Make the ads fit the margin.
Set your budget. Open the drawers. See what your lead cost and sold jobs leave after ad spend.
Ad spend only. Start with an amount you can afford to test.
Your ad kit
$1,500 / month- $75 / lead
- 20 leads
- 25% sold
- 5 jobs
- $1,200 / job
- $6,000 gross
Starting figures are an example in USD. Replace all five assumptions with yours.
Use your account history, or an assumption to test. Minimum $1.
Sold jobs ÷ leads × 100. Include the leads you did not reach.
Job price minus materials, subcontractors and direct labour.
Follow the money to the job.
Your assumptions leave $4,500 after ads, before fees, overhead and tax. Check actual sold jobs before treating it as a reason to spend more.
Get the full working plan and PDF- Budget ÷ cost per lead
- $1,500 ÷ $75 = 20 leads
- Leads × close rate
- 20 × 25% = 5 sold jobs
- Sold jobs × gross profit per job
- 5 × $1,200 = $6,000
- Gross contribution − ad spend
- $6,000 − $1,500 = $4,500
Calculations use unrounded values. Fractional jobs are model averages, not booked work. The daily equivalent is $49.34 over an assumed 30.4-day month.
Example: the maths says wait.
A contractor tests $2,000, assumes $200 per lead, sells 10% of leads and keeps $500 gross profit per job.
One sold job brings in $500 gross profit against $2,000 in ads. A loss stays visible. These are teaching figures, not industry averages.
- $2,000 ÷ $200
- 10 leads
- 10 leads × 10%
- 1 sold job
- 1 job × $500
- $500 gross
- After $2,000 ad spend
- -$1,500
Pack the plan before you spend.
The book explains the approach. Your filled worksheet turns these assumptions into a campaign brief, a test budget and a sold-job review.
- Book + PDFThe contractor guide to offers, audiences, creative and follow-up.
- Six-part workbookYour $1,125 core and $375 test allocations, with owner and evidence fields.
- Launch checklistSix checks to make before the campaign starts spending.
- Three AI promptsAd brief, one-variable test and actual-results review using your figures.
Know what the model can tell you.
Are these normal contractor ad costs?
No. The starting figures are an editable example. With the defaults, $1,500 ÷ $75 gives 20 leads; 25% sold gives 5 jobs. Replace those assumptions with your own records.
Is contribution the same as profit?
Here, contribution means gross profit from the modelled jobs minus ad spend. For example, $500 gross minus $2,000 ads is -$1,500. Agency fees, software, overhead and tax still need accounting for separately.
Does reserving more for tests improve the result?
The split only allocates money. At the starting 25% share, $375 is reserved for tests and $1,125 for the core campaign. Lead cost and close rate stay the same until you edit them using evidence from the test.