Most home-service companies run TV and cross their fingers. They see the phone ring more, maybe the website picks up — but when someone asks “What’s the ROI on our TV spend?” the answer is usually a shrug and a gut feeling.
That’s not because TV doesn’t work. It’s because most companies are measuring it wrong — or not measuring it at all.
The home-service companies pulling 9–11x ROAS from their TV campaigns aren’t guessing. They’re using a simple attribution framework that connects every dollar of TV spend to actual booked jobs and revenue. And it doesn’t require a data science team or a six-figure analytics platform.
Here’s how they do it.
Why Traditional TV Tracking Fails for Home-Service Companies
If you’ve ever asked your media buyer how your TV campaign is performing, you’ve probably heard some version of: “We delivered 2.3 million impressions at a $6 CPM.”
That tells you nothing about revenue. Impressions don’t pay the bills. Neither do reach, frequency, or GRPs. These are media-buying metrics — they measure what the station delivered, not what your business received.
The real question isn’t “How many people saw the ad?” It’s “How many of those people called, booked, and paid?”
Traditional tracking methods fall short because they treat TV as an isolated channel. But TV doesn’t work in isolation — it lifts every other channel. When a homeowner sees your ad on TV, they don’t always call the number on screen. They Google your name. They click a paid ad. They visit your website directly. If you’re only tracking the dedicated TV phone line, you’re missing 60–70% of the response.
The Four-Layer Attribution Framework
Accurate TV ROI tracking isn’t about one perfect metric. It’s about layering multiple signals together until the picture becomes undeniable. Here are the four layers that top-performing home-service companies use:
Layer 1: Branded Search Lift
This is the single most reliable indicator that TV is working. When your ads start airing, people search your company name on Google. That branded search volume is measurable, trackable, and directly attributable to your TV campaign.
What to track: Week-over-week branded search volume in Google Search Console or Google Ads. Compare the 90 days before TV launched to the 90 days after. Top performers see a 200%+ lift in branded search within the first 90 days.
Layer 2: Direct Traffic Correlation
Direct website traffic — visitors who type your URL into the browser — spikes when TV is running. Unlike paid search or social, direct traffic is almost entirely driven by brand awareness. If your direct sessions jump 40% the week your campaign launches, that’s not a coincidence.
What to track: GA4 direct/none traffic by day. Overlay your TV flight schedule on the chart. The correlation should be obvious.
Layer 3: Call Tracking with Source Attribution
Dedicated tracking numbers on TV spots give you a baseline call count. But the real insight comes from dynamic number insertion (DNI) on your website — which tells you what happened after the TV viewer went to Google. A caller who searched your brand name and then called from your website is still a TV-generated lead, even though Google gets the last-click credit.
What to track: Total inbound calls segmented by source (TV tracking number, branded search, direct website). Don’t just count the TV line — count all three.
Layer 4: CRM Revenue Match-Back
This is where most companies stop short — and where the real ROI picture lives. Take the leads generated during your TV flight, follow them through your CRM to booked jobs, and calculate actual revenue. Then compare that revenue to your TV spend.
What to track: Leads → appointments → booked jobs → revenue, matched to the TV campaign window. This gives you true cost-per-booked-job and real ROAS — not estimated, not modeled, but actual closed revenue divided by actual spend.
The Numbers That Actually Matter
Once you have attribution in place, stop looking at impressions and start tracking these five metrics:
| Metric | National Average | Top Performers |
|---|---|---|
| Cost Per Lead | $125 – $225 | $45 – $85 |
| Cost Per Booked Job | $400 – $700 | $150 – $300 |
| Close Rate (Lead → Job) | 25% – 35% | 55% – 70% |
| ROAS | 2.5x – 4x | 8x – 13x |
| Branded Search Lift (90 days) | 10% – 30% | 200%+ |
The gap between average and top isn’t random. Companies in the “top performer” column share one thing in common: they measure the full response to their TV campaigns, not just the calls to the tracking number. When you capture the branded search lift, the direct traffic spike, and the downstream revenue, TV becomes the highest-ROI channel in the mix.
For a full breakdown of these benchmarks by industry — plumbing, HVAC, roofing, and windows — see our 2025 Home-Service Marketing Benchmarks.
Three Attribution Mistakes That Hide Your Real ROI
1. Only counting the TV tracking number
A dedicated phone number captures maybe 30–40% of TV-driven response. The rest flows through branded search, direct web visits, and form fills. If your ROI calculation only counts tracking-number calls, you’re undervaluing TV by 2–3x.
2. Using last-click attribution
Last-click attribution gives 100% of the credit to whatever channel the customer interacted with last. A homeowner sees your TV ad, Googles your name, clicks a paid search ad, and calls. In last-click, Google Ads gets all the credit. TV gets zero. This is how companies convince themselves to cut TV spend — right before their lead flow collapses.
3. Measuring cost per lead instead of cost per booked job
A $12 lead from an aggregator looks cheap until you realize it closes at 8% and the average ticket is $450. A $75 lead from a TV-driven branded search closes at 60% with a $5,800 average ticket. CPL is a vanity metric. Cost per booked job — and revenue per lead — are the numbers that determine whether your marketing is actually profitable.
Quick Self-Check: Is Your TV Attribution Working?
If any of the following are true, your attribution is hiding your real TV ROI:
☐ You can’t tell how many booked jobs came from TV last month
☐ Your media buyer reports impressions and reach but not revenue or ROAS
☐ You don’t track branded search volume before vs. after TV flights
☐ Your CRM doesn’t connect lead source to closed revenue
☐ You’ve considered cutting TV because “it’s hard to track”
If you checked two or more, the problem isn’t TV performance — it’s measurement. And it’s costing you money in two ways: you’re undervaluing what TV actually produces, and you’re probably over-investing in channels that look good on paper but generate lower-quality leads.
How to Start Tracking TV ROI This Week
You don’t need to overhaul your entire analytics stack overnight. Start with the two highest-impact actions:
First, set up a branded search baseline. Pull your branded search impressions and clicks from Google Search Console for the last 90 days. This becomes your “before” number. Once your next TV flight starts, track the same numbers weekly. You’ll have clear, quantifiable evidence of TV’s impact within 30 days.
Second, connect your CRM to your lead sources. Tag every incoming lead with a source (TV tracking number, branded search, direct website, paid search, referral). Then follow each lead through to booked job and revenue. This single step transforms your attribution from guesswork to a closed-loop system.
We built a free playbook that walks through the complete framework — all four attribution layers, the exact metrics to track, and how to connect TV, digital, and CRM into one system that shows what’s actually driving revenue.
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The Home-Service Marketing Attribution Playbook
The exact framework for connecting TV, digital, and CRM into one system that shows what drives revenue.
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TV advertising works for home-service companies. The data is clear — brands that combine TV with digital demand capture consistently outperform on every metric that matters: cost per lead, close rate, and ROAS. The companies that struggle with TV aren’t running bad ads. They’re running blind.
Fix the measurement, and the ROI takes care of itself.
If you want help setting up attribution for your TV campaigns — or you want an honest assessment of where your current numbers stand — book a free 30-minute Lead Audit. No junior reps, no obligation. Just a straight conversation about your numbers.