This is my first full-time Spring/Summer/Fall after doing it on the side for the last 2 years. At the start of the season I was contacted by Angi’s and ultimately got hooked up with them for $300 and change/ year, plus a pay-per-lead which varies from a couple of bucks up to $30-$40.
Personally, it has led to a lot of successful jobs for me and has helped me grow a presence within my target areas, which I probably would not have gotten into otherwise. It has also helped to get my roll-off dumpster rental business moving well to go into the winter. Looking back, I would definitely do it again.
My plan is to use them into next year, then transition to SEO fully.
Is anyone else out there still using them? If so, what are your thoughts?
I think what you’re describing has been the track that most have taken… used HA for the first 3 years or so I think (I wasn’t here then), but we quit with all those folks around that time. Make sure you take what you gained, and cultivate repeat clients, and referral clients from them. WHen those services become more hassle than they’re worth, you’ll know it’s time to cut that cord…
We got with Angie’s List in 2010 to get our foot in the door and it worked fairly well for a while. Once HomeAdvisor merged things went downhill fast. We had accumulated 350+ ‘A’ reviews and suddenly we were perceived as a hot commodity.
Our name came up first on AL in many areas when people searched, organically. One day our name got shoved down a dozen spaces and we called our ‘rep’. He said things have changed and to get us back would cost about $2500 a month.
I was furious. We also found out AL was hiding ‘F’ reviews if you would pay enough. A local WC franchise had GLOWING reports (all five of them) and hid dozens of unfavorable reviews because they could afford to pay.
I could go on. We stopped paying AL a few years ago, ironically our reviews and proxy phone number are still active.
Sounds about right… seen the same stuff with Yelp. Every quarter a poor new telemarketer in their office had to call me and let me tell them their company was an immoral scam. Finally got them to quit calling by leaving a nasty review of Yelp on Yelp. Some bigwig contacted me and I told him the story, said he’d look into it, never heard back (but the marketing calls stopped )
I started with home advisor about 5 years ago and I believe it played a key role in my success. It’s a terrible immoral company and I hated giving them money but it got my feet real wet and my business exploded. I haven’t used them in a few years and will never use them again. But if you go into it knowing it’s expensive you’ll do good. After a few months you’ll figure out the ins and outs of getting credit for bad leads. If someone put down power washing but wanted a deck painted or something, which I don’t do I would text the person confirming they are wanting something painted. Then I’d send that screenshot to home advisor showing it was a mislabeled lead and they’d refund me
Plan is to have my digital marketeer(3rd party) begin SEO this Spring. Then, as that gains momentum, cut out Angis/HA.
I have noticed the lead costs are wildly different. I had a lead for a gutter cleaning cost $30.00 and leads for power washing a 3000ft2 home be $18.00. Not sure how they figure all that, but it seems out of wack.
10 years ago I was paying them something like $1000 a month for hot area. I realized nobody else around here was paying them, so I brought my area down to 1 town and paid them about $100 a month, which made my listing stick out in the other areas I was formerly paying for.
Super Service Award time comes around and I was denied because of that. A good buddy of mine a few towns over got the award, with far less 5 star reviews, and I confronted my rep. They wouldn’t budge, so I cancelled.
Also, regarding the Big Deals… I ran one in 2013. Told them my counties, and said “Not Union or Middlesex County”. They got that memo backwards and promoted the deal only in the areas I don’t service, and refused to refund anyone. I spent a lot of time begrudgingly driving way out of my area for the next 6 months.
I never got into lead aggregators cause in my old job they used them, but they were usually always bad.
They used one in particular - Networx and most of the time you couldn’t even reach the lead. They ended up canceling networx cause I told them it’s a waste of $ but they would just pause it for 6 months at a time then it’d get reopened and charge them again, then they’d end up pausing it again. Constant waste of money & time to always have to pause leads but they did it cause they didn’t want to take a hit on their SEO. Idk if it would or wouldn’t affect their SEO but their problem now lol
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