80% Lower Cost Per Lead for a Saskatchewan Roofing Company

A Saskatchewan roofing company with five years in business, a seasoned crew, and a five-year workmanship warranty was running META ads that talked about the quality of their service without ever addressing the pricing conversation happening around them.

Their ads led with benefits and offers: fast turnaround, thousands of happy customers, tips for evaluating roofing quotes. 

Meanwhile, the majority of competitors in the same feed were leading with discount pricing and per-square-foot rates.

The ads were generating clicks, but at $506.78 per lead over the first three weeks, the cost wasn't sustainable and the leads weren't converting.

Hypelocal audited what roofing contractors across Saskatchewan were running on META.

The majority were leading with price hooks: 

• "$3.99/sq ft" 
• "$1,000 off this month" 
• "Lowest price per square metre" 

The client's ads never mentioned pricing, which meant homeowners had no way to understand why this company's service costs more than the discount offers filling the rest of their feed.

Instead of continuing to talk around the price conversation, Hypelocal built an "anti-ads" campaign that addressed it directly.

We ran a six-week experiment: three weeks of conventional ads as a baseline, then three weeks with anti-ads running head-to-head against the conventional creative.

Anti-ads highlight something that might seem like a flaw, weakness, or counter-intuitive truth about the product. Then, it pivots to show why it's actually a feature. 

In this company’s case, the two "flaws" were: costing more than competitors and using more expensive materials.

‍

The META program started at $506.78 per lead. After optimizing conventional ads, cost per lead decreased to $265.79.

But when the anti-ad creatives entered the rotation, CPL dropped to $99.36, an 80% overall reduction over six weeks.

The biggest difference in performance was what happened after the click. Homeowners who clicked on "We are not the cheapest roofer in Saskatoon" had already processed the pricing reality before they reached the landing page.

That led to conversion rate jumping from 1.40% to 3.36%.

The key takeaway: In a market full of price hooks, admitting something competitors would hide built more trust than any discount.