hipages vs your own website: the maths, done properly

Lead platforms are not a rip-off. They are rented — and the rent never stops. Here is the sum that tells you when renting stops making sense for your business.

Australian consumer testing has found people are often unclear that lead sites are advertising businesses rather than vetted directories, and tradies routinely report paying for leads that go nowhere. That is not a reason to quit them. It is a reason to know your own number.

Work out your cost per job

Three figures you already know, or can find in one evening from your invoices:

1. What a lead costs you, on average.
2. How many leads it takes you to win one job (be honest — count the ones that never rang back).
3. Multiply them. That is your cost per job, and it is the number that matters.

Say a lead costs you $80 and you close one in five. That is $400 of advertising in every job you win — this year, next year, and the year after. Twenty jobs a year at that rate is $8,000, which is more than our most expensive package.

The platform is not the enemy. The forever is. Rented leads never turn into an asset; the site you own is the same money spent once.

What each one is actually good at

• Lead platforms are good at volume today, filling a quiet week, and getting started with no reputation. They are bad at margin — you compete on price against four other quotes — and they are bad at building anything you keep.
• Your own site plus a Google profile is good at margin (the caller found you, not a list), at repeat and referral work, and at compounding month after month. It is bad at instant volume: it takes weeks, not days.

The answer for most trades: both, for a while

Keep the platform running while the site and the profile warm up. Track where every single job came from for three months — a notebook is fine. When the free channels are producing more than the paid ones, turn the tap down. Not off in one go; down.

That tracking is the whole exercise. Almost nobody does it, which is why almost nobody knows whether their advertising works.