Are garage door ads better on Meta or Google LSA?
Both, for different reasons. LSA captures the urgent 'broken spring at 7am' calls. Meta captures the 'my garage door is 20 years old and I've been thinking about replacing it' audience — which is where the high-ticket install jobs live. Run both if budget allows.
What's the typical close rate on garage door Meta leads?
15-22% for repair leads (they're comparison-shopping emergency service). 25-35% for planned-install leads (higher intent). Speed to lead is critical — every 5 minutes of follow-up delay drops close rate 10-15%.
Can we target garage door leads by door age?
Partially — via ZIP-code + home age lookup layers. We can't query 'homes with 15+ year-old doors' directly, but we can target neighborhoods built 1995-2005 where doors are aging out. Similar effect, privacy-safe.
What should I budget to start advertising a garage door business?
Enough for LSA to run continuously plus one Meta campaign with enough volume to leave the learning phase. Splitting a small budget across repair, replacement, openers and smart upgrades simultaneously guarantees that none of them gather enough conversion data to optimize. If the budget only supports one Meta campaign alongside LSA, make it replacement — that is the work LSA structurally cannot generate for you.
Should garage door companies run Google Ads as well as LSA?
Usually only after LSA is saturated, and then selectively. Standard search ads sit below the Local Services unit and cost per click rather than per lead, so for the same emergency repair query you are paying more for a worse position. Where they earn their place is coverage LSA does not offer — specific replacement and opener terms, competitor conquesting, and remarketing to people who visited but did not call.
Do I need professional video editing for garage door ads?
No, and heavily edited video usually underperforms here. What works is short, plain job footage — a spring replacement, a door install condensed to fifteen seconds, a tech explaining why the sensors keep misaligning. It reads as evidence rather than advertising. The real constraint is not polish but supply: you need many more creative variations than you expect, so a habit of capturing footage beats a budget for editing it.
How do Meta leads compare to Thumbtack or HomeAdvisor leads?
The difference that matters is exclusivity. Shared-lead platforms sell the same homeowner to several garage door companies at once, so you are racing on speed and price from the first second. A Meta lead is yours alone and the conversion data stays in an account you own. The tradeoff is intent — a directory lead has decided to hire someone and a Meta lead often has not — which is why the two should be compared on cost per booked job, not cost per lead.
How fast do I need to respond to a garage door lead?
Minutes for repair, and this trade is less forgiving than most because the customer's car is stuck. A homeowner with a broken spring will call three companies in ten minutes and book whoever answers. Replacement leads tolerate a slower response but still reward speed. Most garage door companies lose more revenue to unanswered calls during job hours than to anything happening inside the ad account.
How do I cut the no-show rate on booked appointments?
Confirm twice and narrow the window. Most no-shows in this trade come from wide arrival windows and a single booking confirmation — the homeowner books, forgets, and leaves. A text confirmation at booking, a reminder the morning of, and a tech-en-route notification with a name and photo will remove most of it. This is a dispatch problem rather than an advertising one, but it shows up as wasted ad spend, so it belongs in the same conversation.
Does this work for commercial and overhead door work?
Much less well, and it is worth saying plainly. Property managers, warehouse operators and facilities directors are a small, specific audience Meta cannot target with any precision, and commercial work runs through relationships, bid lists and service contracts. Paid social can support brand presence and recruiting; for commercial lead generation, direct outreach and LSA will outperform it.
Is garage door demand seasonal?
Repair demand spikes with temperature swings — cold snaps break springs, which is why the first hard freeze reliably produces a week of emergency calls. Replacement demand follows the home-improvement calendar, concentrating in spring and early summer and again ahead of the holidays when curb appeal matters to sellers. The practical implication is to keep repair campaigns running year-round and time replacement pushes to those windows rather than spending evenly.
Can Meta ads help me hire garage door technicians?
Yes, and for many companies technicians are the real constraint on growth rather than leads. Recruiting campaigns use different creative and a much shorter form than lead generation, and their advantage is reaching experienced people who are not actively looking — an audience job boards cannot reach by definition.
Is boosting a post the same as running ads?
No, and the gap explains most disappointing results. Boosting optimizes for engagement on an existing post, buying likes from people who will never need a garage door. A campaign built in Ads Manager optimizes for leads, uses real audiences and exclusions, and produces data worth acting on. The boost button is the most common reason a garage door company concludes Facebook does not work.
What service radius should I set?
Start with the radius a truck can serve profitably including drive time, then tighten it based on which jobs actually close. Garage door margins are sensitive to windshield time in a way that is easy to miss on a blended report — the jobs at the edge of a wide radius often lose money once the second trip for a part is counted. A tighter radius with higher frequency generally beats a wide one with thin coverage.
Who owns the ad account if we part ways?
You should, and you should confirm it before signing anything. Campaigns belong in your Business Manager on your pixel, with the agency granted access rather than ownership. Conversion history is a compounding asset, and starting over on a fresh pixel is a real setback. An agency that answers this vaguely has told you what you need to know.