Roofer marketing is unusual among the trades because demand arrives in spikes. A hailstorm or a windy week can produce more enquiry in three days than the previous quarter, and the company that answers first takes most of it. That shapes everything: the channels worth paying for, the way a website should be organised, and what a marketing retainer is really buying. This page sets out the channels that reliably produce booked roofing jobs, what genuinely moves cost per lead, and the checks that separate an agency that has run roofing accounts from one that has bought a roofing template and swapped the logo.
The channels that actually convert
Three channels do most of the work. Local search comes first: a complete and correctly categorised Google Business Profile, reviews arriving steadily rather than in one suspicious burst, and a page for each town and each roof type you sell. Google's own guidelines for representing a business are specific about accurate categories, real service areas and a name that matches your signage, and profiles that ignore them get suspended at the worst possible moment. Paid search is second, and it earns its keep in storm weeks precisely because it can be switched on the same morning. Third is the referral and repeat layer: past customers, insurance adjusters, property managers and general contractors, which costs almost nothing to maintain and is the first thing a busy owner stops doing. Door knocking and direct mail still work in storm territory, but they are a sales system, not a marketing channel, and an agency cannot run them for you.
What moves cost per lead
Roofing is one of the more expensive trades to advertise in, and four things explain most of the variance. Seasonality is the biggest: bidding against every other roofer in the fortnight after a hailstorm costs multiples of a quiet February. Job type is next, since a full replacement enquiry is worth many times a repair call and the bidding reflects it. Geography matters because a dense metro with several funded competitors prices differently from a rural county. Finally, the landing experience decides how much of your click spend survives: a page that loads slowly on a phone, buries the number, or asks for eight form fields will waste a large share of it. Judge providers on cost per booked job rather than cost per lead. A cheaper lead that never answers the phone is not cheaper, and any agency that reports only leads is reporting the number it controls rather than the number you care about.
How to vet a roofing marketing agency
Start with proof of local work: ask which roofing companies they currently run accounts for and in which markets, then search those markets and see whether the claim survives contact with the results page. Ask whether they will build a page for each service area you sell, and how many, because the answer tells you whether they have costed the work or are quoting a generic retainer. Ask for their review policy in writing. The FTC's endorsement guidance is clear that incentivised or filtered reviews are a legal exposure for the business whose name is on them, not just for the agency, so a provider who offers to generate reviews is offering you a risk. Finally, test the speed of the intake path they intend to feed. Submit your own form at seven in the evening and time the callback. Roofing buyers hire whoever answers, and a lead that waits until the morning has usually already signed with someone else.
Contracts and ownership
Three clauses decide whether you can leave. First, ownership of the website, the domain, the ads account, the analytics property and the Google Business Profile: all of these should be in your name with the agency granted access. Rented sites are common in home services marketing and they end with a bill for the traffic you paid to build. Second, the notice period. Thirty days is normal, a twelve-month lock-in on a monthly service is not, and a long term should buy a lower rate rather than simply a longer commitment. Third, what happens to the content and the ad copy when the relationship ends. Get it in the agreement that the work product transfers. Most roofing owners buy the whole marketing function from one provider rather than assembling it, so the question of what you keep at the end matters more here than in almost any other trade.
Questions people ask about roofer marketing
What should a roofing company spend on marketing?
There is no universal ratio worth quoting, because storm markets and retail markets behave completely differently. The practical approach is to work backwards: decide how many replacement jobs you need per month, use your own historic close rate to get the number of enquiries required, then price the channels against that. Anyone quoting a percentage of revenue without seeing your close rate is guessing.
Are shared lead marketplaces worth using?
They fill a calendar quickly and they are the most expensive way to buy work over time, because the same enquiry is sold to several contractors and you compete on price the moment you call. Treat them as a stopgap while owned channels are built, and track close rate separately from your other sources so the difference is visible.
How many service area pages do we actually need?
One for each town you genuinely serve and want work in, written with real local detail rather than a template with the place name swapped. Thin duplicated location pages are a well known way to end up filtered out of results, and Google's spam policies name that pattern directly.
Should we pay for reviews?
No. Incentivised, gated or written-for-you reviews put the business at legal risk under FTC endorsement rules and at platform risk from Google. Ask instead for a system that requests reviews from every completed job, which produces a steadier and more defensible flow.