To see real roofing ads, look up your competitors in two public libraries: Meta’s Ad Library for Facebook ads, which needs no login, and Google’s Ads Transparency Center for Google ads. Neither shows whether an ad booked a single inspection, so below are a Google search ad and a Facebook ad I wrote as templates, with the reason behind each line.
Anyone can look up the ads a competitor is running
A roofing company owner on Reddit who pays graphic designers for his Facebook ads put it this way: “The problem I’m running into is a lack of inspiration.” Holiday sales and offers were easy to design for, he said, and he asked where to find roofing ads to take ideas from.
In Meta’s Ad Library, search by keyword or advertiser name, then narrow the results by location and ad category. Each of a Page’s active ads shows the picture or video and the words, button included, and you can filter them by country. A new ad shows up within 24 hours of the first time it runs, and edits show up within 24 hours of being made.
Google’s Ads Transparency Center is a searchable record of ads Google has served on Search, Display, Gmail and YouTube. Search a roofer’s company name or website, then filter by region and date.
Start with the roofers you lose jobs to. Meta’s library lists the ads running now, so screenshot any ad worth keeping and write the date on it.
Google builds each search ad from a pool of up to 15 headlines
Google calls it a responsive search ad. You write up to 15 headlines and up to 4 descriptions, and each time the ad shows, Google picks at least one of each and adds more based on how it predicts they will do. The roofer’s ad you see on a search, or in the Transparency Center, is one combination of those lines, and any of your headlines can land beside any other.
You can pin a line to a spot. A headline pinned to position 1 or 2 always shows, and one pinned to position 3 isn’t guaranteed. Google says pinning isn’t recommended for most advertisers and can hurt Ad Strength, its rating of how varied your lines are. Google doesn’t claim that rating predicts calls or jobs. Pin the one line you want in every version, such as the job and your city, and leave the rest free.
In this template, any headline reads right beside any other
Google caps headlines at 30 characters, descriptions at 90 and each display path (the words after your domain in the ad) at 15. Every line below fits as written. The city, rating, review count and year are samples, so swap in yours and check the line still fits. Keep only the lines that are true for your company.
Headlines that say the job and the city (pin one to position 1)
- Roof Replacement Fort Worth
- Roof Repair in Fort Worth
Headlines that name the work
- Hail Damage Roof Repair
- Storm Damage Inspections
- Roof Leak Repair
- Shingle and Metal Roofs
Proof, only if it’s true
- 4.9 Stars, 200 Reviews
- Family Owned Since 2009
- Inspection Report With Photos
- Insured Roofing Crew
What happens after the click
- Book a Roof Inspection
- Call for a Roof Estimate
Descriptions
- Roof replacement and repair for Fort Worth homeowners. Book an inspection or call us.
- After hail or wind, we inspect your roof and send you photos of what we find.
- A written estimate before any work starts, for shingle and metal roofs on homes.
- Insured crew serving homeowners in Fort Worth and the towns around it.
Display path: yoursite.com/Roof-Repair/Fort-Worth
With a job-and-city line pinned first, every version opens by saying what you do and where, whatever Google adds after it. Every description names the homeowner or the roof, so anyone reading any combination can tell the ad is for someone with a roof to fix. The proof lines carry the most risk, because Google can show any of them on any search, and a line that is only sometimes true will reach a homeowner eventually. Send the click to a page about the same job; Roofing Landing Pages That Turn Ad Clicks Into Calls covers what that page needs.
Two roofing companies’ Google ads drew people who were never going to hire them
A roofer on r/PPC who runs the company’s own Google Ads described the calls: “Leads are looking for jobs and free roofs.” The company offers neither, and the roofer then turned off two campaign settings, search partners and display.
A home-services PPC manager on r/PPC describes a roofing company that spent $11K bidding on competitors’ names and got zero customers in 8 months.
Wasted clicks are not cheap. Another small roofing company owner on r/PPC saw clicks cost $18 to $125 in 2023.
Put the job and the word “homeowners” in your headlines and descriptions. If job seekers and free-roof hunters are calling, check whether search partners and display are switched on. Before you bid on another roofer’s name, set a spending cap and count the inspections it books. For budgets and what a call should cost, see Google Ads for Roofers: Budget, Cost per Lead and When It Pays.
This Facebook ad template starts from a roof you just finished
A holiday sale gave the owner on Reddit something to design around. A roof you just finished does the same in any week of the year.
- Picture: the finished roof, shot on the job by your crew.
- Text: “We just replaced a roof on [street or neighborhood] after the [month] hailstorm. If yours took a hit too, we’ll inspect it and send you photos of what we find. Book a time below.”
- Headline: Roof inspections in [neighborhood]
- Button: one that opens your booking page or a short form.
Naming the street and the storm tells a homeowner the ad is about a roof near theirs. The text says what happens after they book, and it leaves out monthly payments and deductible offers for the reasons in the next section.
One roofing advertiser on r/PPC reported paying about $30 for each lead from a Facebook lead form with two or three questions, across all states. Before you compare that price with a phone call, count how many of those form leads book an inspection. Facebook Ads for Roofers: Why the Leads Come Cheap and Rarely Close covers what happens after the form.
Keep loan terms and deductible offers out of the ad
Meta makes US advertisers running ads for financial products and services declare a Special Ad Category. Those campaigns lose ZIP code targeting and can’t exclude locations, among other limits. It isn’t clear whether Meta puts a roofer’s “financing available” line in that category, so keep monthly payments and rates out of the Facebook ad and bring financing up at the inspection.
Texas puts the deductible on the homeowner. Insurance Code 707.002, in effect since September 1, 2019, says: “A person insured under a property insurance policy shall pay any deductible applicable to a first-party claim.” An ad offering to cover or waive the deductible promises something that law assigns to the homeowner. Outside Texas, check your state’s insurance code before any ad mentions the deductible.
Run a clever ad beside a plain one and keep whichever books inspections
To find out whether a funny or clever roofing ad works for you, run it against a plain version.
Google recommends at least two responsive search ads in each ad group (a set of keywords and the ads that answer them), each rated Good or Excellent on Ad Strength. Make one the plain template above and the other your clever version, both carrying the same pinned job-and-city line. On Facebook, run both in the same weeks so a storm doesn’t favor one. Keep whichever books more inspections, counted from your own booking records.
Check these before a roofing ad goes live
- Every Google headline reads right next to any other, and only the job-and-city line is pinned.
- Headlines and descriptions fit Google’s caps with your real city name in them.
- Every description names the homeowner or the roof.
- Search partners and display are set the way you chose, and any bid on a competitor’s name has a spending cap.
- The Facebook ad names a place and a job, and leaves out monthly payments and deductible offers.
- A plain version runs beside any clever one.
Before you pay for clicks on a search, see where your free Google listing already shows for it. Run the free Google Maps heatmap, pick your Google profile and the search your ad targets, and in a few minutes you’ll see your rank at 49 points around your office.