Good at the work, invisible on Google
Danny had been roofing for twelve years. He runs a small operation — himself and one labourer — focusing on residential work across Harrow, Wembley and Ealing. Flat roofs, repairs, re-felting, guttering. Solid reputation among people who knew him. But if you searched for a roofer in any of those areas online, he simply did not exist.
He had tried MyBuilder for a period and found the lead quality poor. Tyre kickers who had filled in a form with no clear idea of what the job would cost or when they wanted it done. He lost two weeks chasing jobs that went nowhere and stopped paying for it.
The problem with word of mouth is that it plateaus. Once you have exhausted your immediate network, referrals slow and you have no reliable way to replace them. Danny was at that ceiling and he knew it.
"I would go quiet for two or three weeks and then get three jobs at once. Impossible to plan anything. I could not take on a labourer properly because I could not guarantee the work would be there."
Danny, roofer, HarrowTargeting emergency repairs and planned work separately
Roofing search behaviour splits into two distinct groups. People with an urgent problem — a leak, storm damage, a gutter hanging off — who need someone today. And people planning ahead — a flat roof replacement, guttering before winter. These groups search differently and need to be spoken to differently in the ads.
We built separate ad groups for each. Emergency searches got ads focused on speed and availability. Planned work searches led with quality, experience and a free quote. The landing page handled both — call button prominent for urgent enquiries, quote form visible for longer-term jobs.
The campaign structure we used
- Emergency repair ad group — targeting leak, damage and urgent repair searches
- Planned work ad group — re-roofing, flat roofs, guttering and preventative work
- Three geographic targets — Harrow, Wembley and Ealing with adjusted bid modifiers
- Call extensions active at all times — tap to call directly from the search result
- Ad scheduling running 7am to 7pm, seven days a week
- Conversion tracking on both phone calls and form submissions
We also fully optimised his Google Business Profile. For roofing, many customers search on mobile and want to call immediately — appearing in the local map pack is as valuable as a paid ad. We treated both as part of the same strategy. Danny had no website so we built him one — single-service, photos of completed jobs, service area, and strong local copy — live within ten days.
Consistent, qualified enquiries from week two onwards
Week one produced four enquiries and two converted to booked jobs. After seeing the search term data we made adjustments to the negative keyword list, reducing spend on searches that were not commercially relevant.
From week two the volume picked up noticeably. Danny told us the quality felt completely different to MyBuilder. People were calling him specifically, they had read his site and they were asking when he could come out rather than how much he would charge before anything else.
By the end of 60 days, 22 enquiries on record, 14 quoted, 9 confirmed and completed. Revenue for month two was just over £6,200 — almost double his average from the six months before.
"It is the consistency that has changed things for me. I know roughly how many calls I am going to get each week now. That lets me actually plan and tell my labourer when to expect work."
Danny, roofer, HarrowExpanding into a fourth area this month
Three months in and the campaign has stabilised at between 10 and 14 enquiries per month. He has taken his labourer on more regularly and is now turning away work that does not meet his minimum job value.
We are expanding the campaign to cover Northolt this month — lower competition, high population density, same job values as Harrow. He has not used MyBuilder or any other lead generation platform since the day he started with us.
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