Understanding which marketing metrics actually matter is one of the most important steps in scaling a construction company. Many contractors are bombarded with reports filled with vanity metrics that look good on paper but do little to impact actual business growth. Instead of chasing every number, focus on tracking the metrics that connect directly to revenue.
Core Definitions That Matter
The first distinction is between a lead and a channel. A lead is a real inquiry — a form fill, a phone call, or a booked consultation with someone in your service area. A channel is how they found you, whether that’s organic search, PPC ads, Meta ads, referrals, or social media.
Revenue metrics should come first: cost per lead (CPL) and cost per acquisition (CAC). Leading indicators like traffic growth and keyword rankings are helpful to monitor progress, but they should never replace hard revenue-driven numbers.
However, there is one important note here. Most general contractors we spoke to started and grew their business via word-of-mouth and referrals. That is a no- or low-cost means of marketing a business, so you won’t have numbers like CPL and CAC. Marketing takes time. So if you’re a business that has grown primary through word-of-mouth and you start marketing you will likely be looking at the leading indicator numbers for a couple of months before you can actually get a solid read on things like CPL and CAC.
Case Study: Analytics That Exposed a Losing Tactic
One of our ADU builder clients wanted to implement a configurator tool on their website. While it initially appeared to lift on-site conversions, data revealed a 560% worse conversion rate to site visits compared to standard form fills. To break even, the configurator would have needed to generate 5.6 times more leads — which it did not. Without this analysis, the client might have wasted months and thousands of dollars on a tool that ultimately reduced revenue. You can read the full case study here.
Benchmarks by Service Type
Based on our experience, average CPL and CAC vary by service:
- Bathroom remodels: $80–$150 CPL, $600–$1,200 CAC
- Kitchen remodels: $120–$250 CPL, $1,000–$2,000 CAC
- Additions / custom homes: $200–$500 CPL, $2,500–$6,000 CAC
Your agency should benchmark performance against realistic industry ranges, not arbitrary “conversion rates” that sound impressive but have no grounding in revenue.
How We Audit Agencies That Inflate Vanity Metrics
A common issue we see is agencies reporting on low-volume, long-tail keyword rankings that generate little or no traffic. When auditing, we:
- Strip out spam and sales submissions to calculate true leads.
- Recalculate cost per lead and CAC by channel.
- Compare reported rankings to actual search volume and traffic.
This ensures clients see a direct tie between marketing efforts and actual revenue-driving activity.
Bot and Spam Protection for Contractors
One thing we hear from prospects frequently is that their current marketing agency comes to every meeting showing fabulous numbers from all the leads they got the client, only for the client to explain none of the leads were legitimate. They were all sales calls or spam.
Spam leads distort analytics and waste sales time. They create distrust between marketing agencies and clients, and the prevent agencies from understanding what is truly working.
While we cannot control everything on the internet, we can take steps to try and prevent spam/sales inquiries and to filter any that do come through out of the data.
This ensures the numbers we report on are accurate, and that we can have a productive meeting with the client to focus on what really matters.
First, we use the following tech stack to try and reduce spam leads and sales inquiries. Our protection stack includes:
- Recaptcha v3 for invisible bot filtering.
- Honeypots to trap automated form submissions.
- CleanTalk stop words to block common spam phrases like “sales estimation.”
- Cheq IP blocking to stop click fraud and country blocking where appropriate.
Second, we manually clean up spam data before monthly meetings. That looks like reviewing the CRM or lead spreadsheet and removing form fills that are not true leads. While not all clients are on a call tracking systems like CallRail, if they are we also listen to those recordings prior to the meeting and only report out on phone calls that are true leads.
This holds the marketing agency accountable but it also holds the client / general contractor accountable. We have such a close-up take on your leads that you will be hearing from us if you didn’t follow up with that one really big job fast enough.
The Dashboard You Cannot Live Without
At minimum, every contractor should have a single source of truth: a lead progression dashboard. This should track:
- Total leads generated
- Source/channel attribution
- Current status in the funnel (new, contacted, quoted, won/lost)
This dashboard ensures you know which channels actually move prospects through the funnel to closed revenue.
If you’re just getting started this dashboard can be a simple spreadsheet. If you’re a well-established business you should be using a CRM. While we work with any CRM clients through our way our recommended CRM is Zoho. We find it is incredibly flexible and is a great solution that can grow with you as you change.
Here’s an example of a leads dashboard in Zoho for an ADU builder. The leads are shown in a Kanban chart according to where they are at in the funnel. You can sort and filter by source/channel attribution.
Closing Thoughts
At Nover Marketing, we believe analytics should drive action — not confuse you with pretty but meaningless charts. By focusing on CPL, CAC, and real lead progression, contractors can invest with confidence and cut out wasted spend.
Ready to find out if your marketing is really working? Book a free consultation with Nover Marketing today and let us show you how to track what truly drives revenue for your construction business.
