"A tile has slipped, can you come by this week?"

A roofer running a first Facebook campaign gets this message fast. Then a second one, about a blocked gutter. Then a third, about a leak above the bathroom. Every enquiry costs money, every visit takes half a day, and the job that actually keeps the business going, a full roof replacement worth tens of thousands, never shows up.

The ad did not miss its target. It found exactly the people it invited. An ad that talks about fast call-outs, free quotes or leaking roofs attracts people with a problem to fix quickly and cheaply. If the goal is to sign major projects, you need a different ad, a different form and a different way of calling back.

Two trades under one roof

A roofer really sells two things that have almost nothing in common.

The emergency: a leak, tiles torn off after a storm, a ridge coming loose. The client does not shop around for long, they want someone on site. The ticket is small, the decision takes a few hours, and the client often leaves without signing anything else.

The major project: full re-roofing, roof insulation, a loft conversion that raises the roof, replacing an asbestos roof, fitting roof windows. The client has been thinking about it for months, sometimes years. They look into grants, compare several quotes, and pick the company they trust with a job they will only do once in their life.

These two clients do not search in the same place. The person with a leak types "emergency roofer" into Google while the water is dripping. No Facebook feed will create that need, and no Meta ad will land at the right moment. For emergencies, your Google profile and local search do most of the work, which matches the channel order laid out in the guide to finding clients as a tradesperson.

The major project, on the other hand, suits social advertising very well. Thousands of homeowners in your area know their roof is thirty or forty years old, that the loft is poorly insulated, that "some day it will need redoing". They have not started looking yet. A photo of a newly finished roof on a street that looks like theirs moves them from "some day" to "this year".

The practical takeaway: never mix the two in the same campaign. If Meta is useful to you, it is for major projects.

What to show

In roofing, the client almost never sees the work. They live under their roof without looking at it. Your ad has to make visible what they do not look at.

Before and after, shot from the same angle. A mossy roof with porous tiles, then the same house with a new roof. It is the most readable format in the trade, as long as both photos are framed the same way. Take the "before" photo every time, at the survey visit, or it will be missing when you need it.

The whole house, not the technical detail. A close-up of a ridge closure or a row of battens speaks to another roofer. A homeowner pictures a full front elevation, seen from the street, with a clean roof. Keep technical details for the carousel, as the second or third image, once the person is already interested.

The job in progress, done safely. Tidy scaffolding, protection in place, a properly equipped crew: for a client hesitant to hand over their home for several weeks, this is proof you are serious. A short phone video is often enough.

Your own jobs, never stock images. A generic roof is spotted instantly, and it erases what you are selling: a job done here, on a local house, by a company that exists.

In the copy, talk about the project, not the emergency. "Is your roof over 30 years old?" filters better than "Leak? Fast call-out". The first line draws homeowners thinking about a replacement, the second fills your phone with repair calls.

The form screens out small repairs

Meta's targeting cannot tell a homeowner who wants a new roof from one who wants three tiles replaced. The real filter is the form. Detailed settings are in the guide to Facebook instant form settings; here is what matters for a roofer.

Type of work, as a closed choice, listing only the services you want to sell: full re-roofing, roof insulation, asbestos roof replacement, roof raising. No "repair" option, no "other" option. Someone looking for a quick fix will not recognise themselves in any answer and will drop off. That is exactly the point.

Property type and approximate size, in bands. A single-storey house with an 80 m² footprint and a 200 m² farmhouse are not the same job, and you know it before you pick up the phone.

Timeline, with three choices: within three months, within the year, later. Someone who answers "later" is not lost. They go into a long follow-up instead of taking up this week's diary.

Ownership, owner-occupier or not. A tenant does not decide on a roof replacement, and a callback to a tenant is a wasted callback.

Add a review screen before submission, so people have to confirm their answers. The number of enquiries drops, sometimes sharply. Time spent on the phone drops even more, and that time is what costs a roofing company the most.

The special case of storms

After a spell of strong wind, demand spikes and it is tempting to launch a "storm damage" campaign. It will fill up, but with repairs, tarping and insurance claims, from clients calling five companies at once.

If your business can absorb that flow and you want it, run it as a separate, short campaign with its own form, and switch it off as soon as your schedule is full. Never let it run alongside your re-roofing campaign: Meta optimises towards the easiest enquiries to get, and emergencies are always easier to get than a project worth tens of thousands.

A better use of those periods: note the houses where the roof was clearly at the end of its life. Those homeowners will be re-roofing prospects a few months later, once the temporary fix is no longer enough.

Call back fast, even from a roof

A homeowner filling in a form for a roof replacement rarely does it for just one company. The first roofer to call back talks to someone who still has the project in mind. The third often reaches someone who has already booked a survey elsewhere.

For a trade that spends its days working at height, this is a real constraint. Three settings help a lot. Have every enquiry sent by text or email instead of leaving it in the ads manager, where nobody goes looking. Add a question about the preferred callback time. And name one person, in the office or in the family, who can call back the same day to book the survey, even if they are not the one who prices the job.

If nobody can call back the same day, your ads will pay for contacts your competitors convert.

Before launching: capacity

Many roofing companies are booked months ahead. More enquiries are then pointless. Better enquiries, however, can make sense: replacing small jobs with more profitable re-roofs, filling the winter when major work can be scheduled, or opening an area you never cover.

These goals change how campaigns are set up, and they are decided before spending the first euro. A full schedule and healthy margins are a good reason not to advertise at all. Unanswered enquiries damage a local reputation quickly, and Google reviews remember.

Where to start

Pick a single type of major project, the one you do best and that earns you the most. Gather three before-and-after sets from your own jobs, framed properly. Build a form with no "repair" or "other" option. Organise how enquiries are received and called back before going live. The general principles that apply across the building trades are covered in the article on Facebook Ads for building trades.

Then let the campaign run for several weeks before judging it. On a roof replacement, several months often pass between the first enquiry and the signature: survey, quote, grant paperwork, comparison. A campaign stopped after ten days has proved nothing, except that it was not given time to work.