Key takeaways
- The fee is the small part of a bad roofing lead. The ladder trip, the inspection and the measurement report are the expensive part.
- Leads for job types or areas you do not serve are no longer credited, so your settings do the filtering, not Google's credits.
- Ask five questions before you book an inspection: do you own the home, what happened, what is on the roof, is a claim open, and where is the house.
- Judge the channel on cost per booked inspection in the first weeks and cost per signed roof over a full storm season.
Bad leads from Local Services Ads cost a roofing company more than the lead fee. Each one can burn a ladder trip, an hour on a roof and a measurement report before you learn the caller rents, wants a shed patched or only wanted a free opinion for the adjuster. Settings and a two-minute phone screen stop most of them.
Why junk leads happen
Junk leads happen because Local Services Ads matches a caller to your category, job types and map, and knows nothing about who owns the house or whether anyone plans to hire a roofer. A hailstorm makes it worse: every homeowner, tenant, crew and canvasser in its path reaches for the phone at once, and your ad is the easiest roofer number to find.
The leads roofers most often pay for and regret:
Material and DIY shoppers : "Do you sell bundles of shingles?" They wanted a supply house and found you.
Roofs you do not do : A mobile home coating, an RV roof, a shed, or a commercial flat roof when your crews only do residential shingle and metal. Usually a job type left on.
Crews, canvassers and lead sellers : Sub crews looking for work after a storm, canvassing outfits and lead sellers. None of them owns a roof.
The free report : A homeowner who wants your inspection photos to argue with their insurer, with no plan to hire anyone for the repair.
The wrong decision-maker : A tenant reporting a leak the landlord has to approve. Real problem, wrong signer.
Out-of-area storm calls : Hail two towns past your last job brings calls from streets you could not revisit for warranty work without losing a day.
Not every awkward call is junk. A seller who needs a roof inspection for the buyer may become a repair this week, and the caller with a 20-year-old roof who wants a price "for next spring" is a future replacement. Give them a follow-up date in your CRM, not a junk label.
Sorting a bad lead
What kind of bad lead was it?
- Invalid Not charged Google assesses invalid leads automatically
- Wrong job or area You still pay Tighten job types and service area
- Real but missed Answer faster List only hours you can answer
Cutting them
- Label last season's leads. Tag each recording and message with the types above, plus "inspection booked" and "good fit, lost". The biggest junk label shows which setting to change first.
- Find out where your account lives. Google named roofing for the first phase of the move into Google Ads, but a roofer without a storefront may move in a later wave (the transition notes), so look for the notice in your account. Either way, the job types, map and hours below are the settings that filter leads. After the move, you change them in Google Ads.
- Turn off the work you turn down. If you do not do gutters, skylights, flat roofs or small repairs, switch those job types off. Keep the replacement, storm repair and inspection work you want more of.
- Pull the map in after storms, not out. Keep only the ZIP codes your crews can reach for a warranty call next year in a normal working day, however tempting the hail next door.
- Match the hours to who answers. An active leak at 9 p.m. is a real customer if someone can talk the homeowner through a bucket and a tarp booking. If nobody can, run ads only while the phone is staffed, and let after-hours calls reach a text-back that promises a call at 7 a.m.
- Say what you do before they call. On the profile and the site, list the roof types and materials you install, whether you work insurance claims, and that you do not sell materials.
- Screen in two minutes. Ask whether they own the home, what happened (leak, storm, sale, age), what is on the roof now, whether a claim is open, and the address. Book the inspection only when the answers fit.
- Attach the source in the CRM. Tag every lead with its channel in JobNimbus, AccuLynx or your roofing CRM, so a replacement signed after the adjuster meeting weeks later still traces back to the first call.
Credits and disputes
Credits will not protect you from poor fits. Google now assesses leads on its own and does not charge for ones it judges invalid, and it no longer credits leads for "job type not serviced" or "geo not serviced" (lead credits, how leads work).
| The lead | Do you pay? | Your real protection |
|---|---|---|
| Robocall, spam or an obvious solicitation | Not when Google's checks judge it invalid | Notes on anything that slipped through, for support |
| Mobile home coating when you do not offer it | Yes. Job type not serviced is no longer credited | That job type switched off |
| Hail caller far past your last job | Yes. Geo not serviced is no longer credited | A tighter map |
| Homeowner who only wants a report for the insurer | Yes. To Google it is a valid lead | The phone screen |
When to shift budget
Shift money only after the clean-up has run through a storm season and Local Services Ads still costs more per signed roof than your other channels. A claim job can wait weeks on the adjuster and the scope before it signs, so judge cost per signed job over 60 to 90 days, not the week of the storm.
Signs it is time:
- Material shoppers and out-of-area calls keep coming after the settings change.
- Search ads on "roof replacement" or "hail damage roof inspection" bring booked inspections for less. The cost per lead guide shows how to compare them.
- Most of the work you want is commercial, which comes through property managers and bids, not homeowner calls.
The Local Services Ads guide for roofing companies covers what the move into Google Ads changes for your account.
How VETS Growth Marketing helps
We label a season of your leads, switch off the job types and ZIP codes letting the wrong calls through, write the two-minute screen for your phones, and connect every lead to your roofing CRM. The account stays in your name. The clean-up is a short project with a finish date, and the reporting after it counts booked inspections and signed roofs, not lead volume. Bring a month of call recordings to a growth consultation and we will show you which settings are costing you ladder trips.
Sources
- About automated Local Services Ads lead credits, Google Local Services Help
- How leads work, Google Local Services Help
- Local Services Ads transition to Performance Max campaigns with pay-per-lead goals, Google Ads Help