Roofing leads NSW: cost per lead down 20.47% from one period to the next

TL;DR — Cornerstone Roofing covers repairs, restorations, repointing, roof painting and storm damage across New South Wales. We have picked the periods below out of 2026 and stripped the dates off them, deliberately. Taken over the whole account rather than one period, it recorded 276 enquiries and 20 tracked phone calls from 2,373 clicks and 46,410 impressions, at a blended $31.62 each. The best of them ran 31 days and produced 71 enquiries at $25.31, with 15.01% of clicks converting. The most instructive was the one where cost per enquiry climbed to $41.71, then dropped 20.47% to $33.17 in the period straight after. That correction is why this study exists.

Roofing runs on the weather

A storm crosses New South Wales and the phone runs hot for a week. The month after that, everything goes quiet and the same ads cost twice as much for half the work. Anyone advertising roof repairs, restorations, repointing or cleaning is riding that curve whether they planned for it or not.

Cornerstone covers the lot — repairs, restorations, repointing and re-bedding, roof painting and cleaning, gutters, storm damage. Those jobs sit at wildly different values, and a roofing account left to itself will happily fill up with the cheapest enquiries while the restoration work goes to whoever turned up on the search that actually mattered.

There is a second problem here, and it is about time. A leak is an emergency. A restoration is a considered purchase, where the homeowner collects three quotes and decides over a month or more. Both people type similar words into Google, and the advertising has to be worth paying for in both cases — which is why an account like this has to be judged over months, not over a fortnight of storm traffic.

Cheap leads are the trap, not the win

Attention is affordable in this category. Account-wide, 5.11% of the people served an ad clicked it, 11.63% of those clicks became an enquiry, and the blended cost landed at $31.62. Against the value of a roof job, that sounds like nothing.

Cheap is exactly where roofers come unstuck. When leads cost this little it is easy to buy a lot of the wrong ones and feel busy for a month while the good work goes elsewhere. So the account was rebuilt around the enquiries that turn into quoted jobs rather than the ones that merely turn into clicks.

Dates are withheld on purpose here; what follows is a run of selected periods, sized but not named. Across the wider account the ads served 46,410 impressions, took 2,373 clicks, and produced 276 enquiries — landing on the large majority of trading days. Only periods with 14 or more days of activity are plotted below, because a part-month makes a flattering dot and a dishonest chart. Demand in roofing is seasonal and event-driven, so this account was watched rather than scheduled. That is the only way to stop a quiet stretch from quietly doubling the price of a lead.

The month that went wrong, and the month after it

One period was the difficult one: $41.71 per enquiry on 43 enquiries, with the conversion rate down at 9.71%. The next came back to $33.17 — a fall of 20.47% — on 52 enquiries at a 12.62% conversion rate. Volume up, cost down, one month apart.

Nothing about the trade changed between those two blocks. The drift just got caught while it was still one month old — worth more to you than a flawless line would be.

Read the trend across the plotted periods and it goes $31.24, then $26.27, $25.31, $41.71 and $33.17. Not a straight line down, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. What it shows is a band the account held to, one spike, and a recovery — which for a weather-driven trade is a more honest promise than a smooth graph.

The volume chart hides the best comparison on this page. One period produced 68 enquiries. The one straight after produced 71. Near enough to identical, until you look at what each of them had to buy to get there.

One period needed 693 clicks to produce 68 enquiries. The next needed 473 to produce 71.

Nearly twice the attention in the first, for three fewer enquiries. It converted 9.81% of its clicks from 16,361 impressions; the one after it converted 15.01% from 8,789. Same account, same trade, very different quality of traffic — and that is why a conversion rate sits next to the volume in every line on this page.

The account's opening stretch deserves a mention as well. It recorded the highest conversion rate of any period at 15.38%, on 34 enquiries at $31.24 each across just 18 days. A partial month, and labelled as one.

• $41.71 cost per enquiry on 43 enquiries at a 9.71% conversion rate — a measured period in 2026
• $33.17 cost per enquiry, on 52 enquiries at a 12.62% conversion rate — the next period, a 20.47% reduction
• 71 enquiries at $25.31 each, 15.01% conversion rate, from 473 clicks and 8,789 impressions — a 31-day period in 2026
• 68 enquiries at $26.27 each from 693 clicks and 16,361 impressions, at a 9.81% conversion rate — the period before it
• 34 enquiries at $31.24 each and a 15.38% conversion rate across an 18-day opening stretch
• 276 enquiries and 20 tracked phone calls at a blended $31.62 each — across the account's wider run

What it meant for the business

276 enquiries gives a roofer something the trade rarely has: a quoting schedule that does not depend on the last storm. Crews can be planned, materials ordered with confidence, and a quiet fortnight stops feeling like a crisis. Enquiries arriving on most trading days turns quoting into a routine — a morning of inspections instead of a scramble.

Getting that $41.71 back under control is the practical bit. Restoration is a considered purchase, so a share of enquiries will always take months to convert or never convert at all, and that patience only stays affordable while the cost per enquiry stays sane. A roofer paying too much per lead cannot wait out a six-week decision, and starts discounting to close early.

The 693-click period against the 473-click one should change what you ask your agency for. More impressions is not the goal. The loudest period on the chart was not the best one, and fewer, better-qualified enquiries meant fewer wasted inspections — an inspection in roofing costs you a half day and a ladder.

Twenty tracked phone calls came through on the account. In roofing those are usually the leaks: booked on the call rather than quoted against two competitors.

Key takeaways

• Cost per enquiry fell 20.47% from $41.71 in one period to $33.17 in the next, with volume rising from 43 to 52 enquiries.
• The strongest period was best on both counts: 71 enquiries at $25.31 each, converting 15.01% of clicks.
• One period needed 693 clicks to produce 68 enquiries; the next needed 473 to produce 71. Attention is not the same as work.
• 276 enquiries at a blended $31.62 each, taken over the whole account rather than one period.
• The account was judged period by period, which is the only way to manage a trade whose demand is set by the weather.

Roof restoration leads in NSW: common questions

What does a roofing lead cost in New South Wales?

On this account, between $25.31 in its best period and $41.71 in its worst, blending to $31.62 over the wider account. Roofing leads come cheaper than most trades because the search volume is broad — which makes qualifying them, not buying them, the hard part.

My roofing ads work after a storm and die the rest of the year. Is that fixable?

Partly. Nobody can manufacture weather, and this account's own chart has a period that went the wrong way. What is fixable is how quickly a bad stretch gets spotted and corrected. Here the gap between the two was a single month: $41.71, then $33.17.

Should I judge a roofing campaign on leads or on cost per lead?

On both, in the same sentence, with the period attached. Two consecutive periods produced 68 and 71 enquiries at conversion rates of 9.81% and 15.01%. Volume alone would have told you those two were the same. They were not.

How long does a roof restoration enquiry take to become a job?

Longer than a repair, and that is a property of the purchase rather than the advertising. It is precisely why the cost per enquiry has to stay sensible: you need to be able to afford the slow ones.

Compare notes with us

If your advertising works brilliantly after a storm and poorly the rest of the year, that gap is worth fixing. Talk to us — we will tell you whether we think we can help before you spend anything.