The roof leaked. They asked an assistant who to call.

Enough of them that sitting it out is now the expensive choice. The share of ChatGPT conversations with commercial intent rose from 13.9% to 19.2% in a year, and the roofing pattern is consistent: describe the damage, ask what it should cost, ask who nearby does it well. We record what the assistant says for your towns before we start, so you can see your own position rather than take our word for it.

Search is an auction on short phrases; this is a conversation where being named inside the answer matters as much as the placement beside it. The economics differ too. Non-branded roofing search leads averaged $124 with clicks at $10.25 in 2026, while assistant placements are still thinly contested by contractors. We run both and let cost per signed contract decide the split.

Small and measured. A few hundred a month next to your existing search programme is enough to learn whether these placements produce callable leads in your service area, and we would rather prove that than sell a large number. The bigger piece is the local evidence and service content, which is a one-off build with a long tail. Spend scales only once cost per contract is proven.

We build the tracking ourselves rather than trusting platform reporting, which is still coarse. A dedicated tracked number, landing paths that identify the source, and a short 'how did you hear about us' field on the estimate request feed one view in our analytics layer. It is not flawless attribution and we will not pretend otherwise, but it is honest enough to move budget on with confidence.

More than ever, because it is one of the first things an assistant reads before naming a contractor. Categories, service areas, hours, project photographs and a steady flow of recent reviews feed the answer as well as the map results, so the same work pays twice. We rebuild it within this programme rather than quoting it as a separate project.

Start with the work you want more of and can crew next month. Storm and leak work converts fastest but arrives unpredictably; full replacement, metal systems and commercial flat decks carry a far bigger ticket and a longer decision, which suits a conversational surface well. We usually keep a small repair line running for coverage and put most of the budget behind the replacement work with the better margin.

We plan for it instead of reacting. The 72 hours after a major hail event are the most valuable window in the trade, with searches spiking several hundred percent above baseline. Copy, budgets and coverage zones are prepared before the season, then released when the storm track is known, capped to the inspections your crews can actually run that week.

Placements can produce enquiries within the first few weeks, while the visibility work that gets you named in answers builds across a quarter. We report those separately so you always know which part is paying its way. In month one we would rather show you a handful of well-attributed calls than a large click count nobody can tie to a roof.

It leans on it. Everything that makes an assistant comfortable naming you — consistent details, real reviews, clear service pages, genuine relevance — is the same work that wins map results. Contractors already running SEO start well ahead here, and the two programmes share one content plan instead of duplicating it.

Very few, which is precisely the opening. Seer counted 3,697 unique advertisers across its tracking worldwide and in every category — a small field beside the roughly 108,600 roofing businesses operating in the US. Local contractors are barely represented, so placements stay cheap to test while that lasts.

The roofing work, the area and the response time. A homeowner with a bucket under a drip does not read adjectives, so we name the service, the towns and what happens when they call, with pricing expectations wherever you are willing to publish them. Everything we claim has to be something your scheduler can honestly deliver, because an unmet promise costs more in reviews than it earns in calls.

A named senior paid media strategist with a local search specialist alongside, and the same people stay with your account rather than handing it to a rotating queue. You will know their names, you can email them directly, and the person who wrote your plan is the person who reviews the numbers with you each month.