Leaving the Lead Marketplace: How One Mold Company Built Its Own Pipeline

If you buy mold leads from a marketplace, you already know the problem. The lead also went to two or three other companies, a good share of callers cannot authorize the work, and when the bill stops, the phone stops.

A Phoenix mold removal company working with Logic Inbound was there a few years ago. Its dry-fog process was a real advantage, but the marketplace kept sending property managers and real estate agents instead of homeowners. Here is what changed, in order.

1. The website came before the ads

The old site was on Wix, with broken links and dead pages. Sending paid clicks to it would have bought bounces. It was moved to WordPress and rebuilt around one job: get a homeowner with mold to call.

2. Ads aimed at the person who signs

Owned ads let you choose who you talk to. Keywords and copy were written for homeowners with a mold problem, and away from the people the marketplace had been sending. For a mold company that also means excluding the work you don't do and the questions a bottle of cleaner answers.

3. Then the cost came down

Ads were tested and rewritten until each one pulled more clicks for less. Average clicks per ad rose from 110 to 349, and the average cost per click fell from $15.27 to $5.21. In under seven months, the company went from no online pipeline to about 25 jobs a month.

What to take from it

• Fix the site and the phone path before spending on ads
• Write for the homeowner who can sign, and exclude everyone else on purpose
• Track calls to jobs, so you know what a signed job costs
• Wind the marketplace down only as your own pipeline replaces it

The full case study has the details, and our comparison page lays out marketplaces against owned channels.