I've seen it hundreds of times. An HVAC company spends $3,000/month on Google Ads and has no idea if it's working.

They look at clicks. They look at impressions. They look at "reach." None of that pays the bills.

Here are the only 3 metrics a home service business owner should care about:

1. Cost Per Booked Job (not cost per lead)

Most agencies report "cost per lead" — but a lead that doesn't answer the phone is worthless. Track the cost to get a booked, confirmed appointment.

For most trades, you want this under $150 for standard jobs and under $300 for high-ticket installs.

2. Lead-to-Book Rate

What percentage of leads actually become booked jobs? Industry average is around 35-40%. If yours is below 30%, the problem isn't your marketing — it's your intake process.

Quick fix: Answer every call within 3 rings. If you can't, use an answering service. A missed call from Google Ads is literally money in the trash.

3. Revenue Per Marketing Dollar

Take your total revenue from marketing-sourced jobs and divide by total ad spend. You should be hitting 5:1 minimum (every $1 spent returns $5 in revenue). Top performers hit 8-10:1.

If your agency can't show you these three numbers clearly, they're hiding behind vanity metrics.

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We built the Growth Engine specifically around these metrics. Every client gets a live dashboard showing cost-per-booked-job, lead-to-book rate, and revenue ROI — updated daily, not monthly.

If you're running a home service company doing $500K+ in revenue and want marketing that's accountable to real numbers, check out what we're building here.