
• For Remodelling: The nightmare isn't an old kitchen. It's the daily frustration of not having enough counter space. It's the embarrassment of having friends over to a dated, ugly bathroom. It's the stress of a growing family crammed into a space that's too small. You're not selling cabinets and tile; you're selling a better, less stressful daily life.
• For Real Estate Sellers: The nightmare isn't just selling a house. It's the house sitting on the market for six months while they pay two mortgages. It's accepting a lowball offer because they're desperate. It's the fear of leaving tens of thousands of dollars on the table due to bad advice. You're not selling a listing service; you're selling financial security and a smooth transition to their next chapter.

When you start thinking this way, your entire approach changes. Your keyword research becomes more specific. Your ad copy stops being about your client ("We're the best roofers!") and starts being about the customer's problem ("Leaky roof? Get a free inspection today."). Your landing page reinforces this message, showing you understand their pain and have a clear solution.

This is the differance between speaking to everyone and speaking to someone. It's how you stand out in a crowded search results page and convince someone to click your ad instead of the other three.

You'll need a message that actually connects with them...

Once you understand the customer's nightmare, you can craft a message they can't ignore. A simple but incredibly powerful copywriting framework for this is Problem-Agitate-Solve (PAS).

You're not just stating what your client does. You're entering the conversation already happening in the customer's head.

Here's how it works in practice for your client niches:

See the difference? The first set of ads is all about the service provider. The second set is all about the customer and their problem. The "After" examples will get more clicks, higher quality clicks, and ultimately generate better leads because they prove you understand the searcher's situation before they even get to your website. You can't just promise results to your clients; you have to build a system that's designed to create them, and it starts with the message.

And finally, you need an offer they actually want...

This is the final piece of the puzzle, and it's where most small business advertising completely falls apart. You can have the right platform, the right targeting, and the right message, but if your offer is weak, your conversion rates will be terrible. You'll get clicks but no leads.

What is the call-to-action on your clients' websites right now? I'm willing to bet it's something like "Contact Us," "Learn More," or "Get a Quote." These are not compelling offers. They are high-friction and low-value. They ask the user to do all the work with no immediate reward.

"Contact Us" implies a sales pitch is coming. "Learn More" is a commitment to read more text. "Get a Quote" can be intimidating; it sounds like a big commitment and people fear being hounded by a salesperson.

Your offer's only job is to provide a moment of undeniable value. It must be a low-risk, high-value first step that solves a small, immediate problem for the prospect. This is how you earn their trust and get them to raise their hand.

You need to brainstorm with your clients to create what we call a "Lead Magnet" or a "Foot-in-the-Door" offer. It has to be something that is easy for them to say "yes" to.

• For Roofing/Remodelling:
  • Weak Offer: "Get a Quote"
  • Strong Offer: "Get a Free 17-Point Roof Inspection & Photo Report." This sounds official, valuable, and educational. It provides tangible value (the report) even if they don't hire your client. Another great one is "Emergency Tarping Service" for storm-related keywords.
• For Real Estate Agents (Sellers):
  • Weak Offer: "Contact Me for a CMA"
  • Strong Offer: "Get an Instant, Automated Home Valuation Online." or "Download Our Free Guide: 7 Costly Mistakes to Avoid When Selling Your NJ Home." These provide immediate value and position the agent as an expert guide, not just a salesperson.

This strong offer becomes the entire focus of your landing page. You're not sending traffic from your Google Ad to their cluttered homepage with 10 different buttons. You send them to a dedicated page that has one job: to sell them on the free offer. One headline, a few bullet points about the benefits of the offer, and one clear button to claim it. That's it. This focus dramatically increases conversion rates.

The "guarantee" you're looking for from a media buyer doesn't exist. No honest professional can guarantee results because there are too many variables. But what an expert *can* do is implement a proven process like this one – a process that systematically de-risks advertising and stacks the odds in your clients' favour. The guarantee is in the strategy, not the outcome.

This is the main advice I have for you:

I know this is a lot to take in, and it's a fundamental shift from just "running ads on Meta". It requires you to be more of a marketing strategist for your clients than just a button-pusher. But this is how you deliver real value, justify your fees, and get clients results that make them stick with you for the long haul. I've detailed the main recommendations for you below as an action plan.

Implementing a strategy like this is a significant undertaking, especially when you're also managing the day-to-day of your agency. It involves in-depth keyword research, compelling copywriting, landing page optimisation, and careful campaign management. It's a very different skillset to just setting up a lead form on Facebook.

This is often where agencies like yours decide to partner with a specialist. Not just a freelance "media buyer," but a team that can help build the entire strategic framework from the ground up, ensuring every piece works together to turn ad spend into profitable customers for your clients.

If you'd like to chat more about this and have us take a look at one of your client's accounts, we offer a completely free, no-obligation initial consultation. We can jump on a call, review what you're currently doing, and give you some more specific, actionable advice. It might be the most valuable 30 minutes you spend on your agency this month.

Hope this helps give you a new perspective!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh