- budget
- profitability
- trades
What a signed job really costs through online advertising
The cost of a job signed through online ads: the calculation, the four rates to know, and how to tell whether your budget pays.
Published on · Joh · 8 min read
The question asked is almost always "what does a quote request cost". The right question is "what does a signed job cost me", because that is the only one you can compare against your margin.
Here is how to work it out, and what to do with it.
The conversion chain
Between a euro spent and a signed job there are four steps, and each has its own drop-off.
Quote request. Someone fills in your form.
Contact made. You got them on the phone. A share never answer; that is normal and unavoidable.
Appointment attended. They received you, or you received them. Some cancel, others postpone indefinitely.
Job signed. The quote is accepted.
The cost of a signed job is your total advertising spend divided by the number of jobs signed because of it. Nothing more.
A worked example
A tradesperson spends €2,000 on advertising over a month.
| Step | Volume | Rate | Unit cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enquiries | 40 | — | €50 |
| Contacts made | 28 | 70% | €71 |
| Appointments attended | 17 | 61% | €118 |
| Jobs signed | 5 | 29% | €400 |
Each job costs them €400 in acquisition. If their average margin per job is €3,500, they are spending about 11% of that margin to fill it. That is comfortable.
If the margin is €900, the same calculation gets tight: they will have to improve a rate, raise the average order value, or accept thin profitability on this channel.
The four rates, and which to work on first
A lot of tradespeople try to push the cost per enquiry down. It is often the least effective lever.
The contact rate is the one that moves fastest, and it depends on no advertising setting. Going from 70% to 85% is decided by your call-back time and an automatic confirmation message. Immediate effect on the whole chain.
The attendance rate improves with qualification upstream — form fields, stating the budget in the ad, a pre-qualifying call — and with a reminder the day before.
The signature rate depends on you, on your quote and on how you sell. Advertising changes nothing there, although a better-informed contact signs more often.
The cost per enquiry is the most visible and the least decisive. Pushing it down by widening the targeting usually degrades every rate that follows: you pay less for enquiries that are worth less.
The break-even point
To know whether your budget is sustainable you need two numbers: your average margin per job, and the share of that margin you are willing to spend on acquisition.
Between 10% and 20% of the margin is a common order of magnitude in building and home improvement. Below that you are probably leaving volume on the table. Above it, the channel becomes fragile as soon as your rates slip.
Multiply your margin by that percentage and you have what a job can cost in acquisition. Then work back up the chain with your own rates, and you know what you can pay for an enquiry.
That is the calculation I run on a first call, before talking about creative or campaigns. If the numbers do not add up, no advertising will make them add up.
Common mistakes in the calculation
Forgetting jobs signed later. A contact from October who signs in February did come from your October advertising. If you only look at the current month, you underestimate your profitability, sometimes heavily.
Forgetting the word of mouth it generates. A client won through advertising who recommends you to their neighbour is a second job at zero acquisition cost. It belongs in the same calculation.
Counting production as delivery. Filming and editing are an investment that serves several months. Writing them off against a single month distorts everything.
Judging on three weeks. The first weeks pay for the algorithm's learning. The cost per signed job in the early days is never representative.
What you need to be able to track
A simple table kept weekly is enough: enquiries received, contacts made, appointments attended, quotes sent, jobs signed, advertising spend.
Without it you are flying blind and judging a channel on an impression. With it you know exactly where you are losing people, and you work on the right link.
Going further: Why Facebook quote requests have a bad reputation and Finding renovation work without going through lead-selling platforms. And to bring it down: lowering your customer acquisition cost.
Want to run the numbers on your own business? . We look at your real rates and what you can afford to invest.