Tradespeople · Meta Ads
Meta Ads for tradespeople
Nobody scrolls Facebook looking for an emergency plumber. But plenty of homeowners are mulling over an extension, a new boiler or a loft conversion months before they book. Arête's Meta Ads put your finished jobs in front of them while they're still planning, built so your name comes to mind when it's time for quotes.
From £399 per month, fixed fee
The situation
Why your customers are searching.
Social ads work for trades whose jobs are visible and planned. For urgent call-outs, they're a poor match. The skill is turning a thumb mid-scroll into a quote request with enough detail to justify a site visit, without drowning in half-hearted form fills.
What sends them looking
- Referrals have slowed and there are gaps in the diary two or three weeks out.
- You've taken on a new van, apprentice or engineer, and they need a full week of work.
- You want to rely less on pay-per-lead platforms, where the same enquiry can go to several competing firms.
- You want fewer small call-outs and more of the bigger planned jobs: boiler replacements, rewires, extensions.
- A competitor keeps turning up above you on the map for your own trade, in your own town.
The problem
What costs tradespeople work.
Where the work slips away
- Urgent work is won in minutes by whoever picks up. Miss the call while you're up a ladder and the customer is probably ringing the next name.
- Rewires, boiler replacements and extensions get compared on reviews, photos and how well you explain the quoting process.
- Your patch is defined by drive time, but most websites and ad accounts treat a whole county as one flat area.
- Your reviews are scattered across Google, Facebook and trade directories, so new customers rarely see the whole picture in one place.
- Enquiries for work you don't do, or jobs below your minimum, eat into the evenings you spend returning calls and pricing up.
What makes customers hesitate
- Nobody wants a cowboy in the house. Homeowners look for a named owner, a base town and proof of insurance before they ring.
- Customers dread a vague price that grows once the job starts, so they want to know how your quotes and site visits work.
- Someone with water on the kitchen floor wants to know if you can come today. A generic contact form doesn't tell them.
- For gas and electrical work, customers want proof of registration before they let anyone through the door.
How it helps
What Meta Ads changes.
- Campaigns focus on planned work: extensions, loft conversions, heating upgrades, renovations.
- Your own job photos and short phone videos do the selling. In a feed, they look far more believable than polished stock.
- Lead forms ask for postcode, job type and timescale, which weeds out the casual clickers.
- Ads only reach the towns and postcodes you cover.
What you get
Shot list for photos and video
A shot list of what to film and photograph on site, from before-and-after pairs to a quick walkthrough of a finished job.
Ad copy for planned trade work
Copy that speaks to homeowners planning a job: timescales, guarantees and how your quotes work.
Qualifying lead forms
Instant forms or website forms that ask for postcode, job type and timescale before the enquiry reaches you.
Local audience set-up
Radius targeting around your base, with the areas you don't serve cut out.
Pixel and Conversions API tracking
Website enquiries recorded accurately, so campaigns learn from enquiries, the thing you're paying for.
Retargeting of recent website visitors
Ads for people who looked at a service page or your gallery but didn't enquire, shown while they're still making up their minds.
Measurement
The enquiries that count, tracked properly.
What counts as an enquiry
- A call from a mobile search, traced back to the ad, map listing or page that sent it.
- A quote request with the job type, the postcode and a photo of the problem.
- A WhatsApp or text with photos, asking for a quick first price.
- A booked site visit for a rewire, boiler replacement, extension or other planned job.
What gets tracked
- Cost per qualified lead, once out-of-area and wrong-job enquiries are stripped out.
- How many leads become site visits, campaign by campaign.
- Creative performance by job type, showing which finished jobs draw the best enquiries.
Worth knowing
What customers check, and the rules to follow.
What customers look for before they call
- Your Gas Safe registration number, NICEIC or NAPIT membership, or other scheme details that match the work you advertise.
- Recent Google reviews that name the job and the town, which say far more than a star rating on its own.
- Photos from your own jobs with the work and the area named. Stock shots of tools and vans prove nothing.
- Your public liability insurance and the guarantee you give on workmanship, stated plainly.
- A name and a face behind the business: the owner on site, or the van outside a job.
Rules worth knowing
- Gas work must be carried out by a Gas Safe registered engineer, so your ads and pages should only offer the gas work you're registered to do.
- In England and Wales some domestic electrical work is notifiable under Building Regulations. That's why NICEIC, NAPIT or similar scheme membership is worth showing wherever it applies.
- Claims like 'fully insured', 'guaranteed' or 'same-day' need to be true and provable, because UK advertising rules expect claims to be backed by evidence.
- You can only be in one place at a time, so campaigns need to be easy to narrow or pause when the diary's full.
Straight answer
Is it right for you?
If your work is planned and looks good in a photo, yes. If you live on emergency call-outs, put the money into Google instead.
Made for
- Builders, extension and renovation firms, and heating engineers promoting planned installs.
- Trades with a steady supply of good job photos, or happy to start taking them.
Not for
- Emergency-led trades like drain unblocking or lockouts. Google search is the better channel there.
- Businesses that can't follow up form leads within a day. Social leads go cold fast.
Starting price
From £399
per month, fixed management fee
What moves the price
- Volume of creative and testing
- How much creative you can supply versus what needs briefing
- Number of campaigns and audiences
- Reporting frequency
Your ad budget is separate. It goes straight to the platform and is never marked up.
Questions
Meta Ads for tradespeople: your questions answered
Are Facebook leads for trades lower quality than Google enquiries?
They can be, because people on social media aren't actively searching. Qualifying questions on the form, honest pricing guidance and a fast follow-up close much of that gap. Treat Meta as the way to reach planners early, alongside search.
What should a tradesperson film for Meta ads?
Start with short, steady phone clips of finished work, a before-and-after pair and a quick explanation of a job in progress. Faces and voices build trust, but they're optional. Arête gives you a shot list, so filming fits around the working day.
Start a conversation
Tell Arête about the business and what currently feels missing.
You will receive a direct reply with the most sensible next step, even if that means recommending that nothing needs changing yet.
A direct reply
A personal reply, usually within one working day. No sales script, no chasing.
A short conversation
A look at the business, your current website and what a good result would look like for you.
A clear recommendation
The leanest sensible next step, with fixed scope and a fixed price. Sometimes that's nothing yet, and you'll be told so.
Prefer email? Write to info@aretemarketing.co.uk.