Best Roofing Lead Generation Platforms: 2024 Guide to Prices and Profitability

The roofing industry is competitive, with numerous contractors vying for a limited number of clients. It's essential to utilize effective lead generation methods to gain an edge. Whether you're a seasoned roofing company owner or a marketing manager looking to boost sales, identifying the best platforms for roofing leads can significantly impact your bottom line.

As the owner of SolarReviews, the largest supplier of leads to the residential solar industry in America, we have spent more than $100 million buying traffic from all of the major lead generation platforms (Google Ads, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram) for solar. More recently, as the owner of RoofingCalculator.com, we have bought roofing traffic from all the major platforms for roofing and have a unique insight into each.

In this article, we'll examine critical factors that should guide your decision when choosing a lead generation platform and go through the pros and cons of the major platforms, such as Google Ads, Facebook, Bing, YouTube, and Instagram.

How much do genuine roofing leads cost?

Even if you have the best paid traffic buyers in the land — and we do at Fixr — it still costs about $80 to generate a raw roofing lead through significant traffic sources (Google, Facebook, etc.).

Before raw leads are sold, they undergo a QA process (or at least they should, and they do at Fixr). Only about half of raw leads that fill in a web form actually want a quote, so it costs about $160 to generate a genuine or verified roofing lead with a valid TCPA opt-in.

As such, you will pay at least $180 for genuine roofing leads if they are sold to you exclusively. You will pay less if they are sold to you and other roofing contractors.

If people offer you roofing leads for $20 or $30, they are almost certainly not genuine. Most of these offers come from lead vendors who recycle old leads where the TCPA opt-in has expired. Calling such leads exposes you to TCPA litigation risks and hefty fines.

How profitable is buying roofing leads?

Here is a typical example of the results a Fixr roofing lead buyer sees when buying Duo and Trio leads (leads shared with one or two other contractors rather than exclusive roofing leads).

The table above illustrates almost a 400% return on investment, even though more than 90% of the leads did not buy. This is how profitable buying good-quality roofing leads is. Many clients see much higher conversion rates, but the economics of purchasing roofing leads is compelling even at these levels.

Buyers guide: What to know before buying roofing leads

To maximize and protect your investment in roofing leads, be sure to fully understand the following when vetting any lead-generation company:

Traffic source

Before you invest in a platform, ask where the leads are coming from. Organic search, paid ads, and social media channels have different conversion rates and customer profiles. Check what the platform tells you. If they say they use paid search, check that you can see their ads on Google results pages.

One of the big problems in the roofing leads industry is that the biggest players are affiliate networks that get their leads from hundreds of different small websites. Lead fraud is common in such situations because each website owner has no relationship with you, the eventual lead buyer. Many major lead vendors also say they generate leads one way but actually just recycle old leads.

Lead quality

• Lead accuracy: A good platform will provide verified leads, ensuring the contact information is accurate, which saves your sales team a lot of time and effort. Make sure you ask about the QA process.

• Lead relevance: Ensure the leads you're getting are specifically interested in roofing services. Some large aggregators will sell roofing contractors leads where the consumer agreed to a TCPA opt-in for a different service, e.g., to get an insurance quote.

• Lead exclusivity: Some platforms share the same leads with many roofing companies. A good roofing leads platform will tell you, for each lead, how many other roofing companies the lead was sold to. A good platform should also charge you a lower price the more companies the lead is sold to. Unfortunately, the biggest roofing lead networks don't tell you how many contractors each lead is sold to.

Lead-buying process

• Speed of delivery: The difference between a sale and a missed opportunity is how quickly you can contact a lead. Choose a platform that delivers leads in real time, or as close to it as possible.

• Format: Will the leads be delivered via email, directly into your CRM, or through an online dashboard? Choose a format that integrates seamlessly with your existing systems.

• Follow-up support: Some platforms offer additional support, like scripts for roofing sales calls or email templates. While not a necessity, these can be valuable for your sales team.

Customization and targeting

• Geographical targeting: Especially important for local businesses, geographical targeting ensures you only receive leads within your service areas. Most lead generation platforms should allow you only to purchase leads in the desired counties that you work in.

• Service targeting: Platforms may allow you to target specific roofing services like repairs, installations, or inspections, helping you specialize your offerings. Fixr, for example, is launching specialist metal roofing leads.

• Demographic targeting: Some platforms can target leads based on demographic factors like age, home size, or income level. Facebook is probably the leader in this respect with its audience filters.

• Budget flexibility: Some platforms may require a significant minimum purchase, while others allow you to start small and scale up. Choose one that suits your budget.

Compliance and legality

• Data protection: A reputable platform should adhere to data protection laws and industry regulations to protect both your business and potential customers.

• Industry regulations: Ensure that the lead generation process complies with industry and legal standards to avoid any potential issues.

• Contact viability: It is illegal to call a consumer who has listed their number on a state or federal Do Not Call (DNC) Registry unless you have a valid TCPA opt-in under three months old. Understand that if you call a lead and they have not given this consent, then you are legally liable for a fine. TCPA fines start small but rise to $250,000 for repeat offenses.

Track record and reviews

• Customer testimonials: Look for case studies or reviews from other roofing companies to gauge the platform's effectiveness.

• Performance metrics: A platform that offers transparent metrics can help you evaluate the success rate of your leads more effectively.

What are the pros and cons of each of the major roofing lead platforms?

Google Ads

Google dominates the search market, making it a critical platform for lead generation. The cost of traffic through Google Ads has been increasing quickly. Here are the pros and cons of generating roofing leads through Google Ads.

Pros

• No locked-in contract, so you can turn on and off when you choose and set the budget and bids you choose

• High volume, capturing 90% of the search market

• High-intent traffic

• Pay-for-performance model, so you only pay for clicks through to your website

• Simple to create text ads that can run for a long time without going stale

Cons

• Small and new advertisers in Google Ads are at a significant disadvantage when it comes to keyword filters, so they tend to buy all the worst converting traffic that the big buyers have filtered out

• ROI on pay-per-click is not as easy to measure as pay-per-lead or pay-per-appointment products offered by specialist lead generation companies 

• It is both difficult and expensive to hire people who are true Google Ads experts — if you can find one, they usually command salaries over $200,000 annually

• The geotargeting of ads in Google works well at a state level but less well at a county level, and even worse at the zip code level, so it’s harder to buy leads only within your service areas like you can with a lead generation company

• The Google Ads platform is becoming quite complex, as it has many features

• The best bidding options on Google Ads require integration programming between Google Ads and your website and CRM systems, which is beyond the capability of most companies

Final thoughts: Google's volume can’t be ignored by any roofing company that wants to capture a big market share. However, it’s better to access this volume through a lead generation company that will do the hard work for you rather than buy clicks directly. 

These lead generation companies have whole teams of specialists for Google Ads (and the other platforms) that avoid buying junk traffic. They can generate leads at a lower cost than if you try and purchase this traffic directly yourself.

YouTube Ads

As the second-largest search engine, YouTube offers a significant volume of potential customers. However, it requires different skills and investments, particularly in video production and advertising strategy.

Pros

• It offers geotargeting

• No lock-in contracts, so you can start, pause, and change the budget and bids when you like

• Videos enable you to make a more personal connection with potential customers than text-based advertising platforms

Cons

• Making a video that gets an acceptable conversion rate to leads is difficult, so the cost per lead can be astronomical if you get this wrong

• There is a time and cost of creating professional video

• Geotargeting is not perfect, so some of your ad spend may be outside your service areas

• Video Ads can get stale quickly, so you may need to make new video content fairly regularly

• Being a Google property, the cost of the traffic is becoming very expensive as more and more people are developing video ads

Final thoughts: As a large traffic buyer on YouTube, we have noticed that sometimes, toward the end of the month, there is a flood of overseas traffic that we get billed for that does not appear genuine. Google has refunded some of this to us, but it is important that you watch out for this if advertising directly on YouTube.

Facebook

Facebook remains an undeniably potent force in the world of online advertising. Its extensive user base and advanced targeting options make it a fertile ground for roofing businesses seeking to expand their reach. However, it comes with its own set of challenges. It has a lower overall shopping intent than search traffic and a cost-per-impression model, making ROI tracking difficult.

Pros

• Extensive reach with billions of users

• Advanced targeting features

Cons

• High cost for reach and engagement

• Increasing competition for traffic from all industries

• Traffic has lower buying intent compared to search

• Ads tend to go stale on Facebook quickly, meaning a constant investment in new ad creative

• Difficult to measure ROI because you are billed per CPM (1,000 impressions) regardless of how many leads these impressions generate

Final thoughts: While Facebook can be costly, it has scale. Its advanced targeting capabilities offer a more customized approach that could lower the cost per lead if executed correctly. However, it is a complex platform to use well.

Instagram

Instagram, also owned by Facebook, offers a visually stimulating platform perfect for showcasing your roofing projects. Like its parent company, Instagram provides many advertising opportunities but with additional challenges tied to audience behavior and content style.

Pros

• Visually stimulating platform perfect for showcasing your roofing projects

• Access to a younger demographic

Cons

• Relatively expensive

• Less effective for direct response advertising or reaching a specific target audience

Final thoughts: Instagram can benefit roofing businesses due to its visual nature. The platform allows you to display your work in a visually appealing way, although the costs can be on the higher side, and it also has a cost-per-impression model. 

HomeAdvisor (Angi)

HomeAdvisor, which recently merged with Angi, specializes in connecting homeowners with service professionals. Its credibility in the home service industry makes it a go-to source for many, although some controversies surround its business practices.

Pros

• Industry-focused

• Generates some organic and paid traffic leads, but mostly buys affiliate leads

Cons

• Legal and reputational concerns about business practices

• Leads are often shared with multiple vendors, and you, as a lead buyer, are not told how many people they are sold to

• As an affiliate network, their leads come from hundreds of sources, and there’s no way to vet the quality of each source before you accept the lead

Final thoughts: HomeAdvisor provides a more niche-focused platform, but businesses should be cautious due to legal and ethical concerns that have arisen around its lead distribution practices.

Traditional media (TV, radio, newspapers)

Traditional media like TV, radio, and newspapers may seem outdated in the age of digital marketing, but they still hold some value. However, these mediums have challenges, such as higher costs and difficult ROI tracking.

Pros

• Broad audience reach

• Trusted by older demographics, many of whom are homeowners

Cons

• Expensive

• Almost impossible to measure ROI

Final thoughts: Traditional media options are less effective than their digital counterparts but can still be valuable, especially for targeting older demographics that rely on these platforms.

Appointments and warm transfers

Appointments ensure a homeowner is serious about hiring a roofer. A warm transfer allows a potential customer to speak with a representative and one of your sales associates within the same call.

Pros

• Offer a solution to businesses that excel in sales but struggle with initial lead engagement

• Increases trust for both the homeowner and the contractor

Cons

• Cost more, as it takes more leads to earn an appointment

• Potential fraud and misuse

Final thoughts: Appointments and warm transfers can be particularly effective for smaller businesses or those with strong sales capabilities but limited resources for initial lead engagement. However, companies should exercise caution and ensure verification to prevent fraud.

By examining each of these platforms carefully and understanding their pros and cons, roofing businesses can make more informed decisions about where to invest their dollars. A multi-channel approach that combines these platforms is often the most effective marketing strategy for long-term success with high-quality leads.

Fixr's newly revamped roofing leads platform

Over the last two years, the Fixr website has been redesigned from the ground up to offer roofing companies the best demand generation model available to acquire new customers efficiently.

Fixr purchases traffic from all the media platforms listed on this page and converts this traffic to a cost per lead, cost per appointment, or warm transfer product on which your ROI is highly measurable. The Fixr platform can now support selling you leads, appointments, or warm transfers all through one dashboard.

One of the biggest benefits of working with Fixr is that we generate every one of the leads we sell. This differs greatly from the major affiliate lead networks, where leads are sourced from hundreds of websites, and the quality varies from each source.

Our model allows us to produce a very consistent quality of leads and very measurable conversion metrics. From leads, this means a 75% to 80% contact rate, a 25% to 35% appointment set rate, and an overall lead-to-job conversion rate of 4% to 12%, depending on your local market, the quality of your follow-up cadences, and your pricing model.

Here are some other pros of using Fixr to acquire new roofing customers in 2024:

• Fixr has integrations with all major ad platforms. One dashboard can obtain the lead volume from Google Ads, Bing, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram without your company needing to hire employees with skills to run each platform.

• Fixr offers the ability to turn campaigns on and off, increase or decrease budgets, and change bids at any time – all through one simple dashboard with no lock-in contract.

• The Fixr dashboard allows you to set your own cost and revenue per job values, then tracks your return on ad spend so you can see how profitable your Fixr account is at any time.

• Fixr is the only major home services lead generation platform that asks consumers how many quotes they want, then only sells a lead to that number of contractors. On the contractor side, Fixr varies costs depending on this split, so the cost of the lead mirrors the chances of conversion.

• Concerning appointments and warm transfers, conversion rates from appointment to job are usually in the range of 15% to 30%

• Fixr integrates into your CRM system.

• Fixr sends a PIN to the phone number of every consumer to confirm contact information, and the consumer has to enter that PIN into our site for it to become a “verified lead.” If they don’t enter this PIN, it will not become a verified lead unless our QA team manually confirms the interest with the consumer.

Fixr also puts each new lead through a QA process that weeds out about 50% of raw leads. It’s important to note this when comparing Fixr’s “cost per verified lead” with the “cost per raw lead” you get when you run Google or Facebook Ads campaigns yourself. 

We have heard many marketing managers boast they can get a lower cost per lead doing Google Ads themselves, only to realize that their cost per job from their own Google Ads campaign is much higher than the cost per acquisition generated by Fixr. Remember, a Fixr verified lead equals approximately two raw Google Ads leads. 

Why Fixr is the right lead generation platform for your roofing business

Why roofing company owners should use Fixr comes down to three key reasons:

• Scale: Fixr can buy traffic from all major platforms on your behalf

• Measurable ROI: Fixr turns “cost per click” or “cost per impression” to “cost per lead” or “cost per appointment,” which is far more measurable

• Ease of use: Handle all of your customer acquisition needs through one dashboard that is super easy to use

Fixr gets you the customers and allows you to concentrate on your core business, completing roofing jobs on homes and businesses. Every roofing company in America worth more than $50 million buys leads, and lead buying is the key to growing your wealth as a roofing business owner.