Guides · Topic
What it costs
Nobody in this trade publishes their numbers. These are ours, with the method written down so you can argue with it.
A concrete contractor spending well is usually somewhere between five and ten per cent of revenue on marketing, and is measuring it in cost per signed job rather than cost per lead. Cost per lead flatters a channel that sends you the wrong leads.
The guides in this topic
The benchmarks guide has the numbers. The budget guide turns them into a figure for your own business.
What Concrete Jobs Cost to Win: Cost Per Lead and Cost Per Job Benchmarks
Cost per lead, per booked estimate and per closed job, broken out by driveway, patio, garage slab, foundation and commercial flatwork.
Read it
How Much Should a Concrete Contractor Spend on Marketing?
Benchmarks by company size, what each budget level actually buys, and when to increase. With a calculator that takes your revenue and growth target.
Read itThe short version, before you read any of them
What should a concrete company spend?
Most trades businesses that are growing spend somewhere between five and ten per cent of revenue on marketing. A company standing still spends less and stays still. The useful version of this question is not what percentage but what a signed job is worth to you, because that is what tells you the most you can afford to pay to get one.
Why cost per signed job and not cost per lead?
Because cost per lead rewards the channel that sends you the most rubbish. A source that delivers forty cheap leads and two signed jobs looks better on a lead report than one that delivers eight leads and four signed jobs, and it is worse. Track the number that has money attached to it.
What does a marketing budget actually buy?
Two separate things, and mixing them up is where most of the confusion comes from. There is the money that goes to Google or Meta, which buys clicks and stops the day you stop. And there is the money that goes to whoever runs it, which buys the work of deciding what to buy. Anybody quoting you one number without splitting it is hiding one of them.
Questions
Is marketing cheaper in a small city?
The clicks usually are, because fewer companies are bidding. The work of running it is not, because it takes the same hours. That is why a percentage of revenue is a better guide than a flat figure.
How long before it pays for itself?
Ads can pay for themselves in the first month if the job values are high enough. Search rankings usually take a season. Anything that promises both at once is selling you one and charging for two.
Should I pay per lead instead?
Per lead pricing moves the risk onto whoever is selling, which sounds good until you notice it also moves the incentive: they are paid for quantity, and you are the one sorting through it.
Where this sits on the rest of the site
The guides explain the thinking. These are the pages that say what we do about it and what it costs.
- Pricing is the service page behind this topic.
- Every price is on the pricing page, including what is not included.
- The locations page has local research for ten cities.
The other topics
- Original research — 4 guides.
- Getting found on Google — 2 guides.
- Running ads — 2 guides.
- Your website — 2 guides.
- Getting and closing leads — 4 guides.
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