Ads
Attribution 101: How to Know Which Ad Booked the Job
·5 min read
You spend $3,000/month on Google Ads and $1,500 on Facebook. Your phone rings 80 times. You book 30 jobs. Great — but which $4,500 in ads produced those 30 jobs? Without attribution, you have no idea.
What Is Attribution?
Attribution is the process of connecting a customer action (a phone call, a form submission, a booked job) back to the marketing channel that caused it. Good attribution tells you: “This customer called after clicking a Google Ad for ‘AC repair near me’ at 2:14 PM.”
Why Most Home Service Businesses Get It Wrong
The most common “attribution” method: “How did you hear about us?” on a phone call. This is unreliable because:
- Customers don’t remember (or don’t care)
- “Google” could mean organic, ads, maps, or AI Overviews
- Staff forgets to ask during busy periods
- It doesn’t capture the specific keyword or ad that drove the call
What Good Attribution Looks Like
- Call tracking numbers. Unique phone numbers for each channel (one for Google Ads, one for your website, one for your GBP). When a call comes in, you know exactly where it came from.
- UTM parameters. Tags on your ad URLs that tell your analytics tool which campaign, keyword, and ad generated the click.
- Form tracking. Every form submission captures the source (which page they were on, which ad they clicked).
- CRM integration. Connect your lead tracking to your job management so you can trace from ad click → phone call → estimate → booked job → revenue.
The ROI of Attribution
Once you have attribution, you can make smart decisions:
- This keyword costs $200/lead but produces $5,000 jobs → scale it
- This campaign costs $100/lead but leads never book → kill it
- Facebook produces cheaper leads but Google produces higher-value jobs → adjust budget
Without attribution, every dollar you spend on marketing is a guess.