Google or Facebook ads for a roofing company?

Google catches the problem that already exists

Somebody with water coming through a bedroom ceiling opens their phone and types 'roof repair' and their town. They are not browsing. They will ring two or three numbers in the next ten minutes and book whoever answers and can come.

That is what Google Ads buys: a person at the exact moment of need. It is expensive per click — in Dublin, roofing clicks run well above the national average — and it is worth it, because the intent is already there and you are only paying to be in front of somebody who has decided to spend money today.

The limitation is volume. There are only so many people searching for a roofer in your county on any given Tuesday, and in a quiet week there may be very few. Google cannot create demand. It can only capture what already exists.

Meta creates the job that was not urgent yet

A re-roof is rarely an emergency. Most of them are jobs a homeowner has known about for two or three years, has been quietly dreading the cost of, and has never quite got around to.

That person is not searching. They will never appear in a Google campaign. But they will stop on a photograph of a house like theirs with a new roof on it, especially if the caption says what it cost and how long it took.

Meta reaches them at a fraction of Google's cost per click, because you are buying attention rather than intent. The trade-off is that the enquiries are softer, slower and need a real follow-up process. A roofer who treats a Meta lead like a Google lead — one call, no answer, bin it — will conclude Meta does not work.

Which one first

If your problem is that the phone is quiet this month, start with Google. It produces work fastest and the enquiries need the least handling.

If your problem is that you are busy with small repairs and want bigger jobs, start with Meta. Re-roofs, flat-roof replacements and full-house work are almost always built rather than caught.

What does not work is starting both at once on a small budget. Split three hundred euro a month across two platforms and neither has enough data to learn, both look like failures, and the roofer concludes advertising is a scam. One channel, properly funded, beats two half-funded ones every time.

What each needs to actually work

Google needs a phone that gets answered, a negative keyword list built before launch, and location settings tight enough that you are not paying for clicks from counties you do not serve. Most inherited roofing accounts fail on at least two of those.

Meta needs real photographs. Not stock, not a render, not a logo on a gradient — photographs of roofs you have actually done, ideally with the house visible, ideally before and after. It also needs a follow-up sequence, because a good proportion of those enquiries convert on the third contact rather than the first.

• —Google: answered phone, negatives, tight location, a landing page that matches the search
• —Meta: your own photographs, a qualifying form, and a follow-up that runs past one call
• —Both: call tracking, or you will never know which one is producing the work

The honest summary

Google is the better first channel for most roofers. Meta is the better second channel for almost all of them, and for anyone chasing re-roofs rather than repairs it eventually becomes the bigger one.

If you want to know which your county actually supports, we will look at what roofing ads are already running there, what the searches cost, and what your map results look like, and tell you which one to start with.