Breaking Down the Acronym Soup in Contractor Marketing

Marketing vendors love acronyms because they sound precise, but they can also hide the only question that matters: did this effort create profitable revenue? Recording from an airport, I break down the alphabet soup in plain English so contractors can read marketing reports with confidence and push back when numbers do not connect to real jobs.

We start with ROAS (return on ad spend) and why I prefer looking at it across your full marketing mix, not as isolated channel “wins.” Then we dig into KPIs that actually move the needle in HVAC marketing, plumbing marketing, and home service growth: CPL (cost per lead), conversion rate, calls booked, and revenue generated. I also talk about the operational side of performance, because a weak booking rate at the CSR desk can make any marketing campaign look expensive.

From there we hit the big platforms and levers: PPC (pay-per-click) as the fast but costly faucet, Google Business Profile optimization as a local game-changer, and LTV (customer lifetime value) as the mindset shift that turns retention and maintenance plans into your best “marketing.” We also cover CTR (click-through rate) benchmarks without comparing apples to oranges, plus SEO and why search engine optimization still matters even as AI starts changing how customers find help.

If you want clearer attribution, better questions for your agency, and marketing metrics that tie back to booked calls and profit, hit play. Subscribe, share this with a contractor friend, and leave a review with the acronym you want me to translate next.

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Transcript

ROAS And Real Revenue

KPIs That Reveal The Truth

Pay Per Click Reality Check

Google Business Profile Basics

Lifetime Value And Retention

Click Through Rate Benchmarks

SEO Now And What Changes Next

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Well what's the man? Welcome to another episode of From the Yellow Chair. I am Crystal, and today I'm coming to you from the airport because I am obsessed about talking about the alphabet too that is marketing and understanding all the acronyms that really can be thrown away when vendors are reporting to you on performance or expectations of performance. And so when we can really break down those marketing acronyms that get thrown around all the time in the train, we really can clarity on how things are performing. And so it's just about understanding online and people everyone in the marketing both speaking a different language. But we're gonna break it down. So if you don't do having those acronyms, so you can understand what these networks are, or more importantly, what's more important for throwing the let's get started, let's get a little bit. Number one, you can ask smarter questions. Number two, you can avoid chasing shiny objects and tactics. And number three, you can focus on what actually is driving revenue. Marketing is not really just about collecting all these fancy acronyms on a dashboard. It's really about building a system that consistently brings the right customers to you, the right leads, and we can make the most of each of those platforms that we're using. So let's get started. So ROAS, right? The return on ad spend. What it means is how much revenue you're generating for every dollar that you spend on advertising. I personally am a big fan of overall ROAS, looking at marketing as a whole, not just independent tactics independently. Um, meaning I like to look at that, but I also like to look at it in the grand scheme of things. Meaning, you know, if we're doing social media, direct mail, ADAV, SEO, AEO, all that cool stuff, um, one-to-one, spend a dollar, make a hundred, may not be super easy to navigate, but when you look at it as a whole, you can experience the whole customer journey. But your return on your ad spend is an example. I spent$5,000 on Facebook ads, get generated$25,000 in closed jobs, that row has a beat five times. Um, and this matters for contractors because not all leads are equal. And so we can be getting a lot of leads and clicks and impressions, but at the end of the day, we need those things to match in revenue. I say this quite often. I don't know about you guys, but I've never been able to make a payroll with clicks and impressions. So again, back to what I said to the review, I understand that clicks clicks and impressions on the digital side are very important to the overall success. But really, at the end of the day, um, I need those things to convert to actual leads with actual revenue. So a cheap lead doesn't mean it's profitable marketing, right? So um, and then some of you that will look at um look at your return on your ad spend and say, okay, this is doing six times and that's not enough for me, so I'm not gonna do it. And I'm like, gosh, it's it's a part of the process, okay? So your return on that spend really needs to be thought of as how is my marketing performing based on what I'm spending? Am I getting goals? But it also makes you look at operationally what is happening when those leads are coming through. So I love ROS as a broad measurement tool. Really good way to know is what you're doing in marketing working. Um, and operationally, are you backing it up? So, number two, which we talk about this all the time with our contractors, KPIs, which are key performance indicators. They're the metrics that show you if your marketing is working, um, but also KPIs on the operational side are so important. So, marketing KPIs that we like to look at. CPL, which is cost per lead. How much are you paying for each lead that comes into the business? You can do a blended average or you can do cost per lead pro tactic, right? Basically, you need to understand how much is my lead, how much is each lead costing me on a digital side, on a branding side. Like there's tons of ways to look for that. Conversion rates, the R conversion rate. How often are you getting a lead that converts to revenue? Okay, that can and conversion rate can mean, listen, it's all how you define it, but that's what I would call conversion rate. The lead comes through, you actually convert it to a billable skill, a bookable revenue generating lead. Um, but there's also conversion rate in the home of like how many times are you going into the home as a technician, and the technician is not able to flip them over, flip the client over to either joining your maintenance club or doing a nice and a good repair that they need. Um, just there's gotta be a conversion rate, converting in general. Another one is calls booked. So go look at how many calls your CSRs are actually booking. What is their booking rate? And where should you be? Um, I'm gonna tell you, I would say that you need to be booking at 70 to 80 percent of calls that come into your business, you should be able to book. Um, if you are below that, there's a problem, and it's actually costing you more money to do marketing because only 50% of the leads that are coming through, these are these are actual leads, so not just phone calls, actual leads that come into your office. Your CSR needs to be able to book. This is why there's so much controversy around AI booking tools, because AI is showing to have a lower booking rate. So you should be looking at how often does your CSR actually able, is he or she actually able to book the lead so that the technician can actually run the call. And again, you need to be looking at that number because the higher percentage rate, the less things we actually have to generate, which means the less money we have to spend. So we need to be looking at things very intelligently like that. And then, of course, revenue generated. So, hey, uh, what did I actually generate in revenue from this particular tactic? The issue for some of you is you don't have tracking installed, so you don't have UTM codes, like you know, unique landing pages, you don't have unique tracking phone numbers, you don't have QR codes. We don't really have a way to see where a lot of your leads are coming for. Um, but it is important that you have a way to look at revenue generated per tactic. That is ideally the best. All right, and the third one that we're gonna talk through today is pay-per-click. Listen, I'll say this again. I'm not a digital expert. I do not claim to be. The UNC does not do websites or fractional CMOs, but I do know what pay per click is, of course, right? So this is really a paid advertisement, right? So a paid strategy where you pay when someone clicks on your ad. I call this the Wild, Wild West because they can just clickity clap. That's my East Texas order is coming out. They can click ity clap all over your ads, and you really not see any direct click through response. So it could be a lot of just wasted spend, and that's what I see happen the most, is just you've got a decent pay-per-click budget for your market. Um, and it's one of the fastest ways to generate leads, but it's also the most expensive, and it's kind of like a faucet. So when you turn on PPC, the leads start flowing, but then when you turn it off, they tend to slow down. And also, again, I'm gonna say again, it's the most expensive way to get leads. Ideally, side note, whisper note, you want to be building your brand where people aren't searching for generic terms like AC repairing no E plumbing near me. You want them searching for your brand directly. That is the secret sauce to get the heck out of PPC. Okay. Um, next is GMBGBP. This is Google Business Profile, formerly known as Google My Business. It has an identity crisis every couple of years, I think. But this is the listing that shows up in you know, all around when people search for your company, they can see your Google Business profile. This matters for you as a contractor because most of them choose, most homeowners are gonna choose directly from what they see in that GDP, the Google My Business side, right? They want to see reviews, they want to see photos, they want to see location, they want to see response time, they want to see FAQs in there. This can be one of the very highest converting traffic sources for you if you will optimize that GDP um location. So you need to be if you don't have a digital company doing it for you, you should be personally maximizing your GDP as much as possible. Okay, as much as possible. All right, let's go to number seven, which is LTV. Well, sorry, number seven, number four, LTB, lifetime value. So this measures the total value a customer generates over time. So when we talk about this, this is where I get really passionate about cultivating your existing database because the LTB matters, lifetime value. Um, we want to keep people attached to us because we want them to always use us. And those of you that have multi-service, I do not know how if you have multi-service that you are not wanting to retain them so that they can use you for both service models. To me, that's a no-brainer. Um, and so how long, what is a customer doing for you over time? So we want them calling us for repairs, they could be buying a maintenance plan, they could be replacing a system now or later, but they also could be using your other products as well. And when they stay on that maintenance plan, and listen, there's cool things going on right now. Your maintenance plan doesn't have to include two visits anymore. You could partner with some cool things that give you um basically a dashboard visibility into performance. So you no longer have to roll a truck unless the system's over 12 years old. Listen, in May, we're talking about maintenance clubs, so you're gonna want to listen to all of those stations or all those uh podcast episodes. But right now, the lifetime value means the best marketing that we can do means focusing on the right customers, not just chief leads and then keeping them engaged with us, right? To me, they should be generating you$20,000 over time. Um, especially if they buy a new system from you, HBOC, then they're on your maintenance plan, they do some minor repairs, they're buying their filters, they're updating their IEQ, and they're possibly gonna add your other services too. Game changers, right? All right, um, we talked a little bit about conversion rate, but let's talk about click-through rate, right? Click-through rate tells you how many people clicked after seeing your ad. A high conversion rate, a high click CTR rate, I'm sorry, a high click-through rate usually means your messaging is strong, your offer is very compelling, and people are truly interested in what you have. If you have a low click-through rate, normally it's weak messaging, um, or it's a poor targeting on an audience, or it's the wrong audience altogether. Um, and so that click-through rate really needs to be something impactful um that really when you look at your ad copy, what could be topics that keep people interested? You actually like think of yourself or your aunt or your mom or someone like they want recipes, they want um, and this is I'm talking about on the email side, right? So they want encouraged they want engaging content. Um you gotta give them a reason to actually click. Okay, so like I think local IQ came out and said that like a the average click-through rate on Google search has is gonna be like 6.3%, right? Um, maybe the median across I mean I don't I'm going off memory here, but like a five percent click-through range probably um the median across all industries, but you know, we really want to start shooting for like anything over 10 or 12 percent on um Google search ads for an actual click-through um is very important, but uh getting over 10 to 12 percent is is important because it's the making the most of our attention, it's making the most of our skin, it's making the most of that opportunity when you're in front of the customer, right? Um, and so but the type of campaign that you're doing really can affect that. Um, and so you want to make sure, like, when you get over there with GVP and you're looking at like a 30% click-through rate, right? So just don't compare apples to oranges here. Um a 1% click-through rate on display apps might be fine. But this is why you establish those parameters with your digital provider out of the gate and you're not surprised by those. But we need to make sure that our click-through rate is very, very strong. So the the last one I'm gonna talk to you guys today is SEO. So, right now we can all get on the train that everybody is confused, confused, opinionated, irritated, all the words with search engine optimization, which is SEO. Um, I think SEO is still relevant. I don't know how long it's gonna be relevant without a major shift, but this is how you show up organically with Google, and this is where you start putting terms and words in cities that people are searching for. It's powerful because it builds long-term lead generation. But with AI coming around, I really think that these two need to be a balanced approach where SEO is really popular right this moment. It is still performing well, but AI, I feel like AI is hot on its tail. Um, and it's coming in strong, and eventually I think there'll be an overtaking. I just don't know that it's right this moment. Um, so those are just a few of the acronyms that I thought I would shout out to you guys. Um, you know, marketing acronyms can sound really super complicated, but at the end of the day, they're really just tools to help us understand what's working in our business and honestly what's not. Um, the more power we have through some of those acronyms, the more beneficial it is to us for data-driven decisions. And so I know the team at Limited always is looking for an opportunity to use data to prove our points, um, to prove that the vendor's good, to prove that the messaging was good, the campaigns were good. It's all about that data. Um, and so don't get overwhelmed by the jargon. Don't get overwhelmed by the acronyms. Focus on metrics that are driving customers and driving revenue. And if there's a marketing acronym that you've heard about, you wish you understood, feel free to send me a Facebook message anywhere you find us. Um, but maybe I'll cover it in another Oval Bent Soup episode. So again, I'm Chris Williams, the co-founder and lead strategist at William Seed Marketing. We are a marketing company that helps companies really organize their overall marketing strategy. There's the fractional chief marketing officers for your company, where we want to safeguard your energy as a contractor, your expenses, and your direction of your brand. If you've been thinking about rebranding your company, we would love an opportunity to show you what we do and how we can do it for you. But until we talk again, thanks for listening to another episode of From The Yellow Chair. I hope you have a great day.