Lead Aggregators Case Study: What the Data Shows
Last week, I wrote about lead aggregators as ROAS arbitrage. Not as a tactic to patch holes, and not as a workaround for weak marketing, but as a necessary form of diversification in a world where over-reliance on any single channel eventually caps performance.
This week, I’m bringing you the receipts.
The data below is published with permission from my admitted favorite client; Amanda August, Founder of the Grasshopper Group, and reflects their real spend, real bookings, and real revenue. I love all of our clients very much, however there is one I am actually in love with, so she wins by default. Probably because she is just as much an idealist as me and equally obsessed with getting this right.
The point of course isn’t to crown a winner, but to prove what’s possible when these channels are handled correctly, and inspire all to entertain the idea that Google isn’t the only high intent digital channel you can scale with, and that pay per lead platforms, even shared lead platforms, don’t inherently suck.
What you’ll see isn’t the just result of a marketing savant, though I appreciate you saying that. It’s the outcome of exceptional booking rates on both calls and forms, intentional dispatching, and customer relationships built on education and options rather than pressure. When those pieces are in place, “lead aggregators” stops being a euphemism for low quality and starts becoming a repeatable way to acquire customers who leave five-star reviews, send referrals, stay for years, and still deliver killer ROAS.
The platforms matter far less than the standards behind them. This data reflects what happens when those standards are taken seriously and marketers approach operational metrics collaboratively, as more optimization levers for ROAS.
Before the Numbers, the Philosophy
It’s easy to look at lead aggregators and reduce them to their mechanics. Shared versus exclusive. CPL versus CAC. Intent arguments that miss the point.
What gets lost is this: Most homeowners do not experience your brand as a brand first. They experience a moment of need.
A broken door. A system down. An inconvenience that suddenly matters. And yes, it would be lovely if their first thought was recollecting driving by your billboard or your social media video that made them laugh, and there are plenty that do that are not pictured here.
But for those who don’t, or companies who can’t yet afford only anecdotal evidence of branding working, lead aggregators exist at that moment. Not to build awareness, but to facilitate a decision. When handled poorly, they feel transactional. When handled well, they are simply the first step in a long relationship.
A quick anecdote explains why these channels get dismissed so often.
We have another client with a strong operation, newer to structured lead aggregation, and understandably skeptical. To pressure-test the assumption that “the leads are bad” rather than the approach is bad, we submitted a simple Thumbtack request to document the customer experience. Nothing exotic. A normal homeowner need.
They responded in seven minutes.
By most internal benchmarks, that sounds fine.
They were the third company to respond, and hence why they had about a 1% booking rate on the channel. Compared to Grasshopper Group’s 31% on the same.
By the time their response came through, the decision had already been made.
This mirrors something my brother admitted to me during my first lecture to him on this exact topic. When he hires someone through Yelp or a listing site, he isn’t shopping for the cheapest option or collecting quotes to compare. He scans reviews, decides who seems competent, and commits to the first real person who reaches out with the soonest availability.
Not the lowest price.
Not the slickest pitch.
The first human. (more on that later)
That’s the part most operators underestimate. Aggregator leads don’t punish you for being expensive. They punish you for being slow. And “slow” isn’t 3 hours. Sometimes it’s 7 minutes.
What You Came For: The Case Study
Nothing here is manipulated. No obfuscation to make the numbers behave.
This is simply what non-branded acquisition looks like when the operation behind it is disciplined, responsive, and built to convert. We’ve even included the newer channels to the mix just to illustrate what we’re seeing so far, and how we’re always testing.
Thank you to the Grasshopper Group for allowing this level of transparency and supporting the cause for the greater good, as always.
| Category | Campaign | Spend | Leads | New Customer Jobs | Revenue | CPL | CAC | ROAS |
| Fielding – Paid Listings | eLocal | $578,900.00 | 1,958 | 1,287 | $1,419,247.11 | $295.66 | $449.81 | 2.5 |
| Fielding – Paid Listings | Everconnect | $32,171.00 | 233 | 178 | $311,580.01 | $138.07 | $180.74 | 9.7 |
| Fielding – Paid Listings | Goodzer | $2,640.00 | 5 | 4 | $17,268.70 | $528.00 | $660.00 | 6.5 |
| Fielding – Paid Listings | Google Local Service Ads | $273,834.60 | 3,451 | 2,696 | $4,491,425.86 | $79.35 | $101.57 | 16.4 |
| Fielding – Paid Listings | Home Guru | $2,000.00 | 11 | 11 | $13,289.00 | $181.82 | $181.82 | 6.6 |
| Fielding – Paid Listings | HomeAdvisor (Angi Leads) | $21,909.53 | 371 | 137 | $333,994.15 | $59.06 | $159.92 | 15.2 |
| Fielding – Paid Listings | Inquirly | $4,975.00 | 6 | 2 | $1,457.94 | $829.17 | $2,487.50 | 0.3 |
| Fielding – Paid Listings | Modernize | $6,375.00 | 23 | 15 | $32,177.02 | $277.17 | $425.00 | 5.0 |
| Fielding – Paid Listings | Networx | $38,268.00 | 140 | 43 | $132,370.72 | $273.34 | $889.95 | 3.5 |
| Fielding – Paid Listings | Service Direct | $42,940.00 | 287 | 206 | $245,542.13 | $149.62 | $208.45 | 5.7 |
| Fielding – Paid Listings | Thumbtack | $4,694.89 | 262 | 82 | $45,823.99 | $17.92 | $57.25 | 9.8 |
| Fielding – Paid Listings | Yelp Ads | $35,312.02 | 356 | 170 | $211,559.06 | $99.19 | $207.72 | 6.0 |
| Fielding – Paid Listings Total | $1,024,096.04 | 7,132 | 4,839 | $7,163,092.08 | $143.59 | $211.63 | 7.0 | |
| Fielding – Paid Search Total | $1,104,423.73 | 5,883 | 2,581 | $4,873,887.93 | $187.73 | $427.91 | 4.4 | |
| Fielding – Paid Social Total | $326,148.40 | 4,669 | 1,134 | $950,478.46 | $69.85 | $287.61 | 2.9 |
*Anything categorized as Fielding has brand traffic and remarketing fully excluded. New customer jobs are used as the primary metric for CAC, while all revenue generated by the channel is included for ROAS calculations. One could argue if existing customers found you through these channels anyway without explicitly searching for your brand, they weren’t loyal to you anyway, but we do track brand/remarketing in a separate category altogether.
The Aggregate View Tells a Clear Story
The common denominator across every high-performing channel in this data is not the platform. It’s the booking rate, response speed, and in-home experience behind it. Across a meaningful spend, paid listings outperformed paid search on both efficiency and return.
-
Paid Listings generated more revenue on less spend.
-
Cost per acquired customer was materially lower.
-
Return was not driven by a single outlier platform like LSA, but by a portfolio of contributors.
This matters because it removes the usual excuses.
Same processes. Same philosophies. Same call center. Same standards.
Just different entry points, that candidly most sophisticated operations avoid.
The implication is not that Google is bad. It’s that Google is not entitled to monopoly status in your budget.
Why the Results Are Durable, Not Accidental
While I’m sharing the raw data and sources for sake of contributing to misled contractors at large, the platforms themselves are not the differentiator. Execution is.
What stands out in this data is not just ROAS, but consistency across channels that many contractors dismiss outright. Thumbtack, Angi, EverConnect, Service Direct. None of these are novel. All of them are widely available. Most companies try them once, fail quietly, blame the lead quality and move on.
The difference here is that these leads are treated as precious opportunities, not annoyances.
- Calls are answered immediately.
- Forms & messages are worked relentlessly.
- Customers are treated with dignity, as humans who need help, not tire kickers.
Most importantly, the interaction in the home is outstanding. Customers are not “sold.” They are supported & guided. That single shift changes everything downstream. Close rates improve. Average tickets increase. Reviews follow. Referrals happen. Lifetime value compounds.
Once they’ve entered the ecosystem, the origin of the lead becomes irrelevant.
Where AI and Automation Actually Matter
Yes, automation plays a role here. Robust SMS and email workflows, rapid speed-to-lead tools, and AI-assisted routing absolutely help. Platforms like Hatch or Chiirp make it easier to respond fast, stay persistent, and avoid leads slipping through the cracks.
But automation is not the differentiator anymore. It’s the baseline.
You should assume your competitors have auto-texts, instant confirmations, and follow-up sequences running. Those tools buy you seconds, not wins.
The real separation still happens in human execution. Calls placed immediately. Multiple attempts in the first hour. Live conversations, not just notifications firing in the background. At minimum, three call attempts in the first hour, and ideally the first minute.
Automation opens the door. Humans close it.
The companies that win with non-branded channels are the ones that treat speed-to-lead as a contact sport, not a software feature.
At Grasshopper Group, this discipline starts at the top. Dylan August, CXO of Grasshopper Group and CEO of Dilly Dilly, has overseen the call center since inception and continues to evolve processes with booking rate as the north star. It wasn’t always perfect. There was a time when a ten-minute response felt acceptable there too.
What changed wasn’t the tools. It was the conviction that faster was possible, and the refusal to accept anything less once it was proven. The ROAS followed.
I’ve pushed Dylan harder on this than anyone else in our portfolio, and he made it happen & their results reflect it. Their performance across booking rate, average tickets, close rate, & ROAS have become our internal benchmark. Not because they found a better platform, but because they committed to winning the moment when it matters. And maybe because we dissect every report and challenge each other to be even better at every Sunday dinner.
Non-Branded Does Not Mean Low Value
One of the quiet myths in home services is that only branded demand produces good customers.
Branding works. But branding is slow, expensive, and cumulative. Lead aggregators live in the opposite moment. The moment where something is broken and someone needs help now.
What produces good customers is a good experience. Non-branded channels simply introduce you earlier in the decision process. If your operation is capable, that is an advantage, not a liability.
This is why lead aggregators, when handled correctly, are not just fillers or gap coverage. They are low-CAC entry points into relationships that can be just as valuable as any brand-initiated search.
The data reflects that reality.
What This Should Change in How You Think
This is not an argument to replace paid search or branding or anything else. It’s an argument to stop letting popular knowledge define your ceiling.
Lead aggregators are pre-built acquisition engines. You rent them by the lead while they shoulder the volatility, the testing, and the multi-channel complexity. Your job is not to market better than they do. Your job is to convert faster than your competitors.
When infrastructure is owned, channels are separated, and execution is disciplined, ROAS arbitrage stops being theoretical. It becomes visible.
Not a trend.
Not a hack.
Just leverage, applied deliberately.
More tips on how to apply this concept in your own business DIY style in our last post here.
One thought on “Lead Aggregators Case Study: Grasshopper Group”
Brilliant insight Bri! I fully agree. We do well with lead aggregators too but have been working to improve the stats. You’ve got some great nuggets here. We continue calling for a long time if not booked right away and find that we can often get them booked on the 6-8th call, sometimes weeks later. Speed and persistence for the win. We already paid for the lead, so it’s important to squeeze every last bit out of them. After reading this we’ll be adding more calls in the first minutes and hour. Thanks for your meticulous analysis. It’s insightful and helpful.