Buying shared leads or running your own Google Ads, and when each one wins for a concrete company
Lead marketplaces and your own Google Ads both put quote requests in your inbox. How they differ on cost, close rate and control, and which fits your crew now.
You need more driveway and patio quotes on the calendar, and you are choosing between paying a lead marketplace per request or running your own Google Ads. Both promise the same thing. They work very differently, and the wrong one for your situation can burn a few thousand dollars before you notice.
Here is how they compare, and when each one is the right call.
How each one works
Shared lead marketplaces. A homeowner fills out a form on a home services site. The site sells that request to several contractors in the area, often three or four. You pay per lead whether or not you win the job. Prices vary by market and job type; a rough range is $20 to $80 per lead, with bigger jobs like full driveways costing more.
Your own Google Ads. You bid on searches like "concrete driveway contractor [town]" and pay when someone clicks. The click goes to your own page or straight to your phone. Nobody else gets that lead. A realistic cost per lead for concrete search ads is often in the $40 to $150 range depending on the market, the season and how good your landing page is. The Google Ads guide goes deeper on budgets and keywords.
So on the surface the marketplace lead is cheaper. That is where most comparisons stop, and it is the wrong place to stop.
The number that decides it: cost per signed job
Take a hypothetical contractor who wants ten signed jobs a month.
Marketplace route. Leads cost $45. Because each lead goes to three or four contractors, and the homeowner usually picks whoever calls first or quotes lowest, the close rate is low. Say 1 in 10. Ten jobs takes about 100 leads, or $4,500. Cost per signed job: $450.
Google Ads route. Leads cost $90, twice as much. But the homeowner chose you, called you, and nobody else is in the conversation. Say the close rate is 1 in 4. Ten jobs takes about 40 leads, or $3,600. Cost per signed job: $360.
Flip the assumptions and the answer flips. If you call every marketplace lead inside five minutes, your close rate on those can climb a lot, because being first matters more than anything else on shared leads. If your Google Ads send people to a weak page with no photos and no phone number up top, your close rate there drops.
The point is not that one channel is always better. It is that cost per lead tells you almost nothing. Track cost per signed job for 60 days on whatever you run.
When the marketplace wins
- You are new and have few reviews. The median concrete company in our data has 7 Google reviews, and 57.9% have fewer than ten. If you are in that group, your own ads have to work harder because the searcher sees your thin profile. Marketplaces put your quote in front of homeowners who never looked at your reviews.
- You can call back within minutes, every time. Shared leads go to the fastest responder. If you have someone in the office or a solid text-back system, you can win a good share.
- You need volume this month. No setup, no learning period. You can be quoting by Friday.
When your own Google Ads win
- You do bigger jobs. A homeowner pouring a $12,000 driveway does more research. They want to see your past work and your reviews before they call. Your own page does that. A shared form does not.
- You have the reviews and a decent website. Contractors with a website have a median of 10 reviews in our data, against 2 for those without one. If you are on the strong side of that gap, your ads convert better than a marketplace form ever will. The website guide covers what the page needs.
- You want to build something. Every Google Ads lead is a homeowner who knows your name. Marketplace leads know the marketplace's name. Over a few years, that difference is your referral base.
Running both
Plenty of contractors run both for a season: marketplaces to fill the calendar while the reviews and website catch up, then shift budget to Google Ads as the cost per signed job comes down. That is a reasonable plan as long as you track the two separately. Put a column in your job log for the source of every lead and every signed job.
Before you spend on either
Both channels fail the same way: a lead comes in and nobody answers for three hours. Fix that first. Set up a text-back for missed calls and a rule that every form gets a call within five minutes during working hours. The calculator shows what slow follow-up is costing you right now.
If you want Google Ads or missed-call text-back set up so you can compare for yourself, the free 14-day trial covers any one service, no card: text or call (385) 832-6924.
Steven has spent the last several years running growth campaigns for local service businesses, concrete contractors among them, and builds the benchmark datasets on this site from public Google listings. About the editor