Do Facebook ads work for contractors?

Do Facebook ads work for contractors? Yes, for jobs a homeowner plans ahead and can be prompted into: roof replacements, remodels, decks, painting, HVAC system replacements, maintenance plans and seasonal cleaning. They rarely pay for emergency work like a burst pipe or a dead furnace. Facebook and Instagram show your ad to people who are scrolling, and someone with water on the kitchen floor skips the feed, searches Google and calls the first number that looks reliable.

That difference drives every other answer below. Meta uses an ad auction and machine learning to decide where, when and to whom your ad is shown, so you reach people who weren’t looking for a contractor today. Their enquiries are earlier in the buying process than a Google searcher’s, they need a faster callback, and your ad has to give them a reason to act this week. These are the follow-up questions contractors ask on r/Contractor and in contractor Facebook groups, answered the way we’d answer them on a call. If you’d rather hand the whole thing over, that’s what our Meta Ads management for local service businesses covers.

Do Facebook ads work for contractors on every type of job?

Facebook ads work best for jobs that are planned, easy to show in a photo and profitable enough to absorb a few leads that go nowhere. Use the table to place your own services. The ratings come from how customers buy each kind of job, so treat them as a starting point and check them against your own booked work.

Facebook is good at putting a job in someone’s head before they go looking for it. When the need is already urgent, the customer goes straight to search, so the same budget usually buys more booked work on Google. A plumber can do well on Facebook with water heater replacements and still lose money advertising blocked drains there.

Do Facebook ads give you work when you’re slow?

Sometimes, though rarely in the same week you switch them on, so start before the quiet period arrives. Every new ad set goes through what Meta calls the learning phase. Meta says an ad set usually leaves it after about 50 results in the week after its last significant edit, and that during learning, results are less stable and cost per result is usually higher. Editing the ad set in that period resets the learning.

So a campaign launched in a slow week spends its first days settling in, and the leads it does produce still need quoting and booking. Three things help:

• Launch three to four weeks before your usual quiet stretch, so the campaign has settled by the time you need the work.
• Run one ad set for your main service instead of five small ones. Meta notes that many ads and ad sets each learn less than a few combined ones.
• Leave it alone for the first week unless something is broken, such as a wrong phone number or a rejected ad.

Most small contractors won’t reach 50 leads a week, and Ads Manager will then show the ad set as “Learning limited”. That’s normal at small budgets. It means you judge the campaign over a longer window, measured in booked jobs, instead of reading anything into the first few days.

How much should a contractor spend to test Facebook ads?

Spend enough to collect around 20 leads over a month, priced from what a lead is worth to you, and keep that budget steady for the whole test. Twenty is our working minimum for seeing whether leads turn into quotes and jobs; fewer than that and one good or bad week decides the result.

1. Work out the most you can pay per lead: gross profit on an average job multiplied by the share of Facebook leads you expect to book. If one lead in ten becomes a job and the job leaves $4,000 after materials and labour, a lead is worth up to $400 to you before you lose money.
2. Set the test budget: the number of leads you want to judge multiplied by the cost per lead you expect. You won’t know your real cost per lead until the ads run, so start from a cautious guess and adjust after the first month.
3. Hold the budget steady. Meta’s own advice for the learning phase is to set a realistic budget and avoid frequent budget changes, which can send an ad set back into learning.

Worked example: a roofing company (example figures)

In this example the roofer has plenty of room: even if leads cost three times the guess, each one is still under the $400 ceiling. The same sums for a $150 service call look very different, which is the table in the first section expressed in dollars. What you pay per lead isn’t fixed either. Meta says ads with higher relevance can win auctions at lower costs, so a clear photo of a real job and a specific offer can lower your cost per lead without any change to the budget.

Are contractor ads classed as housing ads on Facebook?

They can be, and if yours are, several targeting options disappear. Meta’s page on choosing a Special Ad Category lists housing repairs among its examples of housing ads, next to listings, homeowners insurance and mortgages. Its separate About ads for housing page doesn’t mention repairs in its list, and both pages say the examples aren’t complete and aren’t legal advice. So Meta’s own guidance leaves room for doubt, and that doubt matters most for roofers, plumbers, electricians and other repair trades.

The requirement applies if you advertise from the United States, or show ads to people in the United States, Canada or certain parts of Europe. Meta says an ad that should have a category and doesn’t may be rejected. Repeated rejections can lead to restrictions, and our guide covers what to do if your Facebook ad account is restricted. When a housing category applies:

• Age, gender and postal code targeting are limited or unavailable.
• Exclusion targeting, lookalike audiences and saved audiences are limited or unavailable.
• Some interests can’t be used.
• Audiences built on a city or a dropped pin get an expanded radius.

To set it, go to Ads Manager, create or open a campaign, select Special Ad Categories, choose the category, then choose the countries. In practice this means the ad itself has to do the targeting. A photo of a finished roof with your town’s name in the first line attracts roof owners in your town far better than an audience setting you may not be allowed to use. It’s also why advice to target “homeowners aged 45 and over” may not match what your account lets you do.

What should a contractor’s first Facebook campaign look like?

One campaign on the Leads objective, one ad set covering your service area, two or three ads made from real job photos or a short video, and a conversion location chosen to suit the job. The conversion location decides how the customer reaches you, and it’s the setting contractors most often get wrong.

Meta’s own setup lists match this. For call ads, it’s the Leads objective with Calls as the conversion location, your phone number as the destination, and an optional Request a callback box that lets people pick a day and time. For lead ads with forms, it’s the Leads objective with Instant form as the conversion location, or Website if the form lives on your site. Meta says a website form suits customers who need to see the full details of a higher consideration service before they enquire, which describes most remodels.

Set it up in this order:

1. In Ads Manager, create a campaign with the Leads objective.
2. If your ads promote home repairs and you advertise in or to the US, Canada or the parts of Europe Meta lists, select Special Ad Categories and choose Housing.
3. At the ad set level, pick the conversion location from the table above.
4. Set the location to the area you actually serve and would drive to for this job.
5. For call ads, schedule the ads to the hours your phone is answered.
6. Build two or three ads from your own job photos or a 20 to 30 second phone video of you on site, with one specific offer and a date it ends.
7. Publish, then leave the ad set alone for the first week while it learns.

If you choose an instant form, the settings that decide lead quality (form type, phone verification and qualifying questions) are covered step by step in our post on Facebook lead ads vs landing pages.

Should a contractor run Facebook ads or Google Ads first?

Start with Google if most of your revenue comes from urgent repairs, and with Facebook if your best jobs are planned, visual and worth a few thousand dollars or more. Plenty of contractors end up running both: Google catches people who are already searching, and Facebook keeps your work in front of homeowners before they need you. If you go that way, our guide to retargeting for local businesses covers showing ads to people who have already visited your site.

Whichever you start with, run the same break-even sums. Our guide to whether Google Ads is worth it for a small business does this for search clicks, and our Google Ads management page explains how we run search campaigns for trades.

What mistakes stop Facebook ads working for contractors?

Contractor campaigns that fail usually come down to one of these setup or follow-up problems, and each has a fix you can make this week.

• Boosting posts and treating that as your advertising. Meta says boosted posts have fewer customisation and detailed targeting options than ads built in Ads Manager, and a boost may optimise for likes, comments and shares. Fix: create a Leads campaign in Ads Manager so Meta optimises for enquiries. (See should I boost a post or create an ad?)
• Calling leads back the next day. A Facebook lead was scrolling a minute before they enquired, so they forget quickly. Fix: get lead notifications on your phone, call within minutes during working hours, and follow up by text if they don’t answer.
• Changing something every day. Each significant edit restarts the learning phase. Fix: decide your test length up front and only edit when something is broken.
• Judging the campaign on cost per lead alone. Cheap leads that never book cost more than dear ones that do. Fix: mark each lead as quoted, booked or dead, and compare booked revenue with spend each month.
• Skipping the Special Ad Category. Repair ads that should carry a housing category can be rejected. Fix: set it when you create the campaign.
• Using stock photos. A generic smiling tradesman tells the viewer nothing about you. Fix: use your own vans, crews and finished jobs.

FAQ

Do Facebook ads work for plumbers?

They work for planned plumbing jobs such as water heater replacements, repiping and bathroom renovations. They work poorly for blocked drains and burst pipes, which people search for when they happen. A plumber who wants emergency calls should start with Google and use Facebook for the planned work.

Are Facebook ads worth it for a small business?

They’re worth it when the profit on a job covers the cost of the leads it takes to win one, and someone can follow up quickly. Work out your maximum cost per lead with the steps above, then run a steady four-week test before deciding.

How long does it take to know if Facebook ads are working?

Give a new campaign at least four weeks without major edits. Meta says results during the learning phase aren’t necessarily a guide to future performance, so judge on quotes and booked jobs over the month instead of the first few days.

Should I hire someone to run my Facebook ads?

If you don’t have time to set up the campaign, refresh the ads every few weeks and check which leads became jobs, a specialist usually pays for the time they save you. Ask any agency to report booked jobs as well as leads. Our Meta Ads service includes the first two months of management free, and you pay Meta directly for the ad spend.

Sources: 1. About ad delivery (Meta Business Help Centre). 2. About the learning phase (Meta Business Help Centre). 3. How to choose a Special Ad Category (Meta Business Help Centre). 4. About ads for housing (Meta Business Help Centre). 5. Generate leads with phone call lead ads (Meta for Business). 6. Generate leads with online forms (Meta for Business). 7. The difference between boosted posts and Meta ads (Meta Business Help Centre).