How can a roofing company get more leads?

Roofing has two demand engines that behave like different businesses. Retail work comes from aging roofs, leaks and home sales, and it arrives fairly steadily. Storm work comes from hail and wind, arrives in spikes, and is paid mostly by insurers under rules that several states have written specifically for roofers. A lead plan that works for one usually fails the other. This page covers both.

Most homeowners start with a search. In the Strive analysis of Google Keyword Planner data from September 2025 to August 2026, the most-searched roofing terms nationally were “roofing companies near me”, “roofers near me” and “roofing contractor”, plus close variants such as “roofing business near me” and “roofer contractors”, each in the 100,000 to 1 million monthly search range¹. Keyword Planner gives ranges, not exact counts, so treat these as tiers, not totals.

Three patterns in that data matter for planning:

• Searchers pick a company, not a product. The top terms are all “who should I call” searches. That favors the Map Pack and Local Services Ads, where the searcher sees names, ratings and a phone button.
• Replacement and inspection terms are expensive. Top-of-page bid estimates were about $85 for “roofing replacement near me”, $81 for “roof inspector near me” and $73 for “roof replacement”, against a median of $12.64 across 1,710 distinct roofing search terms¹. These are Google’s bid estimates for a click, not cost per lead.
• Commercial is a separate market. “Commercial roofing contractors near me” carried the highest top-of-page bid estimate in the national top 12, $100, in the 10,000 to 100,000 range¹.

State differences are large. Texas, California and Florida are the three broadest roofing markets by distinct search terms. Florida’s median bid estimate ($18.68) is more than double Alabama’s ($8.27)¹. A budget that buys plenty of clicks in Mississippi buys far fewer in Florida, so set budgets by state, not by a national rule.

Storm demand shows up differently. After a hailstorm, searches spike, but so does in-person selling. When a September 2025 hailstorm hit Anna, Texas, police received 70 solicitor permit applications in two days, all from roof and hail repair companies, against a normal rate of about one per month¹⁹. In storm markets, the homeowner often meets five roofers at the door before they search.

Start with the job, then work back to what a lead can cost.

The HomeAdvisor figures come from an Angi brand that sells leads, so treat them as vendor data. The insurance figure is the average paid claim for wind and hail, which can include more than the roof, but it is a fair signal that storm jobs often run larger than retail replacements.

Worked example: what one replacement lead is worth

Illustrative inputs, not sourced benchmarks. Replace them with your own numbers.

• Average replacement ticket: $9,609⁶
• Leads that become a completed inspection: 60%
• Inspections that become a signed contract: 30%
• Gross margin after materials, labor and commission: 35%

Lead to job rate: 0.60 × 0.30 = 18%. Gross profit per job: $9,609 × 0.35 = $3,363. Gross profit per lead: 0.18 × $3,363 = about $605.

That $605 is your break-even cost per lead before overhead. Now check it against paid search. If you pay $60 a click on replacement terms (below the $73 to $85 top-of-page estimates above¹) and 10% of clicks become a lead, each lead costs $600. That is break-even, which means head terms only pay if your landing page converts better than 10%, your close rate is better than the example, or you also sell gutters, skylights or financing on the same visit.

Repair leads look worse on paper. At $1,174 a ticket⁷, a 50% close rate and a 40% margin, a repair lead is worth about $235 in gross profit. Many operators still want them, because a repair customer with a 20-year-old roof is the cheapest replacement lead you will ever get. Track repair customers for 24 months and count the replacements they turn into before you cut repair spend.

A common rule of thumb: if you cannot say what share of leads from each channel turned into signed contracts last quarter, you are not ready to raise any budget.

Ranked for a typical residential roofer with one to three crews. The right order shifts if you are storm-focused or commercial.

Google Business Profile and the Map Pack

Google says local results are mainly based on relevance, distance and popularity (its help page heads the third factor “Prominence”), and says more reviews and positive ratings can help⁴. Google also says there is no way to pay for a better local ranking⁴. For a roofer, that means three things: pick “Roofing contractor” as the primary category, earn reviews after every job, and post photos of real jobs in the towns you serve.

Storm chasers often break Google’s rules when they move into a new state. Google’s guidelines say a rented mailing address you do not operate from (a virtual office) is not eligible for a profile, and a service area should not extend much past about two hours of driving from your base⁵. A fake local office can get suspended right when the storm leads are flowing.

Local Services Ads

Roofers are an eligible Local Services Ads category in the United States². You pay per valid lead, lead prices vary by location and job type, and you set an average weekly budget with a monthly cap³. To go live you need a license or business registration (depending on what your area requires) and reviews subject to category rules².

Google began moving Local Services Ads into Performance Max campaigns with pay-per-lead goals in August 2026, and roofing is in the first group of U.S. categories. You still pay per valid lead and ads keep the same placements, but management moves into Google Ads and your average weekly budget is divided by 7 into a daily average²⁸. Check your account notices before you set budgets.

LSA tends to send retail homeowners calling about leaks and replacements. Treat each lead as a phone call that must be answered live. If your crew lead answers from a roof, you will lose the call to the next listing.

Paid search

Use the bid data to choose terms, not to set expectations. The national median bid estimate is $12.64 but the terms that signal a buying homeowner sit between $60 and $100¹. Practical rules:

• Split campaigns by intent: replacement, repair, inspection, commercial. Each has a different lead value.
• Run “roof inspection” terms only if you can tell a free storm inspection from a paid one. Inspection searchers include home buyers who want a report, not a roof.
• Exclude materials research terms (“metal roof”, “shingle roof”) unless you sell them. They show up in the top searches of 31 of the 45 state reports, mostly with bids far below replacement terms, for a reason¹.

Lead marketplaces

Angi’s 2025 annual report says pros pay fees for consumer matches “regardless of whether the Pro ultimately provides the requested service”, alongside advertising and membership revenue²³. That is a fair deal when you know your close rate on those leads. It is a poor one if you answer slowly, since shared leads reward the fastest responder. Treat marketplace leads as a test channel with a fixed monthly budget and a 90-day review.

Referrals and real estate

Retail roofing has a steady flow from home sales: inspection reports flag roofs, and buyers or sellers need a fast quote. Build a short list of agents and inspectors who need a reliable 48-hour roof report. Do not pay inspectors for referrals without checking state rules; Texas, for example, limits inspector referral fees (see the foundation repair hub for the rule text).

Insurance and storm work

Storm work is the highest-ticket channel in roofing and the most regulated. It needs its own process: documented inspections, photo evidence, contracts that meet state law, and a clear line between you and the claim. The next section covers the rules.

Commercial roofing

Commercial work comes from property managers, facility managers and general contractors, not homeowners. Paid search exists (the $100 bid estimate above¹), but most volume comes from bid lists, maintenance agreements and relationships. If you want commercial work, a maintenance program with twice-yearly inspections is the lead source; the replacement follows the report.

Financing

Financing helps close replacement jobs that the homeowner cannot pay for in cash. Be careful how you advertise it. Under federal Regulation Z, if an ad states a payment amount, number of payments, down payment or finance charge, it must also disclose the down payment, the repayment terms and the annual percentage rate²⁵. “Only $199 a month” on a yard sign is a triggering term. Let your lender approve financing ad copy.

This is not legal advice. The rules below are examples; check your own state and city with a construction attorney.

Licensing

Licensing varies more in roofing than in most trades. Texas has no state roofing license; the Roofing Contractors Association of Texas notes that the state licensing agency does not license roofers, and runs a voluntary license instead²⁰. Florida defines roofing contractor as a licensed contractor category under Chapter 489²⁷, and contracts entered into by an unlicensed contractor are unenforceable by that contractor²¹. If you advertise in a new state after a storm, confirm the license first, because LSA and many cities will ask for it².

Deductibles and claim handling: Texas

• A contractor may not act as a public adjuster or advertise to adjust claims for any property where it provides or may provide contracting services (Texas Insurance Code 4102.163)¹⁰.
• The insured must pay any deductible on a first-party property claim (Insurance Code 707.002)¹¹.
• A seller of goods or services paid from property insurance may not advertise or promise to waive or pay the deductible, or offer a rebate or credit to offset it. Contracts of $1,000 or more paid from insurance proceeds must carry a deductible notice in 12-point bold type. A violation is a Class B misdemeanor (Business and Commerce Code 27.02)¹².

Deductibles and solicitation: Florida

Florida Statutes 489.147 is written with roofing in mind¹³:

• Any ad that encourages a homeowner to contact a contractor or public adjuster to make a roof damage claim must state, in large enough type, that the consumer pays the deductible and that deductible waivers and false claims are felonies.
• A contractor may not offer a rebate, gift, gift card, cash, coupon, deductible waiver or “any other thing of value” in exchange for a roof inspection or an insurance claim.
• A contractor may not give or take compensation for referring work paid by property insurance, and may not interpret coverage or adjust a claim without a public adjuster license.
• Fines run up to $10,000 per violation. After a declared state of emergency, homeowners can cancel a roof contract within 10 days or by the official start date, whichever comes first, for contracts signed within 180 days of the event.

The practical effect: “free roof inspection plus a $500 gift card” is illegal in Florida, and so is paying a canvasser network for every claim it refers.

Deductibles and cancellation: Colorado

Colorado bars roofing contractors from advertising or promising to pay, waive or rebate any part of the deductible on residential insurance roofing work. If you do it, the insurer does not have to consider your estimate, and the owner or insurer can sue you¹⁴. Colorado homeowners can also rescind a roofing contract within 72 hours of written notice that the claim was denied in whole or part, and you must return deposits (less work performed) within 10 days¹⁵.

Door knocking

Two layers apply. Federally, the FTC Cooling-Off Rule covers sales of $25 or more made at the buyer’s home after personal solicitation¹⁶. You must give a written notice that the buyer can cancel within three business days, tell them orally, and provide a cancellation form¹⁷. Consumer-initiated emergency repairs can be excluded only with a signed waiver statement¹⁶.

Locally, many cities require solicitor permits. The Supreme Court struck down a village’s permit rule for door-to-door advocacy in 2002, but the opinion noted that a rule limited to commercial activity and solicitation of funds “arguably” would have been tailored to the village’s interest in preventing fraud¹⁸. In plain terms: cities have more room to regulate commercial canvassers, and they do. Anna, Texas requires a permit for anyone selling door to door¹⁹. Pull permits before the storm team arrives, and carry them.

Reviews

The FTC’s 2024 rule bans buying fake reviews, paying for reviews that must be positive, undisclosed reviews from employees, and threatening people to suppress bad reviews, with civil penalties for knowing violations²⁴. Asking every customer for an honest review is fine. Offering a discount only for five stars is not.

Retail demand follows weather and home sales. Storm demand follows hail and wind, and it is concentrated. NOAA notes that Nebraska, Colorado and Wyoming usually have the most hailstorms, with about seven to nine hail days a year where they meet²⁶. By event count, Texas led 2025 with 902 major hail events, followed by Kansas and Oklahoma, and the leading states for State Farm hail claims were Texas, Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin and Oklahoma⁹. NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center counted 5,432 hail events in 2025⁹.

The sourced data above does not give a reliable month-by-month curve for your market. Pull your own: export Google Search Console clicks and your call log by week for the last two years and mark storm dates. Most roofers find two patterns, a storm spike that lasts a few weeks and a slower retail season that drops off in winter. Plan crew capacity and ad budgets around both, and pause or cut bids when you are booked more than three weeks out.

• Slow response. In the HBR audit of 2,241 firms, 23% never responded to a web lead and the average response among those that replied within 30 days was 42 hours. In a separate study of 1.25 million leads described in the same article, firms that tried within an hour were nearly 7 times as likely to qualify the lead as those that tried even an hour later²². Roofing leads are shopped. Answer live or call back within five minutes.
• One budget for all intents. Repair, replacement, inspection and commercial leads are worth very different amounts. Blended numbers hide the losers.
• Storm marketing that breaks state law. Deductible waiver offers are illegal in Texas, Florida and Colorado, and Florida also bans gifts for inspections and paid claim referrals¹²¹³¹⁴. They also invite insurer scrutiny of every estimate you send.
• Fake local profiles in storm markets. Virtual offices are not eligible for a Business Profile⁵. Suspensions tend to hit at peak volume.
• Counting leads instead of contracts. A channel with twice the leads and half the close rate is the same channel at a higher cost.
• Letting reviews stall after the storm. Storm jobs create a burst of happy customers. Ask each one within a week of completion.

• Most roofing searches are “who should I call” searches, so the Map Pack, Local Services Ads and fast phone answering do most of the work.
• Replacement keywords carry top-of-page bid estimates of $73 to $100, so do the lead-value math before buying them.
• Storm and insurance work is a separate business with specific state laws on deductibles, incentives, claim handling and cancellation.
• Door-to-door sales trigger the federal three-day cancellation notice and often a city permit.
• Measure cost per signed contract by channel every month, and cut what does not pay.