General Contractors · Typically $25k - $250k+ per project
Ads that qualify the project before you quote it
A general contractor does not have a lead problem so much as a qualification problem. The ads are easy to spend; the hard part is making sure the enquiries that come back are real projects with real budgets, and that somebody answers them before the homeowner books the next company on the list.
What homeowners search
- “home addition contractor”
- “general contractor near me”
- “full home renovation cost”
- “basement apartment contractor”
- “custom home builder”
These are the intents we build campaigns and pages around for general contractors — and the questions your AI agent is trained to answer on the first reply.
The actual problem
What makes general contractors different to market.
- 01
Most of what comes in is not a project
Renovation and build enquiries attract browsers, dreamers, and people pricing a job they will not start for two years. A campaign that optimises for lead volume buys you more of exactly that. We optimise for qualified project enquiries and filter hard inside the ad itself — scope, timeline, property ownership, and a budget range — so your estimator is not spending Saturdays on quotes that were never going to close.
- 02
The sales cycle is long enough to forget you
A kitchen or an addition gets decided over weeks, sometimes months, with a spouse involved and three quotes on the table. Most contractors quote once and go quiet. The money is in the follow-up that survives a six-week silence without becoming annoying, which is exactly what an automated SMS sequence does well and a busy owner does badly.
- 03
Your best work is invisible to the person deciding
Nobody buys a $120,000 renovation off a stock photo. The ads that work for general contractors show real projects — the before, the structural middle nobody sees, and the finish — which means the constraint on your advertising is usually photography rather than budget.
- 04
You are bidding against trades with smaller tickets
In a Google auction you are competing for broad renovation terms against handymen and single-trade specialists whose economics are completely different. Winning means being precise about the work you actually want — additions, full gut renovations, custom builds — rather than bidding on "contractor near me" and paying for everything.
The Canadian market
What general contractors looks like in Canada specifically.
We run ad accounts for contractors across Canada and the United States. What follows is written for the Canadian market, where our local knowledge is deepest — housing stock, permit conditions, and a season that stops.
See the cities we coverHousing stock, demand, and competition
Ontario general contracting is shaped by permits and by housing stock. The GTA and Golden Horseshoe hold a deep inventory of post-war homes now being gutted rather than replaced, plus a strong second-suite and basement-apartment market driven by provincial policy and by what homeowners can finance. Permit timelines vary enormously between municipalities and homeowners ask about them early, so a contractor who can speak to the local process concretely closes faster. In the US markets we serve the regulatory picture differs state by state, but the ad mechanics do not.
When the work exists
Steadier than the exterior trades, which is one of the reasons general contracting is a good fit for paid ads. Interior renovation demand holds through the Ontario winter when roofing and concrete stop, and there is a reliable pre-holiday push on kitchens and bathrooms. Additions and structural work follow the normal construction season. The planning cycle runs months ahead of the build, so the campaigns that fill a spring schedule are the ones running in January.
What we would run
The stack for general contractors.
General Contractors marketing by city
Each of these is written for that specific market — local housing stock, local seasonality, local competition — not a template with the city name swapped.
- General Contractors marketing in Toronto
- General Contractors marketing in Mississauga
- General Contractors marketing in Oakville
- General Contractors marketing in Burlington
- General Contractors marketing in Milton
- General Contractors marketing in Hamilton
- General Contractors marketing in Niagara
- General Contractors marketing in Durham Region
Also serving contractors right across southern Ontario, with local pages for 8 cities — see all locations.
Questions
General Contractors specifics.
Yes, when they are structured around the projects you actually want rather than broad renovation terms. Bidding on "contractor near me" puts you in an auction against handymen with a fraction of your ticket. Bidding on addition, gut renovation, or custom build intent puts you in front of people whose project is worth your estimating time.
Qualification happens before the lead reaches you — inside the ad form and then in the AI SMS conversation. Scope, timeline, ownership, and a budget range are established first, and anything that fails those filters is flagged rather than booked.
Enough to buy meaningful data in your market, which depends entirely on click prices where you operate. Check your own city in Google Keyword Planner before committing anything. We will tell you if your budget is too low to be worth starting rather than take it and underperform.
It is the single biggest lever on performance for this trade, and yes, we will push hard for it. Real before-and-after sequences from your own jobs outperform anything else we can put in a Meta ad. If you have nothing usable we will work with what exists and tell you plainly what it is costing you.
Yes. Our deepest local market knowledge is in Ontario — that is where the city pages on this site are — but ad accounts work anywhere, and we run them for contractors across Canada and the United States. Paid media does not care where our office is.
See what your general contractors leads actually experience.
We call your business as a customer, time the response, and send you the recording. Free, no contract, no card — and if your response time is already good, we will tell you that.
Prefer to just talk to someone? (905) 572-1803