Paid search that fills preconstruction pipelines

Enough to buy meaningful data in your market — and that number comes from keyword and market research, not a rule of thumb. Search volume in your verticals, your geography, and your contract values determine it. We size the media budget from data before a dollar is spent, tell you honestly what it takes, and won’t run a budget too small to learn from. Management is scoped alongside it, on the call.

They work for commercial firms, but the playbook is completely different from home services. Search volumes are lower, click prices higher, and each click carries potential contract value that changes the math: one signed project can repay years of spend. Success requires tight vertical targeting, aggressive negative keywords to filter residential and job-seeker noise, and landing pages that speak to owners. Run a home-services playbook on commercial keywords and you’ll conclude ads don’t work.

Google Ads capture existing demand; LinkedIn ads interrupt people who weren’t searching. For most contractors, Google wins first because the buyer typed their intent: someone searching for a design-build industrial contractor is telling you what they need. LinkedIn can support brand and pursuit campaigns in tight vertical audiences, but it’s a slower, softer channel. Capture the demand that already exists before paying to create demand from scratch.

Almost always one of three reasons: broad keywords that bought job seekers and DIY traffic, clicks sent to a homepage instead of a purpose-built landing page, or leads that sat unanswered while they went cold. Occasionally the market genuinely lacks search volume, but that’s rarer than agencies’ excuses suggest. The channel usually wasn’t the problem; the structure around it was. An account audit shows which failure you paid for.

Traffic starts within days of launch; a stable flow of qualified leads typically takes four to eight weeks of optimization as search-term data accumulates and weak keywords get cut. Expect the first month to include tuition: paying to learn which searches in your market carry real intent. That’s normal and temporary. What shouldn’t be normal is a campaign that still can’t name its cost per qualified lead after a quarter.

There’s no universal number, and anyone quoting one without knowing your vertical is guessing. Cost per lead varies enormously between, say, commercial roofing and data center general contracting, because click prices and competition differ by market. The better question is cost per qualified opportunity against contract value: paying hundreds per lead is excellent economics when a signed project carries seven or eight figures. We benchmark against your numbers, not industry folklore.