Run a Search campaign for the jobs you want most and a pay per lead campaign for urgent calls. Target people in your towns, not people interested in them. Check the phone number on every campaign, track every call, and set your top price per lead from your own profit and close rate.
What Changed
- Roofing is in the first group of Local Services accounts moving to Performance Max, starting August 2026.
- Pay per lead campaigns show only on Google Search and Google Maps.
- Google's default location setting also reaches people who are only interested in your area.
- Call recordings in the lead manager are kept for up to 30 days.
- Negative keywords do not catch close variants, so add singular and plural forms.
- Set your lead ceiling from your own profit per job and close rate.
The Local Services Move Changes the Roofing Playbook
We build sites and run ads for trade businesses, and roofing is the trade where a bad setup costs the most per mistake. The jobs are big, the clicks are not cheap and storm weeks bury you in calls. So start with the news most roofing ad guides missed, because they were written before it happened.
Google is moving Local Services Ads into Performance Max campaigns with pay per lead goals. Google's migration page puts roofing in the first group, starting in August 2026, along with plumbing, HVAC, pest control and other home service businesses in the United States. Service area businesses without a storefront, and accounts with custom setups, move in late 2026. The rest follow in 2027.
Google emails the admin on your profile 14 days before your account moves. Your past leads and call recordings come with you. Your old performance reports do not, so save them first. Weekly budgets turn into a daily average. Google divides your past weekly average by seven to get it.
One detail matters more than the rest. Ads with pay per lead goals keep showing only on Google Search and Google Maps. That keeps your spend near people looking for a roofer, not people watching videos.
Which Campaigns a Roofer Should Run
Two campaign types do most of the work for a roofing company now.
- Pay per lead campaigns. Google's help page says you pay only when a customer contacts you directly through your ad, not for clicks to your site. These suit urgent jobs, like a leak after a storm.
- Search campaigns. You pay per click and pick the words you show up for. These suit jobs where you want to control the message, like full replacements, metal roofs or insurance claim work.
Do not confuse pay per lead with a standard Performance Max campaign. A standard one can reach YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail and Maps from one campaign. That is a lot of reach, and most of it is far from a homeowner with a wet ceiling. Our position: for a roofer, standard Performance Max waits until Search and pay per lead are tracked and profitable.
Most roofers should run both. Pay per lead catches the homeowner calling from the driveway. Search catches the one comparing quotes for a new roof next spring.
Check These Before You Spend a Dollar
A roof ad that rings a dead line is the most costly ad you will ever run. Work through this list in order.
- Check the phone number on the campaign. Google fills it in from your Business Profile, and you can change it in campaign settings. After the move, you manage numbers in Google Ads itself. Make sure both match and both ring a person.
- Make phone calls your main goal. In pay per lead campaigns this is not a choice. Google calls phone calls a required main goal.
- Turn on call tracking. Google's page on phone call conversions covers three kinds. There are calls from ads, calls to the number on your site, and calls you upload later from your own records.
- Fix the location setting. More on this below. It is an easy leak to miss.
- Split jobs into their own groups. Emergency repair, full replacement and inspection each use different words and close at different rates.
- Start small for two weeks. Fix tracking errors before you add budget.
If your profile is not claimed yet, start with our guide to claiming it.
The Location Setting That Pays for Calls You Turn Down
Here is a mistake that is easy to miss. The campaign targets the right towns, but the calls still come from two counties over. The cause is a default setting.
Google's page on location options says the default is Presence or interest. That reaches people who are in your area, plus people who have only shown interest in it. The other choice, Presence, shows ads to people who are likely located, or regularly located, in your target area. For a roofer who has to drive a crew to the house, Presence is the right call almost every time.
Then trim the map. Set the service area to the towns you really serve. A whole metro or state setting pays for leads you will turn down or lose on drive time.
Set a Lead Price From Your Own Numbers
Every top guide on this keyword quotes a cost per lead. Treat those as weather reports from someone else's town. One vendor, Web Tonic, reported a $124 average cost per lead across about $310,000 of non-branded roofing search spend from 15 contractors in early 2026. That is a real sample. It is not your market, your close rate or your margin.
So work backward from what a job earns you. Here is an example, not a benchmark. Say a replacement leaves you $4,000 in profit after materials and labor, and you close one in four leads. Four leads make one job. If you will spend up to $1,000 to win that job, your ceiling is $250 per lead.
Do this math for each job type. Repairs and inspections earn less and close at a different rate than replacements, so they need their own ceiling. If your real cost per lead stays above the ceiling for weeks, pause and look at the funnel before you spend more.
Smart Bidding needs time to learn. Google says those strategies need a 7 to 14 day learning phase, and warns against frequent budget or goal changes while it runs. Make one change, then wait.
Keywords and the Searches You Should Block
Search campaigns live or die on keywords. Build around plain job words, like roof repair, roof leak, roof replacement and roof inspection, plus your town names.
Match types decide how loose Google can be. Google says broad match is the default and can show your ad on related searches. Phrase match shows on searches that include the meaning of your keyword. Exact match is the tightest.
- Start with phrase match on your core job words.
- Add exact match for the terms that book jobs once you have the data.
- Hold off on broad match until you have a strong negative list and real conversion data.
Negative keywords keep your ad off searches you do not want. For roofers, that means job seekers, supply buyers and do it yourself folks. Words like jobs, hiring, supplies, diy and how to are a good start. Google says negative keywords do not match close variants, so add singular and plural forms both. Read your search terms report every week for the first month and add what you find.
Landing Pages That Turn Clicks Into Calls
A good ad that lands on a weak page wastes the click. Most of these searches happen on a phone, so build for the thumb.
- Send each ad to a page about that job, not your home page.
- Name the town on the page when you serve more than one.
- Keep the phone number in the header and a call button near the top.
- Use real photos of your crews and finished roofs, not stock images.
- Answer the insurance question and the license question on the page.
- Give each page one clear next step, like booking an inspection.
Homeowners screen roofers hard, especially after a storm. A page with stock photos and a bare form fails that screen. A page with your crew, your roofs and your license wins it before the phone rings.
Working the Lead Inbox
Each lead in a pay per lead campaign shows the contact date, the customer's name and number, the job type and the campaign it came from. Check it every morning, and call back any lead you missed the same day.
Call recordings have a short life. Google says recordings are stored for up to 30 days because of privacy rules. Log anything you want to keep in your own records before then.
Weather drives this trade. The Bureau of Labor Statistics notes that roofers do not work during bad weather and that winter can limit roofing work in northern states. Plan your budget and ad hours around the seasons, and have someone ready to answer after a storm.
Keep Your Ad Claims True
The FTC's guide for small business is plain. Ads must be truthful, and you must have proof before the ad runs. That covers lines like licensed and insured, lowest price in town or a warranty. If you cannot back it up today, leave it out.
Reviews have rules too. The FTC's rule bans fake reviews and bans tying a reward to a positive review. Use only real customer words, with their permission, and only job photos you have the right to use. Check your state license board too, since some states require a license number in ads.
What to Ask Anyone Who Runs Your Ads
Whether you run the account yourself or pay for help, the first three months should look about the same. Month one sets up tracking, checks the phone numbers and starts a negative list. Month two tests new ad copy and moves money toward the job types that book. By month three you should know your real cost per booked job.
- Make sure you own the Google Ads account and can log in.
- Ask for reports that show booked jobs, not just clicks and calls.
- Avoid contracts with no clear way to cancel.
If cost per lead keeps climbing past what a job can carry, pause. Ads are one channel. Your Business Profile, referrals and repeat customers can carry the slow months while you fix the funnel. For how another trade sets this up, see our HVAC Google Ads story.
How We Run Roofing Leads
We start with the page, not the ad. We build the roofing site first, with your crew, your roofs, your towns and a page for each job type, and show it to you before you pay anything. Our roofing websites page lays out that offer, including the $800 a month SEO plan that comes with it.
Then the tracking. Every channel gets its own tracked number, calls are recorded, and Calls from ads is set as primary before a dollar goes out. Campaigns target Presence in the towns you serve, with replacement, repair and inspection in their own groups. We report cost per booked job, and you own the account. That is how we run Google Ads for service businesses.
It is the same setup behind our Abba Bail Bonds case study, where our tracking counted 11,665 first time callers in 25 months. That is our client's number, from CallRail, not ad clicks.
Before you spend on ads, find out how many calls you already lose. Our missed call calculator puts a rough cost on it from your own numbers.
Sources
Every number in this story comes from one of these. If a figure is ours, the paragraph says so.
- Google Ads Help, Local Services Ads moving to Performance Max with pay per lead goals
- Google Ads Help, about goals and leads for pay per lead goals
- Google Ads Help, about Performance Max campaigns
- Google Ads Help, about advanced location options
- Google Ads Help, about keyword matching options
- Google Ads Help, about negative keywords
- Google Ads Help, import phone call conversions
- Web Tonic, Google Ads for roofing companies: CPL and data
- FTC, Advertising FAQs: a guide for small business
- FTC, Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule: questions and answers
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook, roofers
Clickflame builds the websites and runs the local search and ads for service businesses that live on the phone ringing. See how we build roofing websites, look at the work, or pick a time and we will look at your numbers with you.
Common Questions
When does my roofing Local Services account move to Performance Max?
Google says the first group, which includes roofing and other home service businesses in the United States, starts moving in August 2026. Service area businesses without a storefront and accounts with custom setups follow in late 2026. Google emails the account admin 14 days before the move.
Should I run Google Search ads and pay per lead ads at the same time?
Many roofers will. Pay per lead charges when a customer contacts you and shows only on Search and Maps. Search ads charge per click and let you pick the exact words. Give each its own tracking and compare cost per booked job after a few weeks.
How much should I pay for a roofing lead?
Google does not publish one number for roofing, and vendor averages are not your market. Work it out from your own profit per job and how many leads you close. Give replacements, repairs and inspections each their own ceiling.
Why am I getting calls from outside my service area?
Google's default location setting reaches people in your area and people who have shown interest in it. Switch the campaign to Presence so it targets people who are in or regularly in your towns.
What negative keywords should a roofing company use?
Start with words that bring job seekers, supply buyers and do it yourself folks, like jobs, hiring, supplies, diy and how to. Then read your search terms report every week and add the new ones you see.
Can I say licensed and insured in my roofing ads?
Only if it is true right now and you can prove it. The FTC says advertisers must have proof before the ad runs. Check your state license board for any rule about showing a license number in ads.
