I’m still trying to find the huge negative from a financial perspective…2 leads from HA in the past 48 hours, total cost about $50…2 closed deals worth $1500.
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You can insert a Drake song lyric AND a Barry White song lyric here about my love for HomeAdvisor. I’ve rolled over $80,000 of work from HA year to date. I don’t care who hates it or why. I’m a huge fan. YUUUUGE!
I should note that the two commercial real estate developers who found me via HA leads cost a collective $70 in lead fees and 90% of that $80k is from those two developers CONSTANTLY throwing work my way.
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Lmao! Just roughly, how much would you say you’ve spent on leads this year?
My lead budget has been at $200/month all year. And I get about 75% of my credit requests approved. It’s hard to tell. I’ve been at capacity so it’s been paused a lot.
I should know. That’s an important thing to know. But at $2400 plus the $300 annual fee I don’t care much. Every $16-25 lead converts 80% of the time to closed business and my minimum is $300. I’m an upselling son of a gun though. I’ll likely do $100k or just under on HA leads so I’m not incredibly worried about a tax deductible marketing cost of $2700.
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A 2.7% marketing cost from a $100k source ain’t too shabby at all. Where else do you get work from?
Google. Barely. Maybe 1 lead per month. About the same from 1 yard sign that has miraculously been replaced by the mowers religiously, on a fantastic corner, for about 2 months. Now that I’ve said that it’ll go away. I get a call here or there from Angie’s list. Maybe 1 every other month.
People stopping and talking to me at the bank, gas station, etc, as a result of my truck magnets or the signs on the trailer does better than all of the above.
There for awhile I was killing it with the “5 arounds” and HOAs, but those mostly started with HA leads. I ran out of door hangers though and I don’t have space on the calendar.
HomeAdvisor or marketing results of a HA lead makes up 70-75% of my total revenue.
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That’s awesome man. I redid my trailer this weekend with a 275 tote and I put a sign on either side of it, so now I gotta go park at some grocery stores at lunch time, lol. Let the soccer moms commence!
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Grocery stores, Beauty Brands, Target, Bed Bath & Beyond, Pier One. Women with money make decisions. Pack your lunch. Sit in the truck and eat. When someone stops schedule the estimate right there. No business card and “give me a call”. They forget about you as soon as they’re shopping for make up or whatever.
“I’m in the area and have another house at 1:00, but if you give me your email address and home address I’ll swing by, check it out, and email you the estimate before you sit down to dinner.”
I gave out so many dang business cards with the “gimme a call” line with zero luck. Lol it’s kinda embarassing to think about actually.
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I signed up two months ago, got one lead.
I went on my account a week ago, added more services (i only had roof cleaning), AND raised my lead budgets to 2500 and 1500, got like six leads, landed two jobs total worth about 910. Spent 90 in leads tho.
I like it, it’s fine, looking to invest more in marketing this year
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That’s less than 10% for marketing costs right? What’s your average cost of overhead per hour? Was your ROI 70% or better?
I called HA last week. The guy I talked to said they didn’t get enough volume in fence staining requests for my area for him to be comfortable asking me to sign up.
I was surprised, but I really appreciated the honesty.
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I signed up for HA almost two weeks ago after much debate. I am hoping it creates a surge in business for the end of summer & early fall? So far, I have not had one lead.
Two days ago doubled my coverage area with them from a quarter to over half of a major metropolitan area & outlying suburbs. This area includes tens of thousands of homes that need washing. I created what I think is a strong online profile with HA including before & after pictures of services offered and strong marketing verbiage. I’ll be patient & see what happens but it is odd that the salespersons at HA claim that a large number of services requests were going unanswered as part of the pitch? Then they list the range of pricing for house washing to be $100 low to $300 high? Say what you will about that but then they state that 1 out of 3 three leads closed is a good ratio. Extrapolate: Average house wash $200 - 3 leads to close on sale - $20 per lead = $60 lead fees per sale - $200 minus $60 to get the sale leaves $140 for me? If that is the way it ends up then I won’t be with them very long. The only way it will work for me is if my lead closing ratio is higher and when I do get jobs I can get more customers in those neighborhoods with yard signs & door hangers & by pass HA.
Give me a call when you get the opportunity. 816-360-9733 I’ll help you get more leads. What’s your business name? I’ll check out your profile too.
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i subbed out the one clean and paint of the deck to a painter i just met, hes turning out to be awesome, then the other job is gutter cleaning which ill do myself, also im giving him two house paint jobs. looking forward to doing more work with him
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I have been using HA for about a year and a half. All good here. It is also great way to build reviews and boost your reputation. So far I have over 50 plus 5 star reviews and it relly helps close jobs. Even if i am a bit more expensive than the comp.
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Subbing work is a beautiful thing. I’ve considered subbing out my pressure washing work, but I like it so dang much that I just can’t do it. I do sub a few jobs each week to a couple guys an hour north of me and it nets anywhere from $400-800 dollars extra weekly. Not breaking any records, but it’s still nice to get paid that much for a few phone calls and sending estimates and invoices.
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I think there are three main gripes with Home Advisor:
- Sometimes there are fake leads. And they seem to not always honor their refund policy.
- The shady ways they try to get contractors to sign up (by acting like a customer).
- How they have a bigger SEO budget and crowd out actual local companies from the top google rankings, all the while not really adding any value whatsoever to the customer. They claim to have pre-screened contractors, but really whoever pays them gets the leads.
That said, I really really wish HA, Angie’s List, and Thumbtack did not exist, but they do, so we use them. I rank right below those three on most local searches so if they weren’t there, I’d get alot more leads, without having to pay more for them, and without them being competitive bid situations.
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Funny this comes up now. They have been calling me and send info for about 3 weeks. The guy told me they had 169 requests for fence staining in the last 30 days within 25 mi of my house. I don’t need them right now since I have 15 contracted stain jobs on the books and one PW while I am there cleaning the fence. Having said that I am interested in them for the fall and winter. Last year I didn’t see a big drop off but I think it was a fluke honestly. I currently spend about 700.00 per month in an upscale home improvement magazine. One good job is break even. During the busy season I get 3-4 leads per month from Google and about the same from my wrap on my trailer. Still contemplating HA though…
explain the Google deal how does that one work?
I saw the site for HA but to join it looking for that to see how much>
is it per month or when u get a job how much
What?
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