But…
Have had a negative ROI on our account for who knows how long. Quality of leads kept going down. The last straw for me was a “power washing” request from someone hoping to have their log cabin “hand washed”, to avoid getting water in the chinks. Seriously?
I was hanging on for awhile simply because we had a profile page that ranked well in Google with a high review rating visible. But the ranking has declined considerably.
Good for you. We noticed a massive drop in customer calls when HA merged with AL. They now want $3,500/mo to be “on top of the list” and all your negative reviews magically go away.
I did away with them this year also. It’s not for me. I made them send me a confirmation email and waited on the phone until it was received. They tried everything to get me to stay.
HA is good for different markets. I got lucky with landing a 36 home community project. Grossing 13k for a 40 dollar lead. I stick to opportunities that provide good information before accepting. This way I can see what they want and know I can provide the service. It has worked for us so far.
I hear ya. We had decent ROI for the first few years. But a lot of jobs I could’ve done without, as well. If I could’ve narrowed it down to power washing for vinyl sided buildings only, I could’ve kept the account profitable, I think.
I’m finding that a lot of “leads” I’m getting are people who saw me on Facebook or heard me on the radio or their friend told them about me and when they try to Google my business, the first thing they see is my business name but it is linked to Home Advisor…then Home Advisor sells the “lead” to me and two other companies. Pretty damn frustrating. I’ll be happy when I can justify leaving them. I’m still making money off of them for now though.
I use them religiously. This is my second year. I guess it depends on the locations. I usually give them $200 a week and end up turning that into 2k to 3k a week. So the ROI is decent. I’ve somewhat tried without them for a few months and couldn’t get that much in calls or jobs landed. Maybe I wasn’t trying hard enough. But then again, this is part time for me. The request credit has worked good, seems like you have to know how to play the system. Pausing and resuming the leads when needed helps a lot too. I would like to get away from homeadvisor one day. So far I’ve had some people call me back the following year and they had their friends and family hire me for jobs too.
Ouch. That sucks. Sounds like a good reason to not have a HomeAdvisor page.
But you need to up your google game. Get your google business page ranking. Fill it with pictures, reviews, and full details of your business. Get all your free citations (local directory listings) in order. If you don’t have a website, get one, or at least use the free one you can setup through your google business page (pay for a custom url).
Instead of requesting reviews through HA, send customers a link to review you on google. Keep at it, until you’ve got more google reviews than any of your competitors. And then keep getting fresh reviews.
There’s no reason why anyone should feel held to a company like HA. I know it is super useful for a lot of guys starting out. People like @squidskc would have had a hard time growing as quickly without it (though I don’t believe it’s impossible to have that kind of success without HA).
Use HA as a springboard. Make sure to build your brand and ranking off the backs of their leads. Don’t work at bolstering their flawed and expensive-to-maintain system. So that means not putting too much work into your profile page (that’s why/how it ranks well). Getting people to leave reviews on other platforms like google, Yelp, or Facebook, and keeping fresher content on those platforms than what’s on your HA page.
FYI - HA in the news again. Not doing proper background checks. Felons ripping off customers, not finishing jobs, etc. and HA basically doing nothing as usual.
If you are using them and having success, great! Many including myself did not. Seems like it is a market by market situation and even within a market some may do well with it while others do not. Talked to a guy down the street who does powerwashing and uses HA. He claims to get $2-$3K a month in business from them while 72% of my leads never answered their phone or responded to text/e-mails. Just seems weird that two guys in the same area can have such different experiences (yes, I responded within minutes to every lead as does this other fellow).
Even when you stop with them, they will NOT disassociate your company from them. 6 months later, a search for my company pulls up the HA page at the top of the results. I have requested several times that they stop and nothing. I guess I will need to pay a lawyer to send a cease and desist letter. Anyone else have this problem and get it resolved?
