How a Delaware deck builder booked fall leads for $30 each.
A $271 Facebook & Instagram campaign across two states put a seasonal deck offer in front of 14,000+ local homeowners and brought in 9 estimate requests.
The client is a family-run Delaware deck builder that has served Delaware and a neighboring state for more than four decades. Like most outdoor contractors, its calendar fills up in spring and thins out once summer ends.
The challenge
Fill the fall calendar
Reach homeowners only in the builder’s service area across two states, with no budget wasted outside it.
Turn interest into trackable estimate requests, not just likes.
Create urgency around a hard contract deadline.
Run on a test-sized budget of a few dollars a day.
Sign bySEP 30
The offer
A limited-time fall deck offer
Homeowners who contracted a new low-maintenance deck before the September 30 deadline got special financing plus free add-ons.
Special financing
Free add-ons
Hard deadline
The strategy
Four simple moves
1
A landing page built to convert
Clicks went to a dedicated page, not the homepage: one offer, one estimate form, click-to-call, real customer testimonials, and the deadline stated clearly.
2
Every lead tagged to its source
The form automatically captured the ad source, platform and campaign for each submission, so paid leads could be separated from organic ones.
3
One ad per state
Two identical ads, one per state, each limited to the builder’s service area. A combined ad would have spent wherever views were cheapest; splitting guaranteed even coverage and a clean comparison.
4
Small, steady budget
About $4 a day per state for 34 days, aimed at local homeowners, with website visits as the goal.
Got a slow season of your own?Shelby can map out a campaign like this for your business.
Source: Meta Business Suite Ad Center (lifetime results, final) and the landing page estimate form, pulled Oct 15, 2026. CTR, CPC and CPM are calculated from Meta’s reported clicks, views and spend.
How that compares
Published 2026 benchmarks
Cost per click
$0.44 vs $0.63
Home & Home Improvement, traffic campaigns
Click-through rate
1.91% vs 1.76%
Home & Home Improvement, traffic campaigns
Cost per lead
$30 vs $42.95
Home & Home Improvement, lead-gen campaigns
Benchmark source: LocaliQ / WordStream, “Facebook Advertising Benchmarks for 2026,” last updated Sept 23, 2026. This campaign used a traffic objective. The cost-per-lead benchmark comes from lead-gen campaigns, so treat that comparison as directional.
When the leads came in
Two bursts: launch week and the run-up to the deadline
4
1
0
4
0
DEADLINE · SEP 30
Aug 27–Sep 2Sep 3–9Sep 10–16Sep 17–23Sep 24–30
Launch burstDeadline burst (Sep 20–23)Paid estimate requests per week
The launch burst came from the offer reaching new people for the first time. The second burst lines up with the approaching deadline. Nothing came in during the final week, which makes sense: a homeowner who inquires that late can’t realistically sign a contract in time.
Key takeaways
Small budgets can produce real leads
$271 brought in 9 estimate requests. A single signed deck job pays for the ad spend many times over.
Splitting by state was worth it
Both markets got the same budget. Delaware came out slightly ahead: it reached 19% more people, got 7% more visits, and was the only state with Messenger conversations.
Deadlines drive action, up to a point
Leads picked up about 10 days before the cutoff and stopped in the final week. Future deadline messaging should peak about two weeks out.
Older homeowners were the core audience
Creative, photos and copy should speak directly to that group.
What’s next: closed-job numbers, so we can report revenue rather than just leads, and click-to-call tracking, since many mobile homeowners call instead of filling out a form.
Your turn
Want results like this for your business?
Every business has a slow season, a new offer or a deadline worth filling. Tell Shelby about yours and we will set up a 30-minute call, by phone or Microsoft Teams, to plan your next boost.
Hi, I’m Shelby Emory.Digital marketer at Techno Goober, in Lewes, Delaware.
Ads aimed at your service area. Your budget goes to the towns you actually serve.
Leads you can count. Every form lead tagged to the ad it came from, so you know what you paid for each one.
A budget that starts small. This campaign ran on about $8 a day.
Facebook & Instagram ads
Google Ads
Retargeting
Ad spend is paid directly to the ad platforms, separate from our services. See our social media ad packages.
Talk to Shelby
Tell us about your business and what you want to fill. We will reach out to book your 30-minute call.
Talk to Shelby