A poster on r/RoofingSales wrote in 2025 that every Facebook ad he published drew more than 50 replies and messages, and that only about 1% turned into business. Facebook leads come cheap because Meta’s default lead ad is built to collect as many as it can. “By default, lead ads are optimized for the volume of leads,” Meta’s developer documentation says, and the default goal shows your ad to the people “most likely to share their contact information with you.” Nothing in that setup asks whether they need a roof.
The costs people post for roofing leads on Facebook run from $30 to $200, and I couldn’t find a benchmark close rate for them. Two owners who say Facebook works for them gave no cost or close rate, and two Reddit success stories with signed-job counts came from accounts I can’t trust.
In the US and Canada, a roofing ad may also fall under Meta’s housing rules, which take away ZIP code targeting and widen any city you pick to a 15-mile radius. And since April 2026, a new campaign can only use the goal Meta built to find likely customers if your CRM reports back to Meta.
Meta’s default form is built to be filled in fast
The form that opens inside Facebook or Instagram is what Meta calls an instant form. Its default type, More volume, is “designed to generate a larger number of leads,” and Meta says it makes the form quick to send from a phone. If someone has already given Meta their contact details, Meta may fill those in for them.
A UK roofing and paving owner wrote on r/smallbusiness in 2025 that every Facebook lead he’d had came from “really confused elderly people who I assume must be accidentally filling them in.” Meta doesn’t link prefill to accidental sends, so this is my guess: a form that opens already filled in is easy to send without meaning to.
People running roofing ads on Facebook report paying $30 to $200 a lead
The lowest figure came from a poster on r/PPC in 2025 whose roofing ads cost about $30 a lead across all the states he covered. His post reads like a lead seller’s, and he gave no close rate.
A marketer running Facebook ads for a US roofing company wrote on r/PPC in 2023 that leads cost $50 to $70 until the client swapped the Facebook page behind the ads, twice. After that, by his account, they cost $150 to $200, and one came in every other day.
A roofing and siding owner more than 30 years in business wrote on r/smallbusiness in 2024 that he’d dumped “a whole boat load of money into facebook/instagram marketing without a single lead generated.” His page had about 1,800 followers, and he didn’t say what he spent or how the ads were set up.
Two owners describe the opposite. One on r/RoofingSales, who used to run ads for other companies, wrote in 2025 that Facebook brings in most of his business, though it takes time and money to get going. I have nothing that proves him wrong. Another, on r/Roofing in 2024, said he gets leads from ad after ad teaching homeowners about roofs with no sales pitch, though a strong salesman helps. Neither said what a lead cost him or how many signed, and the second may be outside the US.
At his rate, the poster with 50-plus replies an ad needed roughly 100 replies and messages for each job, and he said the calls took a lot of time.
Two Facebook success stories with job counts didn’t hold up
The first wrote on r/RoofingSales in July 2026 as a Florida owner with two closed jobs in his first month of Meta ads. Three days later the same account posted as the sales lead at a roofing company in northeast Georgia, and it has also posted as a solar company, a pest control business, a streetwear startup and a 16-year-old. That’s a seeding account, one that posts as whoever the story needs, so its numbers can’t count as anyone’s results.
The second, writing as a South Florida roofer three years in, described its first month twice: two jobs on about $540 of spend in late June, then three jobs on $440 in early July. Both accounts spell “leads” as “leas” or “leabs”, which reads like a way past keyword filters, and both tell the same story about their marketing guy. Shifting numbers alone don’t prove the second account is fake, and I still wouldn’t count it.
If someone selling you Facebook ads points to results like these, ask to see the ad account behind them, or ask for the number of a roofing owner you can call.
Meta may treat a roofing ad as housing, which stretches your targeting to 15 miles
A housing ad from a US advertiser, or one aimed at the US or Canada, has to run in Meta’s Housing category, one of its Special Ad Categories, or “your ad may be rejected.” One of Meta’s help pages counts “housing repairs” as housing, alongside home listings and mortgage loans, while another leaves repairs out and says its list isn’t complete. Neither names roofing, so whether a re-roof ad counts comes down to how Meta’s reviewers read it.
Once a campaign runs in that category, most of the audience controls go:
- Age is fixed at 18 to 65+, and every gender has to be included.
- You can’t target by ZIP code or exclude locations.
- Lookalike audiences aren’t available, and some interest and behavior options disappear.
- In the US and Canada, a city or an address you target widens to a 15-mile radius. Meta’s own example is Seattle, where the ad also reaches everyone within 15 miles of the city center.
Meta doesn’t say what that costs a roofer. My reading is that if you work a handful of suburbs, a 15-mile circle around any of them takes in homes outside your area, and you pay to reach them.
A monthly payment in the ad can get it rejected as a credit offer
A marketer running Meta ads for a roofing company wrote on r/PPC in 2025 that an ad offering $100 a month with $0 down kept getting rejected under Meta’s Discriminatory Practices policy, which he put down to Meta reading it as a credit offer. That’s the one rejected roofing ad I came across, and I found nobody saying one had been turned down as housing.
Since January 21, 2025, a US advertiser promoting financial products and services has had to use Meta’s “Financial products and services” category, which covers any ad promoting “a financial products and services offer, including credit.” Meta never names contractor financing, and a campaign in that category loses most of its audience controls, the same as housing.
If financing helps you close, I’d keep it out of the ad and save it for the inspection, or run the ad in the financial category and accept the wider targeting.
Meta’s settings can cut the junk, and the one aimed at buyers needs your CRM
I found no figures from Meta on how much any of these four settings improves lead quality, so change one at a time and count the inspections and signed jobs that follow.
- Higher intent form. It adds a line saying the business may follow up and a screen where people check their details before sending, to cut submissions “from those people who are only marginally interested.” It only runs in the mobile Facebook and Instagram feeds.
- SMS verification. The form won’t send until the person types in a code texted to their mobile. Meta says that stops spam bots, and it stops anyone who enters a landline too. A poster on r/PPC running ads for roof repair got wrong numbers until he turned it on: “So I switch to sms verification and the leads stopped.” Meta says it “may be enabled by default for eligible advertisers,” so check yours.
- Qualified leads goal. “Maximize number of qualified leads” shows the ad to people “most likely to convert after sharing their contact information,” so Meta has to learn which leads became customers. Since April 2026 a new campaign can only use it with a Conversions API integration, which sends that back from your CRM, and Meta says campaigns already running are affected from August 2026.
- Business hours. Meta advises running lead ads during business hours so you can start a conversation soon after someone sends the form, and it gives no figure for how fast a form lead goes cold. Missed Calls Cost Roofing Jobs: How Fast to Answer and How to Follow Up covers the callback.
If your leads are wrong numbers or spam, start with Why Your Roofing Leads Are Junk, and What to Check First.
Before you pay for retargeting, count your website visitors
Retargeting shows ads to people who’ve already come across you. Meta’s website audience is the people who visited your site, “tracked via the Meta Pixel,” and it can also build audiences from a customer list you upload or from people who interacted with your Facebook page or Instagram account.
One method I’ve seen taught skips the website and builds audiences from people who watched three seconds or more of a company’s videos over the past year. A roofer without a library of videos has no audience to build that way.
Google says Local Services Ads leads “come in as phone calls and messages sent through your Local Services ad,” and its help page describes no step through your website. A call that starts in the ad never loads your site, so the pixel never sees it. That’s why we don’t offer retargeting, though I reasoned it from how the calls flow and haven’t counted any roofer’s pixel audience to test it.
Ask whoever is selling you retargeting how many people visit your site in a month, since they’re the audience the pixel works from.
Work out what each signed job from Facebook cost you
Add up everything Facebook cost you in a month, including whoever runs the ads, and divide it by the jobs those leads signed. Every cheap lead that never picks up counts against that number.
If someone else runs your ads, ask which form type the campaign uses, which performance goal it’s on, whether SMS verification is switched on and which Special Ad Category it runs under. If you run them yourself, start with the higher-intent form and keep the ads to hours when someone can call each lead back.
An estimator at a Canadian roofing company, writing about Google ads, said referral customers close far better than people who saw an ad. I’d expect the same gap on any paid source, so compare Facebook with your other ads, Local Services Ads included. How to Track Which Marketing Brings In Your Roofing Jobs covers tying each signed job to where it came from.
If you’re thinking of moving money from Facebook to the searches homeowners start themselves, run the free Google Maps heatmap first. Pick your Google profile and a search, and in a few minutes you’ll see your rank at 49 points around your office.