Google and Meta ads, run by people who'll tell you when to stop.
Paid advertising is the fastest way to find out whether your offer works — and the fastest way to waste $4,000 finding out that it doesn't. The difference is entirely in who's watching it and how honestly they report.
- Your ad account, your card. Spend goes straight to Google and Meta.
- No markup on spend. Not a percentage, not a "platform fee."
- You're the owner. We're granted access; you can revoke it any time.
- Flat management fee. We don't earn more when you spend more.
That last one matters. An agency paid a percentage of spend has a quiet incentive to talk you into a bigger budget. We don't have it.
They are not interchangeable, and most people run both badly.
Catch the people already looking
Someone typing "kitchen renovation Oakville" or "listing agent Burlington" has already decided they want the thing. This is the highest-intent traffic you can buy, and it's expensive precisely because everyone knows that.
Getting it right is mostly about what you exclude: the DIY searches, the job seekers, the "how much does it cost" browsers who'll never hire anyone, the wrong postal codes. A badly built search campaign spends most of its money on people who were never going to call.
- Search campaigns built by service and by area
- Aggressive negative keyword work — the actual craft
- Call-only campaigns for trades, where the phone beats the form
- Local Services Ads and Google Guaranteed for eligible contractors
- Retargeting for people who visited and didn't act
Reach the people who don't know yet
Nobody scrolling Instagram is searching for a roofer. But everyone on the street where your crew has been working for three weeks has noticed the truck — and everyone in a neighbourhood where three houses just sold is quietly wondering what theirs is worth.
Meta is where you get in front of people before they start looking, which is cheaper and less competitive than fighting for them at the search bar.
- Postal-code and radius targeting around real jobs and listings
- Before-and-after and video creative — by far the best performers
- Lead forms that fill themselves in, for people on a phone
- Retargeting site visitors and video watchers
- Lookalike audiences built from your actual past customers
What actually happens month to month.
Build
Accounts audited or created in your name, conversion tracking installed and verified end to end, campaigns structured, landing pages built or pointed at the right existing page. We don't launch until we can prove a lead registers as a lead — running ads without working tracking is the most common expensive mistake in this industry.
Learn
Live, but nothing is settled yet. We're cutting what doesn't convert, adding negatives, testing creative and offers, and finding out what a lead actually costs in your market. Expect the first month to be the worst month. Anyone who tells you otherwise is managing your expectations rather than your account.
Report — one page, and a real call
What we spent, how many leads came in, what each one cost, which campaign produced them, and what we're changing next month. Twenty minutes on the phone. No 40-slide dashboard, no vanity metrics about impressions and reach.
We also need something back: tell us which leads turned into actual jobs. Cost per lead is easy to optimize and mostly meaningless — cost per booked job is the number that matters, and we can only see it if you tell us.
When we'll tell you to stop
If a channel isn't working after a fair test, we'll say so and recommend moving the budget — even when that means moving it out of something we manage. We'd rather keep a client for four years than bill them for four months of a campaign we know is dead.
About advertising.
What should I spend?
Contractors: $1,000–$2,500 a month is enough to learn something real. Agents: $800–$2,000, weighted toward listing campaigns and seller offers. Below about $750 a month the data is too thin to optimize properly and you're mostly funding Google's education.
Start at the bottom of the range. Increase it when the numbers earn it, not before.
Why is management a flat fee instead of a percentage?
Because a percentage means we make more when you spend more, which is a bad thing to have sitting quietly behind every budget recommendation we make. A flat fee means when we tell you to increase spend, it's because the numbers say so.
How fast will I see leads?
Google search ads can produce calls within days of launch. Meta usually takes two to three weeks to find the right audience. Both take about 60 days before they're properly tuned. The first month is for learning, not for judging.
What if the leads are junk?
Tell us, specifically — wrong area, wrong job size, tyre-kickers, wrong service. That feedback is the most valuable thing you can give us and it directly changes the targeting, the negatives and the qualifying questions on the form. Junk leads are a fixable targeting problem, not bad luck.
Can you take over an existing account?
Yes, and we'd prefer to — the history in it is worth keeping. We'll audit it first and tell you honestly what's salvageable. Sometimes the right answer is a rebuild inside the same account so you don't lose the data.
Do you handle the ad creative?
Yes — copy, images and video edits are part of management. The raw material comes from your jobs and listings, which is why we push so hard for a shoot day. Stock photos of a smiling family in a kitchen do not perform.