How to Run Google Ads for a Roofing Business

Google Ads is a complicated product, and roofing is one of its most competitive verticals. Done well, it produces the highest-quality paid leads in the trade. Done badly, it burns $5,000 a month with nothing to show. Here is the operational playbook for running Google Ads for a roofing business at the small-shop scale.

Local Service Ads come first

Before any search campaign, get Local Service Ads (LSAs) approved. LSAs sit above traditional search results, show a “Google Screened” badge, and charge per lead instead of per click.

Application steps:

1. Have an active state contractor license uploaded
2. Active general liability ($1M minimum)
3. Background check on the business owner
4. At least 5 Google reviews to rank well
5. Defined service area and services

Approval takes 2-6 weeks. Once live, set a weekly lead budget ($500-$3,000), turn on Bid Mode (let Google auto-bid), and respond to every lead within 5 minutes during business hours. Slow response time tanks your LSA rank. Cost per lead: $25-$80. Conversion: 25-40%.

LSAs typically become 40-60% of paid lead flow once running. They should be the first paid dollar spent.

One mental-model correction saves a lot of confusion here: the LSA budget is a cap, not a bid. You cannot buy your way up the rotation. Position is driven by proximity, review volume and rating, and how reliably you answer; a solo roofer with 60 reviews and a 90% answer rate sits above a five-truck shop that lets calls ring out. That makes LSAs the rare ad product where operational discipline, not budget, is the growth lever. It also means a new account ranks modestly for the first weeks regardless of spend; do not judge it before 30 days.

Search campaign structure

Build the search campaign in parallel with LSAs.

Match types: phrase and exact only. Never broad. Broad-match in roofing burns budget on irrelevant searches.

Ad groups: one per tight keyword theme. Don’t lump 50 keywords in one ad group; the ad relevance score collapses.

Ad copy structure:

• Headline 1: keyword (“Roof Replacement in [City]”)
• Headline 2: trust signal (“Licensed, Insured, 5-Star Rated”)
• Headline 3: offer (“Free Estimate Today”)
• Description: scope, service area, social proof, call to action
• Extensions: sitelinks, callouts, structured snippets, lead form, location

The four-campaign split is not bureaucracy; it is budget control. Each campaign gets its own daily budget, so a storm week can triple the emergency campaign without starving branded defense, and you can read profitability per intent instead of one blended mush. Single-campaign accounts always end up overspending on the prestige keywords (“roof replacement”) while a competitor quietly buys “acme roofing reviews” out from under them.

Negative keywords (the make-or-break list)

Build a starter negative keyword list day one. Without it, you pay for searches that will never convert:

• “jobs,” “salary,” “hiring,” “career”
• “DIY,” “how to,” “tutorial”
• “Home Depot,” “Lowe’s”
• “Habitat for Humanity,” “free roof program”
• “cost calculator,” “estimate calculator”
• “school,” “training,” “certification”
• “wholesale,” “distributor,” “manufacturer”

Review the search terms report weekly for the first 90 days and add new negatives. Most roofers find $200-$800/month in wasted spend hiding in the search terms report.

Negatives also pay a second, less obvious dividend. Every junk query you block raises the click-through rate on what remains, which feeds quality score, which lowers the price you pay on the good clicks. In a vertical where clicks cost $60-$150, a quality-score bump of one point is real money every single day. This is why the search terms report, not the ad copy, is where experienced operators spend their weekly half hour.

Bidding, budgets, and landing pages

Bidding strategy progression:

1. Weeks 1-4: “Maximize Conversions” with a conservative $100-$200 daily budget. Let Google’s automation gather 30+ conversions.
2. Weeks 4-12: switch to “Target CPA” with a $200-$400 cost-per-acquisition target.
3. Month 3+: consider “Maximize Conversion Value” if your CRM passes lead value back to Google.

Manual CPC is rarely worth the management time once 10+ conversions/week are flowing.

The reason for the patience in step 1: smart bidding is statistics, and Target CPA with a dozen conversions of history starves itself, showing ads less and less while you wonder where the volume went. Count phone calls as conversions (call tracking, not just forms) and you hit the 30-conversion threshold weeks faster, because in roofing the phone outpulls the form two to one.

Landing pages matter as much as bids. Send traffic to city-specific pages with:

• Hero with phone number and “Get Free Estimate” button
• Three trust signals (reviews, licensed/insured badges, years in business)
• Short quote form (6 fields max)
• Click-to-call sticky bar on mobile
• Service-specific content matching the ad

Sending search ad traffic to a generic homepage halves conversion rate. See how to make a website for the structure.

Run it yourself or hand it to an agency?

The honest decision rule is spend-based. Below roughly $10k/month in media, a $1.5k-$5k agency fee is 20-50% overhead on the budget, and at that scale the work is mostly the weekly search-terms habit you can do yourself. Above that, a good buyer usually recovers their fee in eliminated waste.

Whichever way you go, keep the account in your own Google Ads login and grant the agency manager access. Owners who let an agency create the account inside the agency’s structure lose the conversion history, the negative lists, and the learning the day the relationship ends.

Pair with Facebook, GBP, and SEO

Google Ads should not run alone. Combine with the broader paid mix in how to advertise your roofing business, the Facebook playbook in how to run Facebook, and the local engine in how to promote roofing locally.

Should you run Google Ads yourself, or hand it off?

Below roughly $10k a month in spend, running it yourself is defensible, and honestly the weekly search-terms habit is most of the job at that scale. Past that, the waste a first-timer leaks at $60 to $150 a click usually costs more than a buyer’s fee. We wrote an honest breakdown of when that math flips: 7 signs your roofing business needs a Google Ads agency. Keep the account in your own login either way. When you want it handled, request a free proposal.

Frequently asked questions

What’s a reasonable monthly budget?

$1,500-$3,000 for LSAs only in year one. $5,000-$12,000 with LSAs + search in year two. $20,000-$60,000 for established three-crew operations.

Why is my cost per click $80+?

Roofing is one of the most competitive keyword categories on Google. Tighten match types, improve landing page quality score, build the negative list, and focus on local-modifier keywords.

Should I run Performance Max?

Not in year one. Pmax needs a strong asset library and good conversion tracking to work, and requires brand-exclusion management.

What conversion tracking do I need?

At minimum: form submissions, phone calls (via call tracking), and offline conversions (closed jobs sent back from CRM). Without offline conversion tracking you cannot optimize toward profitable leads.

Should I hire an agency?

After year one. Most roofing agencies charge $1.5k-$5k/month and only pay back at $10k+ ad spend. Learn the platform with your first $3k-$5k.