Paid Advertising
Lead Aggregator
A marketplace like Angi, HomeAdvisor, or Thumbtack that sells homeowner leads — usually the same lead to several contractors at once.
Definition
A lead aggregator is a platform that collects homeowner project requests and sells them to contractors, typically as "shared leads" — the same inquiry resold to multiple businesses simultaneously. You pay per lead whether or not you ever win the job.
In depth
The model is simple: the aggregator spends on its own SEO and paid search to rank for terms like "plumber near me," captures the homeowner's request, then sells that contact to several contractors at once. You're billed a cost per lead the moment the lead is delivered, not when you book the job. Because it's a shared lead, you're in a footrace — and often a price war — with everyone else who bought the same name.
For a contractor, that shapes the economics in ways that hurt. Close rates on shared leads tend to be low because the homeowner is fielding four callbacks and shopping on price, which inflates your real cost per acquisition well above the sticker cost per lead. The deeper problem is ownership: the relationship, the reviews, and the first-party data all live with the platform, not your brand — you're renting access, not building an asset.
We're honest that aggregators do produce volume and can work as a stopgap. But our model is the opposite by design: exclusive, booked consultations that belong to you, generated by your own campaigns and feeding your own CRM. Instead of buying a name four other contractors are already calling, you own the lead, the data, and the relationship — which is what compounds into a predictable pipeline.
Worked example
A remodeler buys shared leads at $35 each, but with four contractors chasing every name, only 1 in 12 closes — pushing real cost per job past $400.
Paid Advertising
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