Key takeaways
- Call and text within five minutes. A Facebook plumbing lead is usually a planned job, and the first plumber to give a clear answer usually gets it.
- Any form that mentions active water, sewage or no water gets treated like an emergency call, not a nurture sequence.
- Texting requires consent captured on the form, A2P 10DLC registration and a working STOP.
- Ask one qualifying question on the form, such as tank age or own vs rent, and every follow-up gets shorter.
Facebook lead follow-up for a plumbing company starts with a call and a text inside five minutes, then a short run of calls, texts and one email over the first week, stopping the moment the homeowner books or says no. Most of these leads are planned jobs, like a water heater replacement or repipe, so speed and a clear next step decide who gets the work.
Why speed decides
Speed decides because the homeowner who filled in your form is comparing plumbers that same evening. A Facebook lead was not searching for you. They saw an ad about an aging water heater or a pre-freeze check, tapped, and moved on. Interest fades in minutes, and the next plumber's ad is two scrolls away.
Plumbing adds a twist other trades do not have: some "planned" leads are not planned at all. A form that says "tank is leaking" or "toilet backing up" is an emergency that came in through the wrong door. Those leads skip the sequence and go straight to your dispatcher or on-call plumber.
The follow-up sequence
- Form submitted
- Instant text and email Confirms you have it
- A call attempt As soon as someone is free
- Follow-up sequence Spaced texts and calls
- Booked or closed out Every lead ends with an outcome
The follow-up sequence
- Minute zero: an automatic text. It names your company, the offer they tapped and the plumber who will call: "Hi [first name], this is [CSR name] at [Company] about your water heater. Calling you in the next few minutes from this number."
- Within five minutes: a call from a person. Your CSR asks the qualifying questions: what is happening, gas or electric, roughly how old is the tank, do you own the home. If water is leaking now, it becomes a dispatch call.
- Twenty minutes later, if unanswered: a second call and a booking link. Many homeowners will not pick up an unknown number but will tap a link to choose a time.
- Same evening: a short email. What the visit covers, who will come, how pricing works on site, and photos of your vans and techs, so the household recognizes the truck in the driveway.
- Day two: a call at a different time of day. Late afternoon reaches people who were at work for the first attempt.
- Day four: a text with one useful fact. For a water heater lead, the warning signs worth watching. For a repipe lead, what the walkthrough involves.
- Day seven: a last, polite text. Ask whether they still want help, and say you will stop messaging if not. Move the lead to a seasonal list, such as the pre-freeze reminder.
Stop the sequence the moment the lead books, replies "STOP" or says they went with someone else.
Automating it
Automate everything except the conversation. A CRM such as HighLevel can pull a Facebook lead in the moment it arrives, send the first text, alert the CSR on duty, and run the rest of the sequence until a person marks the lead booked.
- Send booked leads into your field software. When the lead books, create the customer and the job in ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro or Jobber, so the tech arrives with the form answers and the ad shows up as the job's source.
- Route emergencies on keywords. Words like "leaking", "flooding", "backing up" and "no water" in a form answer trigger a page to the on-call plumber instead of the nurture sequence.
- Register before you text. Business texting over a local 10-digit number needs A2P 10DLC brand and campaign registration (The Campaign Registry), or carriers block or filter it.
- Capture consent on the form. Add a clear line that the homeowner agrees to texts about their request, and honor STOP in every message (TCPA rules, CTIA messaging principles).
- Respect quiet hours. The automated steps in this sequence should not fire late at night. An emergency reply from a person is different from a marketing text.
Improving lead quality
Better leads come from the form and the offer, not from chasing harder. A few changes sort the homeowners ready to book from the ones who tapped by accident.
- One qualifying question. "About how old is your water heater?" or "Do you own or rent?" screens out many poor fits before anyone picks up the phone.
- An offer with a real job behind it. "Water heater replacement options" brings homeowners with a tank in mind. "Win a free plumbing inspection" brings entrants.
- Your service area in the ad. Say in the copy that you serve homes within a short drive of your shop, and target the same radius, so far-away taps drop off.
- Booked results back to Meta. When your CRM marks which leads booked, send that outcome back, so Meta looks for more people like the ones who became jobs.
For the ads themselves, see Facebook and Instagram ads for plumbing companies. For calls you miss from any channel, the missed-call text-back guide covers the safety net.
How VETS Growth Marketing helps
We connect your Facebook lead forms to your CRM and field software, write the sequence for your offers, set up compliant texting, and wire the emergency route to your on-call plumber. It is a project with a launch date, everything sits in accounts you own, and we report how many Facebook leads became booked calls. Bring last month's leads to a growth consultation and we will show you where they went cold.
Sources
- 47 CFR 64.1200: Delivery restrictions (TCPA rules), Electronic Code of Federal Regulations
- The Campaign Registry (A2P 10DLC brand and campaign registration), The Campaign Registry
- Messaging Principles and Best Practices, CTIA