Lead source tracking
They tell you what you spent. Nothing tells you what you earned.
Every lead marketplace sends a detailed statement of what it charged you. None of them can tell you what those leads turned into, because they cannot see your invoices. So the renewal decision gets made on a feeling - “it seems like a lot” or “we got that one big job” - which is exactly the condition under which people keep paying.
This is the angriest subject in the trades
When we went looking for what field service operators actually complain about, paid lead marketplaces produced more heat than any other topic. A representative sample:
“If you have a bunch of money to spend on leads, you are better off trying a company that curates the leads and does not sell them to 3-4 other contractors.”
“For most people it's more trouble than it's worth, but I've landed projects up to 280k from a $120 lead.”
“They are trying to sell me leads for $900+ For 10-13 leads, I am not sure if it's worth”
The hardest fact in this whole area is not a review at all: a January 2023 Federal Trade Commission enforcement action required HomeAdvisor - since folded into Angi - to pay up to $7.2 million over how it sold leads to service providers. It is straightforward to verify on the FTC's own site, and we would rather point you there than characterise it ourselves.
None of which means never buy a lead. The second quote up there is a contractor who won a $280,000 project from a $120 lead. It means you cannot tell which of those two stories is yours without the revenue side of the arithmetic.
What Punchless gives you
You already have
- What each source cost you, on their statement
Punchless adds
- Customers acquired, by source
- Jobs actually booked, by source
- Revenue invoiced, by source
- Ranked worst to best, so the loser is visible
It is one dropdown when you create a customer, set at intake - the only moment anyone actually knows where the call came from. Every job and every invoice for that customer rolls up to it from then on, with no further data entry. The report is built from your own invoices, so it is the same revenue figure your accountant sees.
What the arithmetic looks like
Say a quarter of leads from a marketplace cost you $2,400. Punchless shows those customers produced 6 booked jobs and $11,900 invoiced. That is a real answer: roughly $400 per booked job against an average ticket just under $2,000.
Now compare it to the row underneath, which is usually referrals or repeat work at a marketing cost of nothing. The question stops being “is Angi a scam” and starts being “is $400 a booked job good for us” - which is answerable, and which different shops will answer differently. A roofer with a $14,000 average ticket should probably keep buying. A drain-cleaning outfit at $280 should stop today.
What it does not do
- It does not know what you spent. There is no integration with any lead marketplace and we are not pretending otherwise. You bring the number off their statement; we supply the half they cannot.
- It does not track unconverted leads unless you create a customer record for them. That flatters a source with a poor conversion rate, which for shared leads is usually the whole complaint - so create the record at intake if you want the number to be honest.
- It does not weigh travel cost. A cheap lead forty minutes away is not cheap. We measure real drive time and could overlay it here; we have not, so we are not selling it.
Common questions
Does Punchless calculate my cost per booked job automatically?+
No, and it cannot - we have no way to see what you were billed by a lead marketplace. What Punchless gives you is the half nobody else has: revenue and booked jobs by source, from your own invoices. You bring the spend figure off your statement and the division takes ten seconds. We would rather tell you that than imply an integration that does not exist.
How does the lead source get recorded?+
It is a field on the customer, set when you create them or when a booking comes in through your public booking form. It is one dropdown at intake, which is the only moment anyone actually knows the answer. Every job and invoice for that customer then rolls up to it automatically.
What if I forget to set it?+
Those customers group under Unknown, and the report shows that bucket alongside the rest rather than hiding it. If Unknown is your biggest row, the report is telling you something true about your intake rather than something false about your marketing.
Does it track leads that never became customers?+
Not today. The report is built on customers and the revenue attached to them, so a lead you were sold and never converted does not appear unless you created a customer record for it. That understates the true cost per booked job for a source with a poor conversion rate - which, for shared-lead marketplaces, is usually the whole complaint. Create the customer record at intake if you want that number to be right.
Can it tell me which postcodes are worth advertising in?+
Not yet. We can measure real drive time to every job, and overlaying that on lead source would answer whether a cheap lead forty minutes away is actually cheap. It is on the roadmap and it is not built, so we are not going to sell it.
Lead source reporting is part of the marketing dashboard. See what is on each plan, or start a 30-day trial and set the source on your next ten customers - a quarter from now the report answers the question on its own.