Home service businesses that connected advertising to completed jobs generated 38% higher gross-profit returns.
Across 126 US home service businesses, the typical company generated $1.68 in gross profit for every $1 spent on ads when advertising was connected to completed jobs, compared with $1.22 for businesses focused on leads and calls.
The typical business earned $1.68 in gross profit per ad dollar when advertising was connected to completed jobs.
Businesses focused on leads and calls generated a median $1.22 in gross profit for every $1 spent on ads. Businesses connecting advertising to completed jobs generated $1.68. That is a 38% higher median gross-profit return. Gross profit in this study means revenue minus technician labor and parts, before overhead.
The closer measurement gets to real money, the more useful the advertising becomes.
Advertising platforms can see when someone calls or fills out a form, but they do not automatically know whether that person became a paying customer, what the job was worth, or whether it was profitable. Unless businesses send that information back, the system makes decisions without knowing which leads actually produced valuable work.
“The ad platforms will optimize toward anything you point them at, which is exactly why pointing them at leads instead of profit gets so expensive. Most advertisers already have the tools to fix this, they just haven’t connected their spend to what a job is really worth. This study puts a hard number on that gap, and it’s bigger than most would guess.”
Better measurement mattered more than bigger budgets.
Bigger budgets usually bring more data, more history, and more room to test. But in this study, scale did not explain the strongest returns. Among the smallest spend tier, companies that connected advertising to completed jobs reached a median return close to the largest operator in the sample. What separated them was not only budget. It was whether the advertising system could see what happened after the lead.
Nearly half of the small advertisers connected to completed jobs beat the $20M operator outright. The technology larger operators have used for years, connecting advertising to what a job is actually worth, is now realistic for much smaller businesses.
The fix is practical, but it is not automatic.
The easy default
Most ad accounts start by counting calls and forms. Unless the business changes what is sent back, the system keeps optimizing toward the top of the funnel.
The integration work
Telling the platform what a job is worth means connecting a CRM or field-service system back to the ad account. That setup is still the step many smaller companies skip.
Reports built on leads
Lead reports are easy to build and easy to explain. But a lead report can look healthy while the jobs behind it are low-value, unbooked, or unprofitable.
The result
The advertising system makes decisions using incomplete information. The companies that close that gap give it a better signal to work from.
You do not need perfect profit accounting to start. You need to climb one rung.
The first practical step is not a bigger media budget. It is connecting advertising to what happened after the lead. Start with completed jobs, then add revenue, then add gross profit where the data is reliable.
- Send jobs back, not just leads. Feed completed-job outcomes from your CRM to the ad platform, so it learns which clicks become real work.
- Value the job by revenue. Tell the platform what each job was worth, so it can learn from bigger tickets instead of only cheaper calls.
- Value the job by gross profit. Where labor and parts data is reliable, send the value that reflects what the business actually kept before overhead.
If you can report qualified leads today but not job values, that is not a reason to wait. It is the next rung.
How the study was run.
Detailed methodology and aggregate results are available to reporters on request. No individual company is identified, and no client-identifiable data is shared.
Connect advertising to completed jobs, revenue, and profit.
Lachi Media helps home service businesses move beyond lead reports and build advertising around the outcomes that actually matter.
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