Top Online Services for Contractors
At Zing Marketing we often hear about different services that businesses are using to get clients. We hear about the best of them and the worst of them. We’ve had plumbers tell us about investing thousands of dollars that didn’t generate any income, and we’ve had contractors tell us the services that are generating leads at very little cost.
So we’ve decided to publish a post about some of the best services online that are available to contractors! Here are the services we hear about most often (in no particular order):
- Google AdWords
- HomeAdvisor
- Thumbtack
- Porch
- Yelp
- Yext
Let’s take a look at each of these in order from the highest reviewed service, to the lowest reviewed service:
Porch.com
Porch has received the best reviews of all of our clients. Roofers, plumbers, landscapers and others have all agreed that they get good quality leads through Porch.com for the price that they pay. We have not yet heard a negative review about Porch from the contractors that we work with. However, it should be noted that just as with any service that generates leads, not all leads convert to customers. The reports we receive from our clients say that they’re making a great profit off of Porch, and that they’re very happy with the service.
Google AdWords
Next up on the list is Google AdWords, and AdWords Express. The trouble with naming this service is that it’s only worked out for the guys who know how to use it. We have clients who avoid AdWords like the plague because they’ve spent thousands with no return. Those clients admit that they didn’t fully know how to use AdWords. Meanwhile we also have clients who use AdWords as their only way of marketing!
So in short, if you know how to use AdWords, or if you’re willing to pay a company to do it for you, this can be extremely profitable for you.
Thumbtack.com
Third on our list is Thumbtack. We’ve heard mixed reviews with these guys. For the most part our contractors are making money with Thumbtack, but 50% of them are complaining about having to charge low rates when using this service. If you’re a one-man show, Thumbtack can be a great service to use. For businesses that have a few staff, or even for larger companies, we wouldn’t recommend using this service.
Yelp
So far we haven’t had any clients tell us that they’ve been making money with Yelp. For those of the businesses that we’ve worked with that have paid Yelp, they said they either broke even or lost a little, but that the experience wasn’t really bad. We just haven’t heard any raving reviews about using this service to build a business.
Yext
Although Yext pays SEO companies pretty well for promoting their service, we have not seen that Yext is getting contractors a return on their investment. Yext is a service that places your business on several online directories throughout the web, but it comes with a high price tag in comparison to other similar service.
Yext isn’t a bad service, it’s just not the best service that we’ve seen of its kind. Our clients haven’t been raving about it, but we also don’t hear many complaints. Your money is probably better spent elsewhere.
HomeAdvisor
The last on our list is HomeAdvisor. Unfortunately we haven’t met a contractor that has had good things to say about this company. That isn’t to say they’re horrible and nobody should use them. We’re just saying that the reviews we’ve received have primarily been that contractors are spending thousands of dollars and getting calls from people who hang up right away, people who don’t really need work done, or just not getting calls at all.
Conclusion
So if you were to ask us what the best investment for a contractor would be, we’d probably first tell you to work with Zing Marketing. But if you aren’t quite ready for something like that, our survey shows that Porch and AdWords are a couple of the best places you could invest your money.
If you have any experience with these companies, leave us a comment and let us know! We’d love to hear how these companies worked out for you.
Hi, First of all I really enjoyed reading your page. Second I’m currently using 2 of the online marketing services mentioned. Porch.com I would agree is a good company to partner with. There leads are just like most leads. Some are good and some are bad. But overall a good investment. You should be able to turn leads into real jobs with this service. I do actually make money with these guys. HomeAdvisor long time customer. I have made good money with this service as well. Some of your guys may not be preforming at a high standard. This is required using this service. Because its fueled by customers reviews. Do good work and build up those reviews. Win awards. Trust me real customers come running. I can’t even take leads 24/7 from them because I’m just not large enough to handle the volume. I think out of all the companies mentioned. And I’m more than familiar with all them. HomeAdvisor would top my list. They can send you more leads in one day than porch can in a month.
Thanks for that Keith. I agree with you in that HomeAdvisor is probably a great company for a lot of people (otherwise they’d be out of business). Your feedback is appreciated and I think a lot of people will find value in what you said here 🙂 I’m happy to hear that you’re doing so well with them.
My company is on porch, as well as home advisor, although we are currently on a long term pause with the latter while we decide whether to stay with them or not. We receive leads from people who dont own houses, don’t give accurate contact information etc. From what I’ve seen I sell less than 10% of my home advisor leads, while its close to half the porch ones. My reviews with both companies are in the high 4’s and I have most of the home advisor badges, for what they are worth.
I have less of an issue with the lead quality from HA and more of an issue with thier shady business practices. If you pause your leads, they reset your spend target, if you adjust your spend target up or down , it resets. This is how many contractors who set thier budget at 1k spend 3 times that. They also fight you to give credits for obvious bad leads. Realtors have started suggesting buyers use HA to get quotes for work as a negotiating tool when there is no intention of ever getting it done and HA views these as good leads?
Thanks for the input John. That adds some new insight to Porch and HA. Just last night I had a contractor telling me something similar about HA, but he also suggested that HA is probably working well for some of the very large contractors out there (pulling in 7 figures or even more). Any thoughts?
We have built a substantial local business through HomeAdvisor. Porch is useless for a small local business as all of the leads we get are way out of our range, and there is no way to limit their radius. HomeAdvisor allows us to market to specific zip codes, turn leads on or off, and control the work flow. Their customer service is excellent. Perhaps you are talking to the wrong contractors. I hate Porch, we have been listed there for over a year and gotten one usable lead.
I’ve worked with most of these. Have yet to actually get a lead from Porch, but then I haven’t put any effort into it. I get lots of leads from Home Advisor, but very few that turn into jobs. Home Advisor is great for companies that want to compete on price and lousy for those of us who want to compete on quality. It is geared to the idea that homeowners will get three or four quotes and just take the cheapest one. Thumbtack was OK for filling in some dead spots when leads were under $10 and it made sense to just throw out some ideas. It is very hard for a contractor to give a price based on a homeowner description, but that is what Thumbtack demands. At $30 and up as the new price for leads, I’ve stayed away from Thumbtack.
Yelp is my least favorite. They have very pushy sales reps who would earn 1 star reviews if we could rate Yelp the way Yelp rates us. I do get a few contacts based on Yelp reviews, but refuse to spend money on promotions. Their whole idea is to throw a deep discount to low-end customers and get the phones ringing and I can’t think of anything more counter-productive to making quality sales.
As you’ve said, Google Adwords works great for those who use it well. It’s currently my only paid advertising because I stubbornly believe that, contrary to what Google says, paying for ads on Google keeps your organic search results high. Speaking of which, it’s good to at least take the free listing on ALL of these services because they will link to your site which increases your score for organic search.
My first three leads with Home Advisor resulted in three appointment, one of which I sold a 32″ x 80″ entry door.
That’s awesome Danny