Should My Plumbing Service Company Be Using Home Advisor?

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There’s no doubt that by now you’ve come across Home Advisor as a marketing opportunity, as they’re pretty much everywhere these days.

Try searching for “plumber + [your city]” and their probably there on the first page of Google.

Try turning on the TV to watch the game, and their probably their advertising to your potential customers. And the odds, try picking up your own phone and there’s a good chance their tenacious salesperson is calling you to get you to sign up!

Which begs the question, “Should You Be Using Home Advisor To Drive More Service Business For Your Plumbing Service Company Too?”

Below, we’ll help you decide with a few simple questions, but before we do, its important to note that our company (JD Plumbing Partners) has no affiliation with Home Advisor. Some of our partners use Home Advisor, and some don’t, it just comes down to what makes sense for your individual business, which we’ll cover here.

Additionally, before we get going, we strongly recommend that before spending any money on marketing that you have call tracking setup to ensure you really know who is delivering for your business. If not, even with the questions below, you’ll be shooting in the dark when it comes to investing your money.

Understanding What Home Advisor Does

Home Advisor is essentially a marketing company for home services. They actively spend marketing money to try to persuade home owners to find local contractors through their search tool.

After they get a home owner to use their tool, which includes inputting contact information and job details, Home Advisor then turns around and tries to sell you, the local service company, that lead.  You are not guaranteed to book the job. This is called a ‘Pay Per Lead’ marketing service. One important note with Home Advisor’s Pay Per Lead Service is that they’re likely selling that same lead to other local service companies at the same time. Essentially, you’re going to have to compete to win the job.

Questions to Ask Before Deciding To Use Home Advisor

The First Question: Do you have more calls coming in than you can schedule within 48 hours right now?

Yes? Then the odds are you don’t need to spend additional money with Home Advisor right now. Since Home Advisor is likely selling the same lead to multiple local contractors, if you can’t book service quickly, someone else can and will steal the job and you’ll be wasting the money spent on each lead.

No? Then go to question Two.

Question Two: Can you or your team act on leads immediately?

No? If you don’t have the time or the staff to call leads almost immediately, it’s likely another contractor will get to the lead first. If that happens, the only way you’ll have a good shot at winning the job is if you can schedule sooner or if you’re significantly cheaper (which is not where you want to be). You’re probably best to skip Home Advisor and look at other marketing options until you get the resources in place to act fast on leads.

Yes? Then it’s probably worth testing Home Advisor as an option to increase service calls!

What to Do After Testing Home Advisor

Assuming you test Home Advisor out and it’s not a total failure, you’ll need to decide whether to keep it going or not. For this, we have one last question:

Question Three: Is there somewhere else better you can spend your money?

Don’t Know? As mentioned above it’s extremely important to have call tracking setup for your marketing activities so you know where to spend your money.  In our experience, Home Advisor provides a ‘middle of the pack’ return on your advertising dollars. This makes it tough to decide if you should use Home Advisor without tracking.

Yes? If you have good call tracking, and its clear you can spend more money where you’ll get a better return on your advertising then there’s no need for Home Advisor today.

No? If you don’t have a better place to spend the money, Home Advisor is a great option to keep the trucks on the road while you look for better returning marketing.

Need More on Home Advisor or How To Get A Better Return On Your Marketing?

JD Plumbing Partners, a Google Ads Partner, is one of the nations premier choices for local plumbing & HVAC contractors online marketing needs. We have over a decade’s experience helping plumbing companies grow their businesses and are here to help answer any questions you may have. Just reach out!

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