Likes Don't Pay for Trucks
Nobody has ever bought a service truck with likes.
Or made payroll with impressions. Or covered a supplier invoice with clicks. Yet plenty of marketing reports sent to trades companies are packed with exactly those numbers, and light on the one thing the owner wants to know: did this bring in work?
Here's the short answer. Impressions, likes and clicks are activity, not results. For a trades company, the numbers that matter are leads, appointments (booked jobs) and closed deals, and whether what you spent to get them made sense. If you ask your marketing person "How many jobs did this bring in?" and the answer is a number of impressions, you're being shown activity.
Activity vs. results
Activity tells you something happened. Results tell you whether it paid. An ad was shown, a post was liked, someone clicked a link: that's activity. A homeowner called, a tech showed up at the door, a contract got signed: those are results.
The startup world has a name for numbers that look good but don't help you decide anything. Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup, calls them vanity metrics: numbers that "might make you feel good, but they don't offer clear guidance for what to do" (Eric Ries). He also points out a trap. When vanity numbers go up, everyone credits "whatever they were working on at the time" (Next Big Idea Club).
That's how a monthly report full of rising impressions can feel like progress while the schedule stays half empty. Activity isn't useless. It's just not the scoreboard.
The three numbers that actually matter
At Wundertre, we measure every campaign against three things:
- Leads. Real people who raised their hand: a call, a form, a text, a booking request.
- Appointments (booked jobs). Leads that turned into a time on the calendar.
- Closed deals. Booked jobs that turned into signed work and money in the bank.
Then we ask one more question: did what you spent to get them make sense?
This only works when everything is connected to the pipeline. Prospecting flows into the CRM. Ads send people to landing pages built to capture a lead. Email pushes toward a booking. Each step hands off to the next, so you can follow a job from the first ad all the way to the signed contract.
Even Google builds its ad tools around this idea. Its help pages note that an ad often "starts a customer down a path that ultimately leads to a sale in the offline world, such as at your office or over the phone," and offer ways to "measure what happens in the offline world after your ad results in a click or call" (Google Ads Help). For a trades business, almost every sale happens offline. That's exactly why the report has to follow it there.
Here's what to swap in next time you read a marketing report:
| What the report shows | What to ask instead |
|---|---|
| Impressions | How many leads did this bring in? |
| Clicks | How many of those leads booked an appointment? |
| Likes and engagement | How many booked jobs turned into closed deals? |
| Star rating | How many referrals did our reviews bring in? |
Why "engagement" is a distraction for a trades business
A homeowner with a leaking water heater isn't scrolling for content to like. They need someone at the house, today. Your marketing should be built to catch that moment, not to win applause.
Google seems to agree. Its Local Services Ads, the ones many plumbers, HVAC and electrical companies already run, charge by the lead, not the click: "Only pay when potential customers get in touch through your ads" (Google). Google began moving these ads into Performance Max campaigns in August 2026 and kept the same rule: "You still only pay for valid leads (such as phone calls and messages) rather than ad clicks" (Google Ads Help). When the platform selling the ads prices a click below a lead, that tells you something.
Engagement numbers are also easy to inflate. The FTC's rule on reviews and testimonials, finalized in 2024, bans buying fake social media indicators like followers and views (FTC). A paid invoice is much harder to fake.
Likes and comments can still help. A post that gets people talking can keep your name top of mind. But it only counts once it turns into a call.
Reviews are for referrals, not bragging rights
A wall of five-star reviews looks great on a website. But a star rating is still a score, and scores don't pay for trucks. What reviews can do is bring in the next job.
That's why our reputation tools are built to drive referrals. Our motto for it is simple: revenue, not ratings. Every happy customer is a chance to ask for a review, and every review is a chance to earn a referral from a neighbor, a friend or the next person searching for help.
The honest way is also the only safe way. Google Business Profile says offering incentives "in exchange for customers to post reviews, change reviews, or remove negative reviews… is strictly prohibited" (Google Business Profile Help). The FTC's 2024 rule also bans rewards tied to positive reviews and bans pressuring people to take down negative ones (FTC).
So ask every customer, reply like a real person, and track what matters: how many new calls came from people who read those reviews.
The one question to ask about every campaign
You don't need to learn marketing jargon to keep your marketing honest. You need one question:
"How many booked jobs?"
Ask it about every ad, every email, every post and every review request. If the answer is a clear number, with a clear line back to what you spent, you're looking at results. If the answer is impressions, reach or engagement, you're looking at activity, and it's fair to ask for more.
On our Omni-Tracking page we put it this way: "Impressions are not revenue. Clicks are not revenue. Revenue is revenue." (Wundertre)
Want your marketing measured in booked jobs? Book a free discovery call.
Sources
Eric Ries, "Vanity Metrics vs. Actionable Metrics", via Tim Ferriss, May 2009
Eric Ries, "Why Vanity Metrics Are Dangerous", Next Big Idea Club, January 2016
Google Ads Help, About offline conversion imports
Google, Local Services Ads
Google Ads Help, Local Services Ads transition to Performance Max campaigns with pay-per-lead goals
FTC, Final Rule Banning Fake Reviews and Testimonials, August 2024
Google Business Profile Help, Tips to get more reviews
Wundertre, Omni-Revenue Framework
