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What is actually wrong with bought leads
Lead-selling platforms are attractive because the maths looks simple: pay £25, get an enquiry. The problem is not the price, it is the exclusivity.
The same enquiry is typically sold to three or four roofers. By the time you call, the customer has spoken to two others and is now running a price comparison. You are bidding against firms whose overheads, insurance position and standards you know nothing about, on a job you did not generate. Win rates on shared leads are low and the jobs you do win are usually the ones you priced thinnest.
There is a second, slower cost. Every pound spent there builds nothing. Stop paying and you have exactly what you started with. The same pound spent in your own Google Ads account produces conversion history, keyword data and a Google Business Profile that keeps working — assets you own.
None of which means never use them. As a stopgap when a crew is idle next week, fine. As the foundation of a roofing business, they are a slow squeeze on margin.
The split that makes roofing advertising work
If you take one structural idea from this page, take this: emergency and planned roofing are two different businesses, and mixing them in one campaign is the most common reason roofing budgets underperform.
| Emergency | Planned | |
|---|---|---|
| Typical search | roof leak, emergency roof repair, tiles blown off | new roof cost, re-roof [town], flat roof replacement |
| Decision time | Under an hour | Two to four weeks |
| Job value | Low to mid hundreds | Thousands |
| What wins it | Answering the phone first | Proof, guarantees, an honest price indication |
| Retargeting | Pointless — decided already | Essential — multiple visits before contact |
| Landing page | Phone number above everything | Completed jobs, accreditations, cost guidance |
Run these as one campaign and the emergency clicks — cheaper, more numerous, faster to convert — take the budget, while the re-roof buyers who are worth ten times as much never see an ad.
One blunt point on emergency work: if you advertise for emergencies and calls go to voicemail, you are setting money on fire. Either answer, or run missed-call text-back so a caller gets a response inside a minute.
Storm response as a competitive advantage
Roofing is the most weather-driven trade there is. A named storm produces a step change in emergency searches within hours and decays over roughly a week. Competition rises with it, so click prices climb.
The firms that capture this are the ones already set up before the forecast: an emergency campaign running year-round on a small budget, ad copy written and approved, and a plan to raise budget the same day. Building the campaign after the storm means arriving for the expensive tail of the demand, at higher prices, against everyone else who had the same idea.
Practically: keep the emergency campaign live at a low daily budget all year, watch the forecast, and be prepared to multiply that budget for four or five days at a time.
Where the organic openings are
Most roofing websites have one page called “Services” listing everything they do. A page like that cannot rank strongly for anything specific, which leaves the specific searches wide open.
Each of these deserves a genuine page — not a template with the words changed, but a page that answers what it costs, how long it lasts, how long it takes and what the alternatives are:
- Flat roofing, separated into GRP, EPDM and felt — different lifespans, different prices, different buyers
- Chimney repair and repointing
- Roof cleaning and moss removal — high volume, low value, excellent for building reviews
- Fascias, soffits and guttering
- Lead work and valley repair
- Velux and roof window installation
- Slate versus tile re-roofing, and what each actually costs
“Roofers [big city]” is genuinely hard to rank for against firms with a decade of reviews. “GRP flat roof cost [town]” is not, and the person searching it is much closer to buying.
How to stop attracting price-shoppers
Three levers, in order of effect.
Say the price range. Publishing indicative costs filters before the click, not after an hour of your time. You lose enquiries you were never going to win and gain better ones.
Do not bid on price-led terms. “Cheap roofer”, “cheapest roof repair” — those searchers have told you their buying criterion and it is not you.
Lead with proof, not offers. Free quotes are universal and therefore worthless as a differentiator. Guarantees, accreditations, insurance, and photographs of comparable completed jobs attract a customer choosing on competence.
A ninety-day plan
- Weeks 1–2. Missed-call text-back live. Google Business Profile rebuilt with real job photography. Review request system running after every completion.
- Weeks 3–4. Google Ads live with emergency and planned as separate campaigns, call tracking installed before spend, negatives in place.
- Weeks 5–8. Cut what does not convert. Build the two highest-value service pages properly — usually flat roofing and re-roof cost.
- Weeks 9–12. Add retargeting for planned work. Widen radius on whatever is proving profitable. Two more service pages.
At the end of that you should be able to name your cost per enquiry, your cost per job won, and which three searches produce most of your work. Most roofing firms cannot answer any of the three, which is the actual problem.
Rather have someone else do this?We run exactly this for trade and construction firms across the UK. Call and we will tell you what is realistic in your area, including when the answer is that it is not worth it.
Call 07443 392243WhatsAppCommon questions
Are bought roofing leads ever worth it?
As a short-term filler when a crew is idle next week, they can be. As the foundation of the business they squeeze margin, because you are always competing on price against three other firms who received the same enquiry.
How much does a roofing lead cost through Google Ads?
It varies widely by area and by intent. Emergency repair enquiries are usually cheaper and less valuable; re-roof enquiries cost more and are worth far more. Judge on cost per job won against your average job value, not on the headline cost per lead.
Should I run Facebook ads for roofing?
For re-roofs, flat roof replacement and roofline work, yes — especially retargeting. For emergencies, no. Nobody scrolling Instagram has a leaking roof at that moment.