Cost per booked job: the one number that should run your marketing

Why cost per lead misleads trade owners

Most marketing reports show cost per lead or cost per click. Both are easy to measure and both can hide a money-losing channel.

Take two channels for a Richmond plumber:

Channel A looks cheaper per lead but costs almost twice as much per booked job. Lead-sharing platforms and broad ad campaigns often look like Channel A: many enquiries, many of them price shoppers or people outside your area. Focused search and referrals often look like Channel B.

The lesson: measure the job, not the enquiry.

Step 1: find your average ticket and margin

Start with the last three to six months of invoices. Leave out repeat maintenance customers and referrals for now, because they cost little to win and will distort the average.

1. Average ticket: total invoiced value divided by the number of jobs.
2. Gross margin: what's left after direct job costs (materials, labour for that job, disposal, permits) as a share of the ticket.
3. Gross profit per job: average ticket × gross margin.

Example for a Richmond plumber:

• 120 new-customer jobs over six months, $84,000 invoiced, so the average ticket is $700
• Direct costs average 55% of the ticket, so gross margin is 45%
• Gross profit per job: $700 × 0.45 = $315

Step 2: decide what share you'll spend to win a job

This is a business decision, not a formula. Most owner-run trades are comfortable spending somewhere between a fifth and a third of gross profit per job on winning it, but your overhead, growth goals and crew capacity should decide.

If our plumber chooses 30%:

• Ceiling per booked job: $315 × 0.30 = about $95

If a channel wins jobs for $95 or less, it's working. If it costs $150 per job, it's losing money on every booking, even if the phone feels busy.

Step 3: work back to calls and clicks

Now translate the job ceiling into numbers that marketing platforms report.

• Close rate is the share of enquiries that become booked jobs. Our plumber books 35% of calls.
• Ceiling per call: $95 × 0.35 = about $33
• Conversion rate is the share of website visitors from an ad who call, text or email. Say it's 10%.
• Ceiling per click: $33 × 0.10 = about $3.30

If clicks for "plumber Richmond" cost more than $3.30 on average, paid search can't hit the target as things stand. That's useful to know before spending, not after. It tells you to improve conversion, improve close rate, or target better-paying jobs.

A second example: a Richmond roofer

Roofing has larger tickets and lower close rates, so the maths looks different.

A roofer can afford far more per click than a plumber, but only if the website turns visitors into quote requests and the estimator closes a quarter of them. If the close rate is really 12%, the ceiling per click halves to about $5. That's why we look at sales process before ad budgets.

Step 4: track it every month

Use a simple sheet with one row per channel per month:

Fill it from your ad accounts, your call tracking and your job board. "Booked" means a scheduled job with a customer, not a quote sent. Add a note column for anything unusual, like a storm week or a crew member off sick.

After three months, you'll know which channels earn their place. After a year, you'll see the seasonal pattern; our seasonal calendar guide explains Richmond's.

Three levers when a channel is over the ceiling

When cost per booked job is too high, there are three things to change, in this order:

1. Answer faster and better. Missed calls and slow quote replies are the most common reason good enquiries don't book. A text-back on missed calls and a same-day quote habit often lift close rate more than any ad change.
2. Improve the landing page. Clear service description, real photos, prices or price ranges where you can, reviews, and one obvious way to call or text. A higher conversion rate raises your affordable cost per click.
3. Change what you advertise. Shift spend toward job types with higher tickets or better margins, or toward planning areas where you close more. Our service area guide covers the geography side.

Only after those three should you consider spending more.

Common mistakes

• Using revenue instead of gross profit. A $700 ticket isn't $700 to spend.
• Counting quotes as jobs. A quote isn't money until it's booked.
• Mixing referrals with paid enquiries. It flatters paid channels.
• Judging too early. One week of data tells you almost nothing. Give a channel four to eight weeks.
• Forgetting capacity. If your crew is booked three weeks out, more enquiries at any price may hurt reviews.

Putting it to work

You can do all of this yourself with a spreadsheet and an honest look at your invoices. If you'd rather have someone run the channels against your ceiling, that's what our paid search and local search services do. Plan prices are on the pricing page, and you can reach us by call, text or email to go through your numbers.