I Used to Think We Were One of the Best at Google and Bing Ads. Now I Know.
For years I told prospects we were one of the best agencies in the country at running Google and Bing Ads for home services contractors. I believed it. Our clients believed it. But if I am honest, it was anecdotal. We had happy clients, we had growth stories, and we had our own reports saying we were doing a good job.
Every agency has those.
What I did not have was a way to measure us against the competition on the same scoreboard, with numbers we did not produce ourselves. Now I do. And I am going to show you exactly what it says.
The short version: it is not anecdotal anymore.
Why clicks and leads don’t tell you which half
Most agency reports stop at the top of the funnel. Impressions, clicks, cost per click, cost per lead. Those numbers are easy to pull and easy to make look good.
Here is the problem. A click is not a customer. A lead is not a booked job. A “cheap lead” that never books is the most expensive lead you can buy.
If your agency can show you clicks but cannot show you closed revenue by campaign, they are showing you the half of the picture that makes them look good. And they cannot be compared to anyone, because every agency’s own report is built to make that agency look good. Ours included. That is the problem I wanted to solve.
What marketing attribution looks like when it reaches closed revenue
The fix is not a better dashboard from your agency. It is a third party that connects your marketing to your dispatch board.
That is what Searchlight does. It is a revenue analytics platform built for home services, and it is not ours. It plugs into your field service software (ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro and the rest), matches every call and form to the job it became, and reports what each campaign produced in booked, closed revenue. Not clicks. Dollars.
Every Ferocious Home Service VIP account runs on it. No exceptions. We did that on purpose. It means our results are measured on the same tool, the same way, as every other contractor on the platform, and we do not get to grade our own homework.
When you track closed revenue instead of vanity metrics, the conversation with your agency changes. You stop asking “how many leads did we get” and start asking “what did we make.”
The numbers: Ferocious vs. the industry, new customers only
Here is what that looks like. Searchlight benchmarks every contractor on its platform. These are our clients against the industry average, January through September 2026, Google Ads and Microsoft Ads, new customers only. No repeat customers padding the numbers.
| Ferocious clients | Industry average | Difference | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost per paying customer | $619 | $931 | 34% lower |
| Average ticket | $4,181 | $3,630 | 15% higher |
| Return on ad investment (closed revenue) | 5.8x | 3.4x | 71% better |
Read that middle row again. We are not just buying customers cheaper. The customers we bring in spend more. That is what happens when the targeting is built on revenue data instead of click data.
And the last row is the one that pays for everything. For every ad dollar, our clients closed $5.80 in new-customer revenue. The industry closed $3.40.
These are not our numbers. They are Searchlight’s. Anyone on the platform can pull the same report.
How to hold your marketing agency accountable
You do not need to switch agencies to find out which half is wasted. You need to ask three questions.
- Can you show me closed revenue by campaign, not leads? If the answer is a cost-per-lead report, you have your answer.
- Are you measuring new customers, or counting the ones who were going to call anyway? Repeat customers make any report look good. Ask for new-customer numbers only and watch what happens to the results.
- Can we connect to Searchlight? It is third-party, it is built for our industry, and it is the same scoreboard we use. An agency that is doing good work should want to be on it.
If your current agency says yes to all three, keep them. You have a good one.
If they hesitate on any of them, now you know which half.
Get Searchlight. Get your REAL results.
I used to say we were one of the best. Now I can prove it, and more importantly, so can you.
Get Searchlight on your business and look at what your marketing is actually producing in closed revenue. Then, when you have seen the real numbers, call us.
Get Ferocious when you find out.
See how we work with home services contractors or learn about Searchlight.
Frequently asked questions
What is marketing attribution for home services contractors? It is connecting each marketing dollar to the job it produced. For a contractor, that means matching calls and form fills to booked and closed jobs in your field service software, so you can see revenue by channel and campaign, not just leads.
What is Searchlight? Searchlight is a third-party revenue analytics platform built for the home services industry. It integrates with field service software like ServiceTitan and reports marketing performance in closed revenue. Ferocious Media is a Searchlight Gold Partner, but Searchlight is an independent company.
Doesn’t ServiceTitan already measure my marketing? Not the way you think it does. ServiceTitan is a great CRM, but it credits whichever touchpoint was closest to the booking. A customer finds you through a Google ad, hangs up, calls back from your Google listing two days later, and ServiceTitan logs the job as “GMB.” The ad that actually brought them in gets nothing. On top of that, campaign sources in most CRMs are a mess of “internet,” “website” and whatever a CSR typed in. Searchlight was built because of exactly this. A contractor had spent $80,000 on ads and ServiceTitan showed no revenue from them, because the jobs were sitting under the wrong source. Searchlight matches every call and form to the customer by name, phone and email, credits the first touch that brought them in, and tells new customers from existing ones automatically. Searchlight’s own data shows the campaign source disagrees with the CRM on most jobs, which is why you cannot grade your marketing from the CRM alone.
What is a good return on ad spend for an HVAC or plumbing company? On Searchlight’s benchmark, the industry average for new customers is about 3.4x closed revenue per ad dollar on Google and Microsoft Ads. Ferocious clients averaged 5.8x over the same period in 2026.
Why measure new customers only? Repeat customers were going to call you anyway. New-customer numbers show what your marketing actually bought, which is the only honest way to judge an agency.
