WHAT A PERTH TRADIE ACTUALLY PAYS PER LEAD.

The business does tight-access excavation around Perth, the narrow side-access jobs most operators turn down. The work was good, but every job came through a single source, and the phone went quiet whenever that source went quiet. There was no website, no Google Business Profile and no advertising. In a trade where customers search before they call, that means being skipped rather than rejected. Winter was coming, which is the slow season for excavation.

I built the online presence from scratch, then launched one Meta lead campaign built around a single sharp angle: tight-access excavation, the jobs the big operators say no to. Enquiries come in through a native lead form, so a customer commits about fifteen seconds rather than filling out a website contact page. Every lead lands on the owner's phone the moment it arrives, because a trade lead that sits for an hour is usually a lost one.

Across the full account history to 1 September 2026 the account has produced 97 enquiries from $1,170 of ad spend, an average of $12.06 per enquiry, read straight off the live dashboard the client checks. Worth being precise about the budget: the campaign launched on a $20 a day cap, and on an audience this narrow Meta rarely spends the full cap, which is why total spend has stayed low. At the Australian median of roughly $50 a lead, the same 97 enquiries would have cost about $4,850.

These are enquiries, not signed contracts. What a lead is worth depends on how it is followed up, and that part sits with the business owner. It is one account, in one trade, in one city. Cost per lead moves with the trade, the offer, the season and how competitive the local market is, and a tight geography with a specific angle is exactly where this approach works best. It is not a promise that every account lands here. I publish the number because it is real and because most agencies won't publish theirs.

A Perth painting business after a steadier pipeline than word of mouth alone. Painting is quoted, considered work rather than emergency work, so the job for the ads is to reach homeowners while they are still thinking about it and make enquiring effortless.

The same structure as every Forge West account: a Meta lead campaign, creative built from the painter's own job photos rather than stock imagery, a native lead form so an enquiry takes seconds, and every lead sent to the owner's phone the moment it arrives.

Cost per enquiry has fallen month on month since launch, and one enquiry from a single ad became a booked $3,500 job, as reported by the client. Once the account has a longer run of data behind it, the full figures will be published here the same way as the earthworks account, read straight off the live dashboard.

One booked job from one enquiry is a result, not a pattern. The account is early, the sample is small, and cost per enquiry always moves around before it settles. It is published because it is real, and because the direction of travel, cheaper enquiries every month, is the honest thing worth showing at this stage.