Housecall Pro

Housecall Pro lead sources: see which marketing brings in jobs

We set up job tags and lead sources in Housecall Pro so every job and its revenue traces back to the ad, listing, page or referral that brought it in.

It is the end of a slow month. Three bills are on the owner's desk: one for online ads, one for a directory listing and one from the printer for a mailer. The owner asks the office which one paid for itself. The office manager thinks it was the ads, a tech swears by the mailer, and nobody can point to a number.

Home Service Guild sets up your Housecall Pro account so each job carries the name of the ad, page, listing or referral it came from. That name stays with the job all the way to the paid invoice. This is part of the marketing work, and it lets you put next month's money where the paid jobs come from.

Show me where my jobs come from

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The question each marketing bill should answer

Calls and form fills are easy to count. Booked jobs and money collected are what pay for the marketing. We set up the tracking so that each source can be judged by the paid work it produced. Then a cheap source that rarely books and a pricier one that books often can be compared fairly. The person asking the question is you, so the answers are built to read the way you think about the business.

How the source stays with the job

Housecall Pro has a lead source field on customers, jobs and estimates. You can add your own sources beyond the built-in list. Some sources fill themselves in. Jobs booked through online booking are marked "My Website (Online Booking)", and leads from connected services such as Yelp and Thumbtack arrive with their source already set. The way inquiries reach the account is covered on every inquiry into Housecall Pro.

We add tracking outside Housecall Pro for the sources it cannot see. Website forms carry the page and campaign the visitor came from. For phone calls, Housecall Pro sells call tracking as an add-on. Each tracking number is tied to one lead source, and calls forward to the phone system you already use. With you, we decide which ads, listings and your Google Business Profile get their own number. The tracking numbers, the form setup and the analytics accounts all sit in your name.

What the owner sees in Housecall Pro

Housecall Pro's Marketing Dashboard has an ROI table with one row for each lead source. Its columns include marketing spend, new customers, jobs scheduled, average job size, job revenue, amount paid, return on investment and return on ad spend. Optional columns add cost per estimate, estimate close rate and cost per job. Spend goes in by month for each source, and we agree with you on who enters it.

The table has two views. One counts only new customers. The other counts every new job, estimate and lead, including repeat work from past customers. Reports under Reporting can also break jobs down by lead source and by job tag, so you can separate install work from repair calls. We check that these reports are on your Housecall Pro plan before we build around them.

Cost per booked job, in plain words

Take what you spent on one source in a month and divide it by the number of jobs that source booked. That number is your cost per booked job. Then put it next to the average job size from the same source. A source with cheap calls that rarely turn into work can end up costing more per job than one that looked expensive. Referrals and returning customers often cost very little, which is one reason we connect this work to reviews and past customers.

Seasons change the answer

A furnace ad in July and a pool ad in January will look like failures. Most home service trades have busy and quiet months, and a source should be judged against the same season. We compare a source with its own results from the same months, once your account holds that history. Some money in the quiet months is there to keep your name in front of people. We label that spending so it is judged on that purpose.

Deciding where next month's money goes

We review the numbers with you each month and write down what you decide. Some sources stay as they are. Some get more money, some get less, and some get a short test with a clear end date. We change one thing at a time where we can, so the next month's numbers show which change made the difference.

Not sure where to start? See which of the four jobs is costing your business the most work.

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Questions owners ask

What about customers who say they "just found us online"?

The office asks the question at booking and records the answer as the lead source. Website forms and tracking numbers fill in many of the gaps that customer answers leave. Answers that stay vague are grouped together so they do not distort the other sources.

Will customers notice a different phone number on our ads?

They will see the tracking number in that ad or listing. Their call forwards to the phone system you already use, so your office answers the way it always has.

Is call tracking included in our Housecall Pro subscription?

Housecall Pro sells call tracking as an add-on. We confirm the cost with you before any number is bought, and we suggest numbers only for the sources where knowing the caller's source would change a decision.

Does a repeat customer count toward the ad that first brought them in?

That depends on which view you use. One view of the ROI table credits only new customers to a source. The other counts every new job and estimate, including repeat work. We help you pick the view that matches the question you are asking.

How often should we look at these numbers?

Monthly works for most companies, because spend goes into Housecall Pro month by month. During your busy season, a quick look every week can catch a source that has stopped booking.

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