Do Facebook Ads Work for Trades? (Plumbers, Electricians, Builders)

Every tradesperson has heard both stories. A mate swears Facebook filled his diary for a year. Another says he threw a few hundred quid at it and got nothing but tyre-kickers and one bloke asking if he did free quotes in Wales.

They can both be telling the truth. Facebook ads for tradesmen work very well for one kind of job and barely at all for another, and most of the horror stories come from using them for the wrong kind.

Why Facebook works for some trade jobs and not others

Google and Facebook reach people in completely different moods. On Google, someone is searching because they need something now. On Facebook, they're scrolling on the sofa and your advert interrupts them.

An interruption is useless when the need is urgent. It's very useful when the need is real but not yet urgent: the boiler that's fifteen years old and making a noise, the kitchen they've been meaning to redo, the loft they keep saying they'll convert. Those people aren't searching yet. Facebook can reach them before they start ringing round for quotes.

For the emergency column, paid search is the right tool, and Google's pay-per-lead option is often the best fit. We looked at it in detail in our review of Google Local Services Ads for trades.

Real figures: what Facebook ads did for a heating firm

Eco Heat Surge installs boilers across Barnsley and South Yorkshire, and it's one of the trades businesses on our portfolio. We run its ads, and these are its four most recent boiler campaigns, straight from Meta Ads Manager on 19 September 2026. Each had a budget of £20 a day and used a lead form inside the advert.

The owners, Adam and Danny, put it more simply in their review. The line that matters here: "most importantly have put systems in place that actually generate genuine boiler installation leads".

What the figures actually tell you

• The same budget gave very different weeks. The cheapest lead cost £19.44 and the dearest £69.83, on the same daily budget. Judge Facebook ads on a month, never on a week.
• The week starting 1 September produced one lead. Stop there and you'd say Facebook doesn't work. Carry on and the next fortnight brought ten more.
• On average, each person reached saw the adverts two to three times per campaign. That's enough for a homeowner to notice you without getting sick of you.
• These are leads, not jobs. A lead is someone who filled in the form. How many turn into installs depends on how fast they're called and how well they're quoted, and that part is down to the business.

Is that worth it for your trade?

Work it out with your own numbers. Take the average job value and your profit on it. Then think honestly about how many leads you need to win one job. If one in five leads becomes a job, and each lead costs about £27, a job costs you around £137 in ad spend.

The one-in-five is only an example. Use your own rate. On a boiler, a rewire or an extension, that cost is usually a small slice of the profit. On a small tap repair it would wipe out the profit, which is exactly why Facebook suits big planned jobs and not small reactive ones.

What makes Facebook ads work for trades

An offer, not a logo

"Local, reliable, fully insured" describes every trade in the area. An advert needs a reason to act now: a fixed price, a finance option, a free survey, a seasonal date. Something a homeowner can say yes to.

A lead form inside the advert

Meta lets the form open straight from the advert, so nobody has to leave the app or load your website. According to Meta's page on lead ads with forms, you can set the campaign to go for the most leads, or for better-quality leads if you feed back which ones turned into customers. Ask three or four useful questions, such as postcode, type of job and when they want it done. Each extra question usually means fewer leads, but better ones.

A tight area

Set the area around where you actually want to work, not the whole county. A lead forty minutes away is often a lead you'll turn down.

Your own photos

Real vans, real jobs, real before-and-afters. Homeowners are letting you into their house, so they want to see who you are. Stock photos of smiling models in hard hats do the opposite.

Ring back fast

A form lead is warm for a short time. They may have filled in two or three forms that evening. The first trade to ring back, politely and while they still remember, often gets the survey.

If you've tried all of this and it still isn't working, our plumber lead generation guide and our complete guide to digital marketing for tradespeople show where Facebook sits alongside every other channel, so you can see what else should be in the mix.

Facebook ads for builders

Building work usually takes longer to decide on than most trade jobs. Nobody books an extension off one advert. They save it, show their partner, look at your past work and come back weeks later.

So for builders, Facebook works best in two steps. First, show finished projects to homeowners in your area, so your name becomes familiar. Then run a lead form offering a free survey or quote to the people who have already seen your work. The first step is cheap to run, and it means your lead form reaches people who already know your name.

What Facebook ads cost for a trade business

There are two costs. The ad spend goes to Meta. At £20 a day, as in the campaigns above, that's about £608 a month. For lead generation we suggest £300 to £600 a month as a starting point. Our guide to Facebook ad costs in the UK explains how Meta charges and why tiny budgets struggle.

The second cost is whoever runs it. Through our paid advertising service, that's a fixed £300 every month. Your ad spend goes to Meta directly, and we add nothing on top of it.

Frequently asked questions

Want to know if Facebook ads would work for your trade?

Facebook ads for tradesmen come down to picking the right jobs to advertise. Let us know your trade and which work you want more of. You can reach us on WhatsApp, or give us a ring on 01709 225755. We'll be honest about whether Facebook, Google or neither makes sense for you. While we're at it, your site and Google listing get our free 10-point check, because that's where people look before they pick up the phone.