A 43-year-old design-build firm doing $4-5M a year. Already had SEO, magazines, office staff. Hadn't done digital ads. Two years in, they've closed $552K from ad leads at a 35x return.
FiveSTAR Landscape has been operating in the Sacramento region since 1980. They're a full-service design-build firm: landscape design, hardscape, outdoor kitchens, water features, shade structures, stamped concrete, lighting. Turnkey, from concept to completion. They offer financing up to $75,000.
They were doing $4-5M a year when they came to us. They had SEO, magazine advertising, a dedicated office staff answering phones and booking estimates, estimators who confirm a day in advance and show up in uniform. Professional operation top to bottom.
What they didn't have was a paid digital ad system. They'd never run Facebook or Instagram ads. They came to us looking for more opportunities to grow revenue beyond what their existing channels were producing.
Most of our clients come to us because they need marketing from scratch. FiveSTAR was the opposite. They already had a brand, a reputation, 43 years of projects in the Sacramento market, and a professional sales operation.
The challenge wasn't building a system from zero. It was plugging a new lead channel into an established business without disrupting what already worked. Their estimators needed quality leads, not a fire hose of low-budget inquiries.
Their main reason for losing jobs is price — they're one of the highest-priced firms in their market. That means the leads have to be pre-qualified for budget. Sending them homeowners looking for the cheapest bid wastes everyone's time.
We built ad campaigns targeting homeowners in El Dorado Hills, Folsom, Fair Oaks, Carmichael, and East Sacramento — the zip codes where FiveSTAR's ideal clients live. Ads showcased their portfolio of high-end landscape design and outdoor living projects.
The landing page had a qualification form filtering for budget ($15,000+), project scope, and timeline. Leads who didn't meet the minimum never reached the estimators' calendars.
We set up automated follow-up and a booking system that fed directly into their existing office workflow. Their staff continued to manage appointments the way they always had — they just had a new source of qualified leads flowing in alongside their existing channels.
Over two years of running ads, FiveSTAR has generated 566 leads from $15,700 in ad spend. Of those, 390 booked estimates — a 69% booking rate. 17 projects closed, totaling $552,720 in revenue.
That's a 35x return on ad spend. Cost per closed project: $926. For a company whose average project from ads is around $32,500, spending $926 to acquire a $32K job is a no-brainer.
Some of those projects were significant. A $172,500 landscape project closed in November. A $49,880 project closed in January. These aren't maintenance leads — they're the high-ticket design-build projects FiveSTAR is built for.
The ads became a consistent second pipeline alongside their established referral and SEO channels. Not a replacement — an addition. Predictable, measurable, and producing jobs worth taking.
Most case studies show a small contractor going from zero to something. This is different. FiveSTAR was already a well-run, multi-million-dollar operation. They didn't need to be taught how to sell or how to run a business. They needed a new source of qualified leads that fit their existing operation.
Two years later, the system is still running. The leads are still converting. The cost per project is still under $1,000. And the revenue from ads has added over half a million dollars on top of what their traditional marketing was already producing.
For contractors already doing $2M+ who think digital ads are only for startups or small operators: FiveSTAR has been in business since 1980. They've seen every marketing trend come and go. This one is still producing two years in.
30 minutes. We'll look at your market, your numbers, and tell you if we can help.
Book a call →