Are Facebook ads worth it for contractors?

The Math That Decides Whether Facebook Ads Work for You

The single biggest factor is your average job value. In my experience, Meta ads start making sense around $500 per job, and they really shine at $1,000 and up. Here's why.

What a Sold Job Actually Costs

Take a typical healthy campaign:

• Cost per lead: $30
• Cost per booked appointment: about $80, since roughly one in three leads books
• Close rate on appointments: 20%
• Cost to win one job: about $400

Now look at what that $400 does to different job sizes:

• A $500 job: ad cost eats 80% of the revenue. That doesn't work unless the customer comes back again and again.
• A $3,000 plumbing job: ad cost is about 13% of revenue. That's workable.
• A $30,000 kitchen remodel: ad cost is about 1.3% of revenue. That's where Facebook ads get exciting.

The higher your ticket, the more margin you have to absorb ad costs, test new creative and still come out well ahead. If you want to go deeper on what a healthy return looks like, read what's a good ROI for Meta ads in 2026.

The Exceptions

Some lower ticket services still do well. Christmas light installation, pressure washing and window cleaning can all work, but only when the owner calls the leads personally. On a small job, speed and a personal touch are what make the numbers close.

Which Trades Get the Best Results

The best fits for Meta ads are higher ticket, planned purchases around $1,000 and up:

• Pool builders
• Sign companies
• Window tinting
• Patios, awnings and screen enclosures
• Deck builders
• Kitchen remodelers
• Bathroom remodelers

These trades have the margins to produce a strong return on ad spend. One warning: clients in these trades sometimes get starry eyed after closing a few big deals off their ads. A great month is exciting, but the goal is a system you can repeat, not a lucky streak. You can see what that looks like on our results page.

Run Your Own Numbers First

On every sales call, I run the same math with the owner. Our Lead Math calculator does this using cost per lead by trade from our 2026 Georgia benchmark of 13 ad accounts and 1,077 leads, and you can plug in your own numbers.

Here's an example using deck builders, who average about $20 per lead:

• Monthly ad spend: $1,500
• Cost per lead: $20, which gives you 75 leads
• About 20% of leads book, which gives you roughly 15 appointments
• On site close rate: 37%, which gives you about 5.5 jobs
• Average job value: $15,000

That's about $82,344 added to your pipeline from $1,500 in ad spend, as long as you have the capacity to take on every job.

How Much You Need to Spend

Our floor is $15 a day per creative we test. Most clients start with two creatives at $30 a day, but we expect to scale quickly. We like clients to be at $50 a day, which is around $1,500 a month. For the full breakdown, read is $10 a day enough for Facebook ads.

The clients who see the fastest payback are the ones who give us $50 to $100 a day to run creative. More budget means more data back from Facebook, and more data means we find the winning ad faster. (Here's how long it really takes to see results.)

We track cost per booked appointment first, then customer acquisition cost. Our rule with clients is simple: if you're at a 4x return on ad spend or higher, we ramp ad spend right away. That's how you grow a business and get off the referral roller coaster.

When I Tell a Business “Not Yet”

Not every business is ready. We had a company reach out that was still in the growth stage. The owner was barely paying himself. I told him not to run ads yet.

He didn't have the margins or the financial back end to support ad spend. When you don't have money to spend on marketing, you need to spend time instead. Go where you can meet people face to face and sell your service: your local chamber of commerce, car meetups, community events, whatever fits your trade. Get specific to your business and your customers. Once the margins are there, ads will multiply what you've built.

What You Need in Place Before You Run Ads

Ads bring people to you. What happens next decides whether you make money. Before you spend a dollar, you need:

• Automations that respond instantly on Instagram, Facebook Messenger, email and text
• A real person who calls every lead as soon as it comes in, because speed to lead is everything (here's why Facebook leads go cold)
• A website, because homeowners will research you before they book
• Social proof on your Facebook and Instagram pages that shows you do what you say and you're good at it

If you're deciding whether to build this yourself or bring in help, read should I hire a Facebook ads manager or run ads myself.

Why Your Website Needs SEO, AEO and GEO

Homeowners don't only search Google anymore. Your site should be built for three kinds of search:

• SEO (search engine optimization) helps your site show up in regular Google results.
• AEO (answer engine optimization) helps your business get pulled into direct answers, like Google's answer boxes and voice assistants.
• GEO (generative engine optimization) helps AI tools like ChatGPT and Google's AI Overviews recommend your business.

The Number One Campaign Killer: Bad Creative

If I had to name the one thing that kills more campaigns than anything else, it's bad creative. Most owners push weak ads and think a bigger budget will fix it. It never does. More money behind a bad ad just gets you more expensive bad results. Here's how to write a Facebook ad for a home services business that actually performs.

A Pool Builder Who Thought Facebook Was Broken

One pool builder came to us after running ads on their own. They were getting a flood of junk leads at a high cost per lead. They weren't qualifying anyone, and their creative was bad. They thought Facebook was broken. It wasn't. Their creative and targeting were. (If that sounds familiar, read why your Meta ads aren't working.)

After we took over, we rebuilt the account from the creative up. Lead quality jumped, return on ad spend went up, cost per booked appointment dropped under $100, and they were booked weeks in advance for design consultations.

Facebook Ads Are Not Angie's List

Most owners expect Facebook ads to work like Angie's List, where you fight four other contractors for the same lead. That's not how it works. Leads from your ads are yours. Nobody else is calling them.

What surprises owners most is how much control we have over lead quality. Every qualifying question we add to the form filters out people who aren't a fit. Want fewer tire kickers? Add questions. Want more volume? Remove some. You decide the trade off. For more on balancing cost and quality, see how to lower your cost per lead.

Can You Get Too Many Leads?

Yes, and it's a real problem. A North Atlanta pool builder we work with got flooded. Their cost per lead dropped to $2 to $3, and their team couldn't keep up.

So we kept adding friction. We added more qualifying questions and started screening out anyone with a budget under $80,000. We also asked for their address. Using Zapier and Google Maps, we automatically pulled up each homeowner's house, so the team could see the neighborhood, the lot and the home before ever picking up the phone. That told them whether the property was a good fit for a pool and whether the homeowner likely had the budget.

Cost per lead went up, but it settled at a healthy level, and every lead was worth calling.

So, Are Facebook Ads Worth It for Your Business?

If your average job is $1,000 or more, you have the systems to follow up fast, and you're willing to invest in strong video creative, Facebook ads are one of the most controllable ways to grow a home service business in Georgia. If you're still building your margins, put your time into local networking first and come back when you're ready.

Want to see how we do it start to finish? Read how to run Meta ads that actually work or look at our system.

Frequently Asked Questions