Deck Builder Marketing: What to Run, Month by Month

Start in November, while last season's decks are fresh and the photos are still on your phone.

Set "Deck builder" as your primary category. It's a real Google Business Profile category, and it tells Google exactly what you build.

Then upload at least 20 finished decks, with the city in each caption.

Why so many photos?

A homeowner shopping in February can't walk your last job. Your profile gallery is the site visit.

Our Google Business Profile guide for deck builders walks through the category, photo and service-area setup in detail.

The photos get a homeowner to look. Whether she calls comes down to the reviews, and that's December's job.

December is the catch-up month for reviews. Last season's customers are still happy, and they still answer texts.

Send each one the review link with a photo of their own deck. It takes a minute, and it reminds them why they liked you.

BrightLocal's Local Consumer Review Survey found 47% of consumers won't use a business with fewer than 20 reviews. And 74% only care about reviews from the last three months.

That second number is tough on a seasonal trade.

A profile with 30 reviews that are all two years old reads like a business that closed. By March, that's what a homeowner sees.

So keep the ask going all season: at each final walkthrough, while the homeowner is standing on the new deck.

January is when you decide what the ads will say. Start with your position.

In the Houzz Outdoor Trends Study, 45% of deck renovators chose composite or plastic, 37% pressure-treated and 15% cedar or redwood. Both markets are real, and they're different buyers.

A builder on r/Decks who does almost all Trex put it plainly: market yourself as a quality contractor and you get quality clients. Market yourself on price and you get the budget clients.

Then give the homeowner a reason to sign in winter:

• A 3D design of her deck before she commits.
• An early-booking date: sign by a set day and get a spring build slot.
• Your manufacturer badge and labor warranty, if you carry one.

Manufacturer programs belong in the offer, not the lead plan. TrexPro, TimberTech The Board, Fiberon's Certified Installer program and Deckorators Certified Pro promise a locator listing and some form of lead priority.

None of them publishes a lead volume, and builders in them say the leads are few.

What they do give you is a badge homeowners read as vetting, and a labor warranty you can sell: up to 12 years at the top Trex and TimberTech tiers.

Finish the paperwork in January so the badge is on your landing page by February. Budget the programs at zero on the lead side.

If composite is your business, our composite decking leads guide covers what that buyer looks like and how to qualify her.

The ad earns the tap. The landing page decides whether that tap becomes a lead worth the drive.

Ask two things before the phone number: roughly how big, and composite or wood.

Why ask before the phone number?

A homeowner who answers two deck questions has already pictured the deck. That's the lead worth a site visit.

Add a timeline question if your calendar is tight: this spring, this summer or next year.

Above the form, put the badge, the warranty and three finished decks. That's what a homeowner looks for before she types her number.

February is Meta's month. The homeowner is mid-research, and a deck signed in February fills an April build slot.

Builders who wait until May end up scrambling for those same slots.

Meta comes before Google because it creates demand. It puts a deck you built in front of homeowners who haven't started searching yet.

And the budget?

Size it to buy roughly one lead a day, then leave it alone through April. Pausing in March throws away what the ads learned in February.

Deck builders on r/Decks report spending anywhere from $150 a month on Facebook to $2,000 a month on Google. Timing and channel decided their results more than the size of the budget.

What that costs, and how the number moves through the season, is on what Facebook ads cost for a deck builder. The ad structures are on our deck Facebook ad examples page.

For the full campaign setup, see our step-by-step guide to deck builder advertising on Facebook.

Turn Google on in March, once Meta is producing. That's when US searches for "deck builder" climb past their yearly average.

Deck demand comes in three waves, a couple of months apart. Google catches the middle one.

Read the three waves together:

• Research. Searches for "composite decking" index at 51 in January, 103 in March and 162 in May, then fall to 62 by December. That's a threefold swing.
• Hire. Searches for "deck builder" are flatter and later. They run 104 to 113 from May through July.
• Permits. Across 3,650 deck permits in Chicago over three years, April through October issued 65.5% of the year's total.

So the homeowner researches boards in February, looks for a builder in April and pulls the permit in August.

A builder who starts advertising in May meets a homeowner who has already picked a board and is halfway through collecting quotes.

Google brings in more quotes from March on. Some of those quotes stall on the first pass, and that's April's job.

By April you have quotes out to homeowners who went quiet. Quiet often means still deciding, not no.

April is a good month to ask again, because build slots really are filling.

What does a good follow-up say?

Something new. A real update on your calendar gives her a reason to answer that "just checking in" doesn't.

Only send the slot update when it's true. If June is filling, say June is filling.

Then send one photo of a finished deck close to the one you quoted, and a last note before the summer schedule locks.

The crew is slammed in May, and that's when a lot of builders shut the ads off.

Then the phone goes quiet in July, right when the fall schedule should be filling.

You don't need February's budget in June. Trim it to the build slots you have left, and keep it running.

A deck signed in June lands on the fall schedule. A full fall means you head into winter with cash, instead of running discounts to keep the crew busy.

August through October is when deck permits peak. By then, the homeowner picked her builder months ago.

Two things to do in August:

• Check permit timing in your town, so the fall builds you sold in June don't stall at the counter.
• Get ready for September. One deck builder on contractortalk wrote that once September hits, the phone starts ringing again.

That September caller is the first homeowner of next season. Answer her fast, and November's profile work starts with a calendar that's already moving.

The other nine moves lose most of their value if a lead waits until tonight for a callback.

A homeowner asking for a deck quote is often asking a few builders at once. The first one to call has the edge.

Here's what a slow callback puts at risk:

Across Bit House Digital's contractor accounts, clients report booking 50 to 80% of the leads we generate.

A fast callback is a big part of that. A lead called within minutes is a conversation, and the same lead called tomorrow is often a voicemail.

If you can't answer during the day, set up a text that goes out the moment the form lands, then call at the first break.