Marketing automation for contractors: five robots that pay rent.
You don’t need a “marketing automation platform.” You need the five automations that recover money contractors already spent: missed-call text-back, review requests, appointment reminders, estimate follow-up, and database reactivation. Here’s what each does — and a calculator for what your missed calls are costing you.
Where the money goes — and why.
Missed-call text-back
Contractors miss 20–35% of inbound calls — on a roof, in an attic, driving. An instant “Sorry we missed you — how can we help?” text saves leads you already paid ads for. This one usually pays for the whole stack.
Review + reminder engines
A review request 2 hours after job completion builds the GBP that lowers every future lead cost. Appointment reminder texts cut no-shows 30–50% — more of the estimates you book actually happen.
Follow-up sequences
48% of estimates die from silence, not “no.” A 4-touch text/email sequence over two weeks revives quotes, and a quarterly reactivation text to old customers books work from a list you forgot you had.
What is your ad spend producing — and what should it produce?
Drag the sliders to what you spend and pay per lead today. The right column shows the typical range after proper management — tighter targeting, weekly negative keywords, faster landing pages — plus leads recovered by missed-call text-back.
Estimate based on typical results from removing junk clicks (15–30% of unmanaged budgets), landing-page fixes, and missed-call recovery (contractors miss 20–35% of calls). Ranges, not promises — your audit shows the numbers for your actual market. Ad spend is always paid straight to Google/Meta, never marked up.
Your first 90 days, week by week.
No mystery retainer. This is the exact rollout order, the same one we run for every client — each phase starts producing before the next one starts spending:
Audit + foundations
We audit your rankings, ad accounts, tracking and competitors, then fix the free stuff first: Google Business Profile completed, review engine on, tracked numbers on everything. You get the findings in writing within 24 hours of the first call.
LSA live
Google Guaranteed screening submitted day one — it takes 1–3 weeks to approve, so it runs while everything else is built. Pay-per-call only. First calls typically land here.
Search ads launch
Campaigns split by service and intent, each with its own landing page and budget. Emergency terms and big-ticket terms never share a campaign. Weekly negative-keyword pruning starts immediately.
Website + conversion
Fast pages, click-to-call everywhere, instant estimator, proof blocks. Every channel lands here — fixing it mid-rollout means every dollar before and after works harder. Automations (missed-call text-back, review requests, reminders) go live.
Content, Meta & SEO compound
Monthly film day starts feeding Meta ads and GBP. Retargeting switches on. City/service SEO pages publish and start their climb. From here it’s weekly tuning and a Friday text with the four numbers that matter: spend, calls, cost per call, estimates booked.
Want the full channel-by-channel playbook? Read the digital marketing for contractors guide →
Straight answers.
What software do you use for contractor marketing automation?
Whatever CRM you already run — Housecall Pro, Jobber, ServiceTitan, or ours if you have none. The value is in the wiring and the message copy, not the logo on the software. You own every account.
What does marketing automation cost for a contractor?
Setup plus a small monthly platform fee — a fraction of one recovered job. The math is simple: if you miss 10 calls a month and text-back saves three, that’s three jobs from money you’d already spent.
Will automated texts annoy my customers?
Reminders and review requests are the texts customers actually want — they reduce no-shows and complaints. What annoys people is silence after they call you and get voicemail. That’s the thing we’re fixing.
Get a free audit — see your market's real numbers.
One call. Within 24 hours you get it in writing: where you rank, what leads cost in your market, and what your top three competitors are running.
No card. No contract. Takes one phone call.