one month of meta ads, $109,200 in contracted patio, retaining wall, and custom build work.
a four-week campaign for a texas hardscape contractor that turned roughly $1,600 in ad spend into six signed outdoor-living projects — patios, retaining walls, and custom builds averaging about $18,200 each.
the starting point
hardscaping is a high-ticket, low-volume trade. a patio or retaining wall is a considered purchase measured in tens of thousands of dollars, so the standard home-service playbook — chase volume, drive cost per lead to the floor — works against you. it fills the calendar with browsers and buries the two or three homeowners a month who are genuinely ready to commit to a build.
what we did
we built the campaign to filter rather than to accumulate. creative led with finished-project photography so the ad itself did the qualifying: homeowners actively planning a build responded, casual browsers scrolled past. lead volume was allowed to stay modest on purpose, and speed to the in-home estimate was treated as the number that mattered — on jobs of this value the estimate visit is where the sale is won or lost.
finished-project photography as the filter
every ad led with completed patios, retaining walls, and custom builds rather than offers or discounts. the work did the qualifying — homeowners planning a build recognised the standard they wanted and self-selected in, which is why 43 leads was enough.
- leads
- 43
- cost per lead
- $37
speed to the in-home estimate
on an $18,000 build the estimate visit is the sale. follow-up was structured to get an estimate on the calendar fast, which is what protected the close across six signed projects at this contract value.
- projects won
- 6
- avg. project
- $18,200
full-funnel breakdown
- ad spend
- ≈ $1,600
- leads
- 43
- cost per lead
- $37
- projects won
- 6
- avg. project value
- ≈ $18,200
- contracted work
- $109,200
before vs. after
- optimised for
- lead volume
- lead intent
- browsers
- headline number
- cost per lead
- optimised for
- project size
- lead intent
- homeowners planning a build
- headline number
- $109,200 contracted
on high-ticket trades, fewer and better beats more and cheaper. six signed projects off 43 leads is the whole model — the ads were built to filter, not to fill a pipeline.
notes: the $109,200 is contracted project value across six signed builds, not a projection. leads, cost per lead, and project count are tracked campaign figures; ad spend is approximate (43 leads × $37). we lead with the dollar outcome rather than a roas multiple because on high-ticket trades the ratio — 60x and up — is real but distorts.
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