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Home Services: $185 Per Booked Job Across Two Service Lines
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39 leads. 17 of them became booked jobs. $185 of advertising per job booked. Two service lines, two different channels chosen to match how each one is actually bought — Meta for water heater replacement, Google Ads for septic pumping, and Meta retargeting behind both.
The number worth looking at is the 44% booking rate, not the $185. Nearly half the leads turned into work, which is what makes the cost per job land where it does. A cost per lead can be made to look like anything; a cost per booked job has already survived the part where most leads quietly fail.
This work was performed by Nashville Digital under contract to another agency. The campaigns, targeting and results were ours; the client relationship was theirs.
This is a small sample and we're saying so up front. 39 leads and 17 jobs is enough to be real and not enough to be a benchmark. Treat it as one account's experience, not as what water heater or septic advertising costs.
Why the two channels differ
A failing water heater and a septic problem are bought differently, and that determines the channel before anything else does.
| Water heater | Septic pumping | |
|---|---|---|
| How the need arises | Often gradual — age, poor performance, a homeowner deciding to replace before it fails | Usually acute, and unmistakable |
| Does anyone search? | Sometimes. Plenty of homeowners aren't looking yet | Yes, immediately |
| Right channel | Meta — create the demand, target the household | Google Ads — capture the demand that already exists |
Retargeting ran on Meta behind both, catching people who'd been to the site and not called — the cheapest audience in either account and the one most often left switched off.
Don't compare the two service lines on cost per lead. Search leads for an urgent problem convert at a much higher rate than demand-creation leads, so a lower cost per lead on Meta and a higher one on Google can easily mean the Google lead is the better buy. Cost per booked job is the number that decides it — which is why this page leads on that instead.
What we found
The general pattern worth explaining: most home services businesses advertise the company rather than the job. A single campaign for "plumbing" competes against everyone and speaks to nobody, while individual service lines have their own demand shape, their own buyer, and their own right channel.
Splitting them out is unglamorous and it's usually where the improvement is.
What we did
| Service line | Channel | Approach |
|---|---|---|
| Water heaters | Meta | — |
| Septic pumping | Google Ads | — |
| Both | Meta retargeting | — |
What happened
| Metric | Both service lines |
|---|---|
| Cost per booked job | $185 |
| Leads generated | 39 |
| Jobs booked | 17 |
| Lead-to-booked rate | 44% |
Is your situation similar?
This fits a home services business with multiple distinct service lines and enough budget to fund more than one campaign properly. The transferable idea is matching channel to demand shape: search for the things people search for, Meta for the things they don't.
It's not right for a single-service business, or one under about $1,500 a month in media — at that level, one channel funded properly beats two funded thinly. How to choose one.
More on Meta ads, Google Ads and marketing for plumbers · what we charge
Written by Jared DeValk, founder of Nashville Digital. Published with the client's permission. Last reviewed September 2026.