Exclusive Roofing Leads For Sale From Google Guaranteed vs. Local SEO

When it comes to the Roofing industry, there is no other industry in all of construction where exclusivity is more valuable. Sure everybody wants the homeowner to themselves but if you are doing tree service or pest control, non-exclusive lead generation providers such as HomeAdvisor can work out a lot more often than roofing because the decision the homeowner has to make in roofing is high-ticket. This is one of the many reasons why the roofing industry is such a lucrative business and generating roofing job leads has become such a competitive space. Generally speaking, if you’re looking at high quality live phone calls, exclusive roofing leads will cost somewhere around $100 a piece. Whether you are doing Google AdWords or Facebook ads, the cost per click and all those metrics can vary a lot but when you really account for the number of qualified roofing leads and phone calls after listening to your call tracking platform, you’re going to see that you were spending somewhere around or more than $100. Although most roofers are okay with that price (and you should be) it has led to changes in the industry where there is not only all sorts of services attempting to generate roofing leads, but it also has a ripple effect where more and more roofing businesses are taking it seriously to produce superior sales reps. Roofing companies doing over 10 million per year have not only figured out their lead generation side but they are also constantly searching how to sell more roofs by making their sales reps more efficient. We are going to touch on this point later on down the article but now, let’s look at the best options a roofing company in 2019 has when they’re looking to grow their business with consistent and guaranteed roofing leads.

Buy Roofing Leads From Google Guaranteed

We’re going to break down the most recent platform released by Google called Google Guaranteed, also known as Local Service Ads. There has been a lot of buzz around the industry at how affordable roofing leads are when comparing this to Google AdWords. At first glance it seems as though it is much better than Google’s other platforms, but when you take a closer look and really account for the number of affordable roofing leads you are generating, it might not be as efficient as you think. Remember, the number we want to look at when talking about roofing lead generation is the cost per qualified phone call. Although charts and graphs, rankings and Link clicks etc. can be exciting and very telling in the direction we should be taking our advertising, but the main metric would have to be at least one level deep into the sales funnel which would be tracking phone calls and qualified leads.

When Google first released Local Service Ads back in November 2018, we were testing with a couple of roofing contractors in Texas to see what exactly were the main factors that would allow us to dominate this platform and bring in high-quality residential roofing leads. It was pretty simple to figure out that reviews played a big role in this platform and due to this, several of our clients shot right to the top 3 positions virtually overnight. On a side note, Google has been really trying to bridge the gap between having just good search engine optimization with no reputation to back it up vs. Having a good reputation as well as good rankings – so in a way hats off to Google to be able to introduce a program that allows you to generate exclusive roofing leads while considering a business’s local roofing SEO marketing and reputation. So real quick, here are the three things you need to get started:
1 License
2 Insurance
3 Background Check

Features of Local Service Ads for Roofers

Google gives you three choices within roofing that you can select depending on what kind of leads you want. We actually recommend turning all of them on, unless your marketing strategy is to only bring in roof replacement leads. Bear in mind, you cannot expect this strategy to be perfect and we will touch on this in the next section.

Optimizing the Platform – Photos and Zip Codes

It is well known that majority of the power in Google Guaranteed is going to come from your organic Google listing. But we recommend filling out the platform with all the photos that you have in your Google listing. Secondly, include the main ZIP codes you want to Target. Other than choosing lead types, one of the strongest things about this platform is the fact that you can take the reputation and overall Authority you have in your local Google listing, and show the radius much further than your Google listing.

Profile and Budget for Exclusive Roofing Leads

By this point, you are ready to start the program and this part is pretty self-explanatory(if you’re having issues with Billing, contact your account manager), but contrary to popular belief we have not seen any increase or decrease in the amount of leads that we generate by putting the budget way higher than necessary. It’s still based on ranking, and you can’t expect to just get as many leads as you want just by turning it on. You will only receive a lot of leads when you are showing up in the top three positions for a large amount of zip codes. Towards the end of this blog post we’re going to share the top strategies that have been working to help you increase the number of qualified roofing leads you’re generating.

Do Roofing Leads Prices Vary From City to City in Google Guaranteed?

So let’s talk about some facts, how much does getting leads cost from Google Guaranteed? Is it your new way to generate cheap roofing leads? Do you think this is one of the cheapest exclusive roofing leads you can find in the market right now? Let’s find out.

In Baltimore they are priced at $56 a pop, in Seattle they are priced at $40, in Austin Texas they are priced at $29.

Given the range as well as the price of the leads in these cities, getting leads at these prices are a great deal in online marketing especially because they’re exclusive roofing leads that you can dispute if it wasn’t a quality roofing lead. Well, just like all of our other tracking, we like to go to the root source and trust live phone recordings over all other metrics at all times. In this video below you will be able to see us going through the live phone calls to see which kind of performance Google counts as high quality and which performance Google counts as low quality.

[ video]

As you can see at the end of the video, the bottom line is that our client here has been spending well above $103 per residential lead using the Google Guaranteed program. Now to be frank, this is actually not a bad price considering it is not a shared lead. With the proper sales team, it shouldn’t be hard to scale up your roofing business at this price especially when a lot of your competitors are spending well above $250 per phone call in pay per click advertising. Once again, we always recommend trusting the proof such as recorded phone calls as opposed to hyped up metrics pushed by online marketing lead generation companies and advertising platforms.

Biggest Complaints Of Google Guaranteed Roofing Contractor Leads

Google has been doing heavy updates almost every single week since it has been released and there are still a few things which people are waiting for them to fix. Though it’s a great platform, two of the biggest complaints from home improvements company is that we’re still getting repairs when repairs are turned off and there is no way to filter to just bring in commercial jobs.

Getting Repair Leads When Repairs Are Turned Off

This has been one of the biggest issues for roofing professionals since the dawn of roofing advertising on Google. The answer is simple: You are looking to generate more exclusive roofing leads from people searching a certain group of keywords. The best that Google can do is to show your listing when those groups of keywords are searched by homeowners and then lead them to a Call To Action. However, since homeowners are unpredictable in what they are looking for roofers (sometimes looking for repairs even when they know they need roof replacements) there is no simple way that Google can bridge this gap. This is why major internet marketing lead generation companies collect homeowner’s contact information themselves and then sell the roof repair and roof replacement leads accordingly to contractors afterwards.

No Commercial Roofing Leads

This was a big one since many home improvement companies have been requesting a function where they can filter leads that are for commercial roofing businesses. The reason why this is different is because the way business owners search for a roofing, is almost the same way home owner search for a roofing contractor. Both parties go to search engines and type in something like “roofers + city” or ” roofers near me” – the business owner does not always type in something like “commercial roofing contractor near me” – therefore there is no way for Google to only bring you exclusive commercial roofing leads. Simple as that. By the way, this is also the situation if you are looking for exclusive metal roofing leads.

Steps to be Successful in Google Guaranteed and Generate New Roofing Leads

Let’s cover the 80/20 that you need to know to have successful marketing strategy that combines Google Guaranteed. The biggest impact the program has on the roofing market is the pressure to generate reviews. This has changed the game drastically in a relatively short amount of time because reputation marketing for roofing companies have soared through the roof! Every week there are new software companies opening up trying to help generate reviews, all of them having different angles and different methods. Here’s an example of a software I recently came across: Most frequently used to by contractors who do not want to or do not have the time to ask for reviews. This software utilizes your QuickBooks account and automatically reaches out to clients asking for reviews. Using such creative tools, we are expecting more roofers in 2019 and beyond to reach the hundred plus review mark raising the local SEO standards.

Having that said, remember Google is not making us bid or pay per click for these ads. These roofing lead prices are at a flat rate – bringing balance between paid advertising and local SEO credibility. The answer is to not only get reviews, in fact if you take a quick look at competitive markets, many of the roofers that are absolutely crushing it do not have the absolute most reviews. Reviews are a big factor but proper entity validation, link building, content marketing, semantic relation to your brand and reputation will give you the edge in the markets where reviews are just not enough. If you’re interested in learning more about these other techniques, reach out to shibgac@gmail.com to join an exclusive group ran by our client in Jacksonville where they are constantly testing single variables to find out the exact factors which are allowing them to go from generating 10 to 15 leads per month to now generating 60-75 qualified roofing leads per month (keeping radius the same!).

Real Roofing Lead Generation is Combination by Domination

As shown in the second part of the video above, even with such a great platform, it is hard to have a successful marketing strategy without considering the growth of your own brand. While Google Guaranteed is costing us [103$ per call] , optimizing the Map listing and pushing the search engine optimization is yielding [28$ per call].

Aside from cost per lead, the conversion rates of Google My Business/Google Map calls are also a little bit higher because a lot of times people accidentally click on Google Ads costing you money vs when contacting you through the maps they have to scroll down the page and specifically click on your listing by choice (after seeing your reviews) and in the process indicating that they are a qualified lead. By keeping the lead types in mind, we still recommend taking your overall brand growth very seriously because in the long-term, every other lead generation platform will be demand you to pay the same price per phone call whereas your brand and Google Maps will allow you to spend less and less money to generate more and more calls lowering your cost per lead. Over time, this ratio can be matched 10X more efficient than paying for straight calls. You will be set up for a level of success that your competitors who are mostly buying shared leads, can never match. This being backed up with a killer sales system (both recruiting and closing) are the core fundamentals that makes a company dangerous. This is exactly what I would do if I were to grow my roofing company!

I’m not saying a good search engine optimization campaign to grow your roofing company is free – we should know by now that there is no free roofing leads (even word-of-mouth needs your time in customer service or building a superior service for it to keep rolling). The future belongs to roofers who do a combination of running ads such as Google Guaranteed in conjunction with a strong Search Engine Optimization that is being tied together with a proper review generation system. They will also design marketing campaigns to leverage their own team members and salesforce in a structure that enhances the growth of their business. This is not just by bringing in signed contracts but also helping the process of creating content in the form of reviews, videos, and pictures for the business.

This is why it is crucial in 2019 and moving forward to have a very good idea of exactly what your competitors in the top positions are doing in order to stay on top of the game. At Shibga Media, we offer a free service where we break down exactly what the top competitors are doing in your city to generate more sales. Here are the three things you will get in your competitor analysis email:

1. How most homeowners are searching for roofers in your city.
2. How many homeowners your top competitors are attracting.
2. What you’re top competitors are doing to attract these homeowners.

The information will be a live analysis via video recording and sent to your email for free. Please send your website and city to melanie@shibga.com right now and we will get this out to you!