Google Ads works for a roofing company on searches for a job, not for a product: in the UK "roof repair" gets 5,400 searches a month at an average cost per click of $8.20, while in Italy "gutters" (grondaie) gets 9,900 at $0.09 (DataForSEO, Google Ads data, 14 November 2026). The base is one Search campaign per job, a target area that matches the jobs you actually take, and a negative keyword list that keeps out people buying materials.
Everything else is detail. Expensive detail.
The first mistake is buying the word "roof". It covers the homeowner with a leak, the person pricing a gutter and the one planning to do it himself.
The second is running the same budget in London and Manchester.
The third is counting every form fill as a result.
So how do you stop paying for clicks from people shopping for insulated panels?
With the numbers, one search at a time. We measured them for this guide.
First, two client cases that explain where we start. For Contesini Consulenze (two energy advice offices near Mantua, Italy) we built the campaigns from scratch: 299 enquiries in seven months at €7.20 each, and 68% became sales opportunities (the full case). With Sunscape we found the opposite problem: an account reporting 1,487 conversions at €0.61, numbers too good to be real enquiries (the story is here).
What does that have to do with roofers?
A roofing click on the right search costs $5 to $11. At those prices one tracking mistake burns a month of budget in a week.
In this guide:
- what a click costs for each job, in the UK and in Italy;
- who advertises on roofing searches (we checked four Google results pages);
- how to split campaigns between replacement, repairs, flat roofs and commercial work;
- the searches to exclude, with volumes;
- how much budget you need, using Google's own formula;
- what ChatGPT and AI Overviews read when someone has a leak.
Let's start with prices.
What a click costs for a roofing company (from $0.09 to $10.24 depending on the job)
Cost per click separates people who need a job done from people who need to buy something. Searches that describe a job cost several dollars; searches for a material cost a few cents.
| Search (UK) | Monthly searches | Average CPC | High top-of-page bid |
|---|---|---|---|
| emergency roofer | 210 | $10.24 | $21.87 |
| flat roof repair | 4,400 | $9.60 | $16.89 |
| roof repair | 5,400 | $8.20 | $18.47 |
| roof leak repair | 2,400 | $7.89 | $20.73 |
| roofer near me | 33,100 | $6.14 | $19.85 |
| new roof cost | 1,600 | $4.52 | $5.30 |
| roofers london | 3,600 | $4.47 | $32.70 |
| roofers manchester | 2,400 | $2.63 | $11.76 |
"Emergency roofer" is the most expensive average click at $10.24, on just 210 searches a month. Urgency is what advertisers pay for.
"Roofer near me" is the volume search: 33,100 a month at $6.14, with bids up to $19.85 to appear at the top.
The same pattern in Italy (where the product searches give it away)
We run the same analysis for Italian roofers, and the gap between jobs and products is wider there:
| Search (Italy) | Monthly searches | Average CPC |
|---|---|---|
| infiltrazioni tetto (roof leak) | 390 | $5.82 |
| rifacimento tetto (roof replacement) | 1,600 | $5.36 |
| impermeabilizzazione terrazzo (terrace waterproofing) | 8,100 | $0.49 |
| pannelli coibentati (insulated panels) | 9,900 | $0.10 |
| grondaie (gutters) | 9,900 | $0.09 |
Gutters and insulated panels add up to 19,800 Italian searches a month at around 10 cents a click: buyers, not homeowners booking a roofer. The UK equivalent (guttering, roof tiles, fascias) behaves the same way, which is why the negative list below matters.
City matters too. In Italy "roof replacement + Milan" costs $10.96 a click, the same search with Turin $2.45: Milan costs almost 4.5 times Turin. In the UK "roofers london" is $4.47 against $2.63 for Manchester, but the London top-of-page bid reaches $32.70.
Who advertises on roofing searches (no ads on four Google pages)
On Saturday 14 November 2026, between 7:35 and 7:37 Italian time, there were no ads at all on four mobile searches: "rifacimento tetto" in Milan, Rome and Turin, and "infiltrazioni tetto" in Milan. We pulled them with DataForSEO, localised to each city.
| Google results page (Italy) | Ads | Map pack | Related websites | AI Overview |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| roof replacement, Milan | 0 | yes, 4 listings | yes, 10 sites | yes |
| roof replacement, Rome | 0 | no (one business panel) | no | yes |
| roof replacement, Turin | 0 | yes, 4 listings | yes, 5 sites | yes |
| roof leak, Milan | 0 | no | no | yes, with sources |
So nobody advertises on roofing?
No, and reading it that way would be wrong. It was early on a Saturday, and many firms switch ads off when the office is shut.
When the office is closed the page is empty of ads, and a searcher only finds the map and a price guide. If someone can answer the phone at the weekend, those are the hours with the least competition.
Check your own pages on weekdays before you decide. Once a campaign is live, auction insights show who appears next to you.
How to structure the campaigns (one per job, because the peaks differ)
Each job gets its own campaign, because each one costs differently and peaks in a different month. In the UK "roof leak repair" reached 4,400 searches in November 2025 and fell to 720 in July 2026. "Emergency roofer" goes from 70 in July to 480 in October and November.
With a single campaign, the autumn leaks eat the whole budget and replacements get nothing.
The split we use as a starting point:
- Replacement and new roofs: new roof, roof replacement, reroofing, with and without the town name.
- Repairs and leaks: roof repair, roof leak repair, emergency roofer, slipped tiles.
- Flat roofs: flat roof repair (4,400 searches, $9.60), EPDM, GRP, felt.
- Commercial: industrial roofing, cladding, asbestos roof removal, only if you hold the right licences.
Repairs need the phone
Someone with water coming through the ceiling does not fill in a form. For repairs the call asset matters more than the landing page: it is the phone number shown inside the ad, tapped to call (Google Ads Help). With ad scheduling the campaign only runs when the phone is staffed. A missed call in November is a job for someone else.
Commercial roofs are a separate campaign
Industrial and commercial roofs are searched by a facilities or site manager, not a homeowner. Ads, page and form change: roof area, existing roof type, how long the building can be out of use.
The searches to exclude (19,800 a month in Italy alone)
Negative keywords are the searches your ad must not show for, and in roofing they matter as much as the keywords you choose. Google notes that negatives do not match close variants: exclude "flowers" and your ad can still show for "red flower" (Google Ads Help). So add singular and plural.
| Exclude | Why | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| guttering, gutters, downpipes (unless you fit them) | people buying materials | Italian "grondaie": 9,900 searches at $0.09 |
| roof tiles, sheets, panels, felt roll | product, not installation | Italian "pannelli coibentati": 9,900 at $0.10 |
| DIY, how to, tutorial, video | doing it themselves | informational searches |
| jobs, vacancies, course, apprenticeship | job seekers | Italian "lattoniere" (roofer/sheet-metal worker): 4,400 searches, low competition |
| grant, free | people looking only for funding | "rifare il tetto a costo zero" (a new roof at zero cost) among related searches in Rome and Turin |
| price per m2, wholesale, used | price lists and reclaimed materials | merchant searches |
What if I exclude too much?
It happens. Review the search terms report weekly for the first two months and remove whatever brings no enquiries.
How much of your budget goes on gutters?
In Italy alone "gutters" and "insulated panels" account for 19,800 searches a month that are not asking for a roofer. We go through your search terms with you and show you how much ended up there and how to stop it.
Book a strategy callWhere to send the click and what to count as a conversion (not 1,487 conversions at €0.61)
A conversion is the action you tell Google to count as a result, and that choice drives how it spends your budget. Count visits to the contact page and Google finds people who visit contact pages.
Sunscape shows it: the 1,487 "conversions" at €0.61 in 2024 were technical events. Once tracking was rebuilt, 2026 shows 144 enquiries: fewer, but real people asking for a quote. No business selling jobs worth thousands gets enquiries for under a euro.
For a roofer, three conversions count:
- a call from the ad or the website, above a minimum length;
- a quote request with postcode, roof size and a photo (the form is in our roofing website guide);
- a booked survey, imported later.
The third is the one almost nobody does. Google lets you import offline conversions, telling the account which enquiries became surveys or jobs (Google Ads Help). It is the same idea as Contesini's 68%: what counts is the share of enquiries that sales judges workable, not the number of forms.
Send the click to a page for that job, never the homepage. If even paid traffic does not turn into enquiries, the problem is upstream: see why a website does not generate leads.
How much budget you need (start from the click price in your area)
Google sets budgets per day: for a monthly figure, multiply the daily budget by 30.4, the average number of days in a month (Google Ads Help). The rest is arithmetic on the CPCs above.
| Search | Average CPC | 10 clicks a day | Per month (x 30.4) |
|---|---|---|---|
| roof repair (UK) | $8.20 | $82.00 | $2,493 |
| roofer near me (UK) | $6.14 | $61.40 | $1,867 |
| roofers manchester (UK) | $2.63 | $26.30 | $800 |
| rifacimento tetto milano (Italy) | $10.96 | $109.60 | $3,332 |
Ten clicks a day on one campaign cost $800 a month on "roofers manchester" and $2,493 on "roof repair". How many of those clicks become enquiries depends on the page and the form, and you only learn it in the first weeks.
When we asked ChatGPT how to set up Google Ads for an Italian roofing company, it suggested €600-900 a month to test and €1,500 as the recommended budget, warning that its own simulation used "simulated numbers".
Presence or interest: it depends on second homes
The "Presence or interest" option also shows ads to people elsewhere who have shown interest in your area (Google Ads Help). For most local trades that is waste.
Not always for roofers. If you work in holiday areas, the owner of a cottage in Cornwall may search from London. In that case keep "Presence or interest" and put the town in the keyword. If you only work locally, use "Presence".
Local Services Ads (Google lists roofers, but check your area)
Local Services Ads are a Google format where the business receives leads directly and shows the Google Verified badge. Google's help pages list roofers among the categories in the programme, alongside plumbers and electricians (Local Services Help).
The same page says availability depends on category and area, checked through an eligibility tool. On the US search "google ads for roofers" the AI Overview recommends them next to Search campaigns. Check eligibility for your postcode before you plan around them.
Google Ads, Business Profile or SEO? (the map pack showed on two pages out of four)
Google Ads brings enquiries from day one; the Business Profile and SEO bring them without paying per click but take months. A roofer needs both, weighted differently.
In our Italian survey the map pack with four businesses appeared in Milan and Turin, above everything else. In Milan the listings had 95 reviews and 2; in Turin one had 233. The map needs the right category, area and reviews, not ads: see our Business Profile guide and SEO for roofers.
Our view: Google Ads for the first six months and for the autumn and spring peaks, while the profile grows. It is the same approach we use for builders, where campaigns split by type of renovation. The full comparison of ads, profile and lead platforms is in our lead generation guide for roofers.
What AI reads when someone has a leak (BMI, Velux and a lawyer)
For "infiltrazioni tetto" (roof leak) in Milan, the AI Overview cited seven sources: BMI, Velux, Termografia Italia, Futura Europe (a sealant maker), a law firm in Padua, an Instagram reel and a YouTube video. No roofing company, and no map pack.
AI citations cannot be bought with ads; they come from pages. A roofer that explains causes, timings and repair costs in its area has something a generated answer can quote. AI tools split a question into sub-questions (query fan-out), and "who do I call?" is one of them, answered from listings, reviews and local pages (local AI visibility).
ChatGPT's answer on roofing ads cited only Google Ads Help pages. No roofers there either.
If you want campaigns set up or reviewed with these numbers, that is our Google Ads service.
FAQs
It depends on the area and the job. In the UK "roof repair" costs $8.20 a click on average and "emergency roofer" $10.24: it pays if the margin on the jobs you win covers the cost of each survey, which is the sum to do after the first few weeks. On gutters and panels, at around 10 cents a click, it brings buyers, not customers.
It depends on the search: $8.20 on average for "roof repair", $9.60 for "flat roof repair" and $6.14 for "roofer near me", with top-of-page bids up to about $20 (DataForSEO, November 2026).
Yes. Add them as negative keywords, singular and plural, because Google does not extend negatives to close variants.
It depends on your area. Google lists roofers among the categories, but availability has to be checked with the eligibility tool for your postcode.
It depends on where you work. The radius should match the jobs you accept; if you work on holiday homes, "Presence or interest" with the town in the keyword reaches owners searching from the city.
Google Ads for roofers, in short (and what to prepare in October)
The right click costs more than $5.
The wrong one costs 10 cents, but there are thousands of them.
One campaign per job, because leaks and replacements peak at different times.
Budget comes from the CPC in your area, times 30.4.
Count surveys, not forms.
One last thing you won't find in the manuals. UK searches for "roof leak repair" go from 720 in July to 4,400 in November: the repairs campaign should be ready in October, with the phone staffed and the page live, before the first storm. Switch it on after the first missed call and you are already late.
Speak soon.
