Home services marketing with a cost per job on the page.
What home services marketing is
| Stage | What the owner expects | Where it usually breaks |
|---|---|---|
| The search or the AI question | Your name in the results | Thin pages the engines skip |
| The visit to the site | A phone number in two seconds | A brochure that buries the phone |
| The call or the form | A booked appointment | Missed after-hours calls and form spam |
| The signed job | Revenue in the bank | No idea which dollar produced it |
Every stage is measurable, and the last row is the one that decides whether the rest was worth it.
Three trades. Three numbers. All dated.
This page is not a Scorpion clone. Here is the difference.
| Ask any candidate | The managed shop | ROI.LIVE |
|---|---|---|
| Who sets the strategy | An account team | One named operator |
| Who touches the ad account | Whoever holds the logins | The person who set the strategy |
| What you get monthly | A dashboard of calls and clicks | A scorecard with cost per signed job |
| Price published | Not usually | Yes, below |
| Named client with a dated number | Ask for one | Above, three of them |
Written from the public pages of the firms named, reviewed September 2026. The big shops are good at production volume; if that is the job, hire one and run the scorecard anyway.
You are in what I would consider a way behind industry. That is good news, because your competitors are not difficult to leapfrog.
Own the map and own the answer
What it costs
Open the retainer bands by revenue
| Your revenue | Typical monthly retainer | What it covers | Billed separately |
|---|---|---|---|
| $1M to $3M | $5,000 to $7,500 | One constraint at a time. Usually offer, paid, or measurement. | Ad spend, software |
| $3M to $6M | $7,500 to $12,000 | Full channel mix plus the measurement rebuild. | Ad spend, software, production |
| $6M to $10M | $12,000 to $15,000 | Full marketing ownership plus team direction. | Ad spend, software, production |
Where the receipts run deepest
Deepest receipts
- HVAC and home comfort, to a Q1 2026 exit.
- Pools and outdoor living, at $172 per job won.
- Windows and exteriors, at 25.7x search ROI.
- Landscaping and outdoor services.
- Roofing and exteriors.
- Direct-to-consumer ecommerce, three named brands.
Do not hire me if
- You have no proven demand yet. You need first customers, not a CMO.
- You want to trade equity for marketing help.
- You have a validated plan and need production volume. That is an agency job.
- You need someone on site five days a week.
- You want a channel plan handed over in thirty minutes.
- You are not willing to hand over the marketing decisions.
What happens in the first 90 days
The diagnosis
The plan
Changes ship
Measurement
Jason Spencer
Questions owners ask before they book
What does a home services marketing agency do?
It runs the system that turns a homeowner with a problem into a booked job: visibility in local search and the AI assistants, a site that converts visits into calls, and tracking that ties every signed job to the dollar that produced it. The number that decides profitability is cost per signed job, and almost nobody in this category publishes one.
How much does home services marketing cost?
ROI.LIVE retainers run $5,000 to $15,000 a month, scaling with scope, covering strategy and the team that executes it. Ad spend, software, and production are billed separately at cost and never marked up. A $10,000 retainer with $8,000 of media behind it is an $18,000 month, and any operator who will not split those two lines is hiding one of them.
What is cost per job, and why does it matter more than leads?
A lead is a phone call. A job is revenue in the bank. Cost per job divides everything you spend by the work that got signed, which is the only number that tells you whether marketing pays. Blue Tree ran at $172 of marketing investment per job won in H1 2026, across 981 signed jobs in 15 months.
SEO or Google Ads for a home services company?
Both, sequenced. Ads buy booked work this month while the search foundation is built; search compounds until it carries more of the load. At Windows Source of Houston, organic search returned 25.7x with paid Meta at 4.9x alongside it. Two engines, both profitable, is the goal rather than a flag planted on one.
How does a company show up when homeowners ask ChatGPT?
The assistants answer with brands whose sites answer questions in plain language they can read. Service pages that name the town, the price factors, and the actual questions callers ask give the engines something to quote. The more questions your site answers, the more the AI engines pick it up.
Why did my last agency fail?
Usually for structural reasons, and three of the four are not about talent: the team carrying your account carries eight others, no written scope means expectations drift for eight weeks, and a strategy that never meets execution cannot close its own loop. Ask the next candidate who owns your number and watch how specifically they answer.
Will you work with my in-house office staff or marketing person?
Yes. Your people keep running the business and gain someone senior setting direction, unblocking decisions, and holding the number. I direct rather than replace by default, and I will say so early if a role and a person are mismatched.
How fast will I see results?
The diagnosis surfaces the leaks in the first 30 days. Changes that affect booked work land inside 60. Compounding growth shows up 6 to 12 months in, which is the honest timeline for any operator who is not lying to you.
Do you work with my competitors?
I do not take two direct competitors in the same market at the same time. It is written on the fractional CMO page next to the client cap, because a shop that will not publish either one is telling you something.
How are you different from the big home services agencies?
One named operator holds the strategy and owns the team that executes it. The pricing is published, the receipts are named and dated, and the reporting is a scorecard with cost per signed job on it. The big shops are large and capable at production volume; none of them publishes a price or a cost per outcome.