Roofing lead generation: which source should you try next?

Decide which roofing leads you actually want

Write a short target before looking at suppliers or campaigns:

“We want more ______ work in ______. We have room for ______ inspections and ______ jobs. ______ will handle new leads, with ______ as backup.”

Then name the requests you cannot take. A replacement crew may not want small repairs. A residential roofer may not handle a commercial maintenance tender. Keep the actual services and area clear rather than hoping the word “roofing” covers them.

A genuine request outside your area still counts as a lead in your records. Mark why it is unsuitable. That helps you see whether a source keeps sending the wrong work.

For commercial work, include the building type, service and purchasing process. For storm-related work, confirm the area and response capacity you can honestly offer. Rejuvenation requests need their own service criteria; do not judge them against replacement leads as though the jobs were interchangeable.

Before adding a source, check three things: a customer can reach you, a named person will respond, and the team can deliver suitable work. If one is missing, make that your first task. The roofing website checklist can help you check the route from a service page to your team.

Know what is being sold as a lead

Providers use “lead” for different products. Start with the description in the offer, not its headline.

Shared and exclusive describe distribution

A shared lead is offered to more than one contractor under the seller's rules. Ask how many, whether they receive it together or in sequence, and whether it can be sold again later.

For an exclusive lead, ask exactly what the seller is promising. Exclusive to your business for this request? Exclusive for a set time? Exclusive only within a particular service or territory? Write down when that restriction ends and what can happen next.

Even where the seller promises not to give the request to another roofer, the customer may contact other businesses independently. Judge the written distribution promise rather than assuming you will be the only quote.

Keep prospect lists outside your count of genuine leads until someone makes a real request. Keep the list and outreach costs in your source costs. Otherwise, a pack of names can look successful before it produces a single inquiry.

Should you buy leads or generate your own?

Generating your own leads means attracting requests through your business's relationships and marketing, whether your staff or an agency does the work. Buying leads means paying another business to supply the agreed contacts, requests, calls or appointments. You can use both, but give each a clear purpose.

There is no advertising bill for some referral activity, but staff time and materials still cost something. Likewise, paying to improve your own website does not guarantee when the next lead will arrive. Record those costs instead of calling one route free and the other expensive.

You do not have to choose a permanent winner. Choose one test that answers a current question, such as “Can this provider supply replacement requests in the area we actually serve?” Avoid changing the provider, service area, offer and follow-up process at once if you want to understand what changed.

Compare the provider's terms before the price

Use these six groups for two offers, or complete just Offer A. Copy the written answer and the relevant contract or policy reference. If an answer is missing, write “not stated” rather than assuming the usual terms will apply.

Offer A: provider ______; offer date ______; written offer or policy reference ______.

Offer B: provider ______; offer date ______; written offer or policy reference ______.

1. What exactly triggers a charge?

Ask: “What arrives, and what precise event makes it billable?” Check an unanswered call, a failed transfer, a repeat inquiry and a booked appointment that does not happen. For a service fee, list the work being bought and any separate advertising or lead charges.

• Offer A: product ______; billable event ______; exclusions ______.
• Offer B: product ______; billable event ______; exclusions ______.

“Qualified lead” needs a definition. A seller's billable event and your business's definition of a suitable lead can differ.

For example, Google Local Services Ads can charge for qualifying calls or messages before a job is booked. Its credit rules have their own limits, so an unwanted request is not automatically refundable. Check Google's current lead billing guidance and credit guidance.

2. Does the request fit, and who handles it?

Ask which services and areas are included, how they are checked, when the person first requested help and whether the request has been offered before. For appointments, establish the purpose, address checks and how the customer confirmed the time.

Ask where the details came from, what the person was shown and requested, and what evidence supports the contact you intend to make. Resolve unclear contact requirements with someone qualified to advise on your location and method; a seller's “verified” label is not the whole answer.

Finally, agree the delivery method and hours. Who answers a call, follows up on a message, confirms a visit and handles replies or requests to stop? Include your team's responsibilities even if the provider advertises follow-up.

• Offer A: services/area ______; request age/source ______; checks/contact evidence ______; delivery and follow-up owner ______.
• Offer B: services/area ______; request age/source ______; checks/contact evidence ______; delivery and follow-up owner ______.

3. Who else gets it, and what counts as a duplicate?

Ask how many contractors or resellers may receive the request, at what times, and when any exclusivity ends. Ask whether a later resale is allowed.

For duplicates, get the lookback period and matching rule. Does it cover the same phone number, household, property or actual roofing job? What if the person is already in your records or contacts you through another source?

• Offer A: sharing/exclusivity and end point ______; resale rule ______; duplicate rule/lookback ______.
• Offer B: sharing/exclusivity and end point ______; resale rule ______; duplicate rule/lookback ______.

4. What can the whole test cost?

Record currency, unit price, setup, management, subscriptions, minimum purchases, taxes and any other fees. Separate fixed charges from charges that grow with volume. Include the time your team will spend handling the source.

Ask whether the stated budget is an average, a target or a firm limit. Can charges arrive after you pause? Who can stop delivery, how quickly does it stop, and which fees continue? Agree a maximum total commitment, not just a comfortable-looking price per lead.

• Offer A: full cost/commitment ______; volume and spending limit ______; pause delay/continuing charges ______.
• Offer B: full cost/commitment ______; volume and spending limit ______; pause delay/continuing charges ______.

5. How do credits, cancellation and renewal work?

Ask which problems qualify for a credit or refund, the evidence required, the submission deadline and how to challenge a rejected request. Establish whether the remedy is money returned or credit toward more leads, and whether that credit expires or requires continued service.

Then check the minimum term, automatic renewal, cancellation method, notice deadline and exit charges. Pausing delivery and ending the agreement may be different actions.

• Offer A: eligible problems/evidence/deadline ______; refund or credit ______; renewal and cancellation terms ______.
• Offer B: eligible problems/evidence/deadline ______; refund or credit ______; renewal and cancellation terms ______.

6. What can you see and take with you?

Ask whether you can see the original inquiry, dates, charges and credit decisions, and export the records you need to run the business. Where marketing services are included, establish control of the domain, website, content, ad accounts and tracking numbers. Ask what stays available and what must be transferred or replaced if you leave.

• Offer A: records/access/export ______; account and asset control ______; handover work/cost ______.
• Offer B: records/access/export ______; account and asset control ______; handover work/cost ______.

Your decision: ready for a defined trial / need written answers / not the product we need.

Missing answer or next question: ______.

A lower unit price may buy a different thing

Consider two fictional offers. One charges when a homeowner's request reaches your inbox. The other charges when an appointment is booked, whether or not the customer attends. Comparing their prices as though both bought a completed inspection would be misleading.

First compare what each promise covers. Then see whether the full commitment fits your limit and whether you can handle what arrives. The eventual cost per kept job comes from your own results, not the name given to the product.

Give every lead a clear next step

Before the test starts, check that a request reaches the person who will handle it. Use a clearly identified internal test of your own intake route, or the provider's agreed test method. Do not create a paid lead or book a real appointment just to test delivery.

Keep the first record simple: lead ID, first-lead date, source, and suitable / not suitable / not sure. Add the responsible person, next action and due date. Use your existing notebook, spreadsheet or CRM rather than starting a separate lead list for this trial.

As work moves forward, date the visit actually held, estimate sent, customer acceptance, completion and any cancellation. A receipt message is useful, but it does not answer the customer's question. A calendar booking is useful, but it does not show that the visit happened.

The first-response guide covers the initial handoff. Use the estimate follow-up guide once an estimate has been sent. You can start manually; automation is optional.

Compare the results without counting the same job twice

Start with the leads, not the supplier's dashboard total. Follow the same requests from their first arrival through to later outcomes.

Keep one record for one potential job

Count unique, genuine roofing requests, including unsuitable ones. Keep confirmed spam, internal tests and duplicate contacts separately. If a request's authenticity is unclear, label it unconfirmed rather than treating it as genuine or deleting it.

A form followed by a phone call about the same work is one lead. Link repeated contacts to that record. A separate future job for the same customer can have its own record.

If two sources claim the same request, keep both pieces of evidence but use one consistent rule for which source gets credit. Do not give both sources the full job or revenue. Keep “source unknown” where you cannot establish it. This is a way to keep useful records, not proof that one source caused the sale.

Keep duplicate charges with the source that charged them. Reduce those costs only for a refund received or a credit actually applied to the charges. A duplicate does not become a second genuine lead just because you paid for it twice.

Follow the stages that actually happened

For the chosen group, count genuine leads, suitable leads, required visits held, estimates sent, accepted jobs, full cancellations and completed work. Keep still-open leads and missing information visible.

“Accepted” means the customer accepted under your normal documented process. Keep that history if they later cancel. To count jobs kept after cancellation, subtract fully cancelled accepted jobs from all accepted jobs. A credit on completed work changes the money recorded; it does not erase the completed job.

Some jobs need no visit or separate estimate. Record that route instead of marking a legitimate skipped step as a failure. If you calculate a rate between stages, use only leads for which both stages were relevant.

Give each source a fair amount of time

This month's finished roofs may come from leads received months ago. Choose a first-lead date range and follow those same IDs later. Match the source activity and costs to that group, rather than using whichever invoices happened to be paid that month. For setup work, a website or a list used beyond the trial, state how its cost is allocated and use the same approach across comparisons.

Compare similar services and areas. Give each lead the same amount of time after arrival to reach the outcome being measured, or wait until both groups' decisions and relevant job costs are settled. Choose that timing from your actual sales and delivery process. Closing both reports on Friday does not make a new lead as old as one received last month.

You can review request quality and missed handoffs early. Completed-job costs need longer. If one source is still waiting on decisions or work, record what is known and leave the final comparison open.

Count the full cost, including leads you did not win

Include charges for the whole test period, even when it produced no leads. Add setup, management, creative, tracking and the staff time you have chosen to include. Subtract refunds received or credits applied to those charges once. List requested credits and unused or conditional credit for future leads separately; do not count them as recovered money.

Allocate a shared fee once using a stated method. Keep inspection, estimating and job-delivery costs with the work they belong to, and do not also charge the same hours as marketing costs. Use the same cost treatment across sources. Missing costs mean the total is unknown, not zero.

Two simple questions are enough to start:

• What did each genuine lead cost? Divide the full recorded source cost by its unique genuine leads, including unsuitable ones.
• What did each accepted job kept after cancellation cost? Divide the same source cost by accepted jobs less full cancellations. Label the answer “to date” while outcomes can still change.

If there are no genuine leads or no retained accepted jobs, show the spending and the zero count rather than a unit cost. If costs or lead validity are unresolved, show the known spending, confirmed counts and missing information before stating a final cost.

Those figures help compare the cost of bringing in work. To understand what is left, start with earned revenue from the same group of leads. Subtract the direct costs of that work, including unrecovered inspection, estimating and cancellation costs on jobs you did not win or keep. Then subtract the cost of getting those leads once. The remainder still has to cover overhead and other business costs; it is not net profit. Keep unfinished work separate until revenue and costs can be matched reliably.

Plan one source test

Copy this sheet into your notes. It records the decision and review plan; individual leads stay in your existing log.

Before starting

Decide how you will review it

At the review

Decision: continue within the agreed limit / change one thing / stop new activity / keep observing existing leads without new spending.

Set the conditions before results arrive. A spending limit reached, a broken delivery route or more work than the team can handle can justify pausing immediately. A few early losses, by themselves, may leave too little evidence to judge the source.

When the test ends, you can stop buying new leads and still follow the existing ones to their outcome. “We need more time to know” does not require “keep spending.”

Choose the next action

If you are comparing suppliers, fill in the written terms first. If the offer is unclear, your next action is to get the missing answer. If your team is already losing track of suitable leads, fix that before adding another source.

Ready to proceed? Complete one trial sheet, test the handoff and agree the spending and stopping limits. Use the same lead records throughout.

If you want outside help running ads, Goliath's Google Ads services are an existing route to discuss that work. Bring the service, area and trial brief with you, and ask for a proposal that states the work, responsibilities and costs.

You can also use this whole process yourself or with another provider. The useful outcome is a clearer decision about the next source, including a decision not to buy yet.