How Foundation Repair Contractors Can Prepare for End of Year Slowness

Many foundation repair contractors see their lead volume drop at the end of the year. When the phone goes quiet in November and December, it is natural to wonder whether the marketing has stopped working. Often it has not. In many markets, fewer homeowners search for foundation repair in the colder months, and that slowdown is something you can plan for.

The chart below is redrawn from Google Trends and shows the shape of national searches for foundation repair over five years. Each year there is a clear dip around the turn of the year, and searches climb back in the first months of the new year. This is a national pattern, and your market may differ. The same service can peak in different months in different places, depending on your soil, climate and weather, so your own call history is the best guide to where your slow months fall.

In this post, we look at what happened to the cost per click and the cost per conversion for one of our clients in December 2024. We also share ways to get through the slow months, from building organic SEO to offering seasonal incentives that keep your crews busy.

Why Do Lead Costs Rise During the Slow Months?

Google Ads runs a live auction every time someone searches. Advertisers compete for the ad spots, and the price of a click depends on how many of them are bidding and how much they are willing to pay. When fewer homeowners search but just as many contractors keep bidding, each click can cost more. It comes down to supply and demand:

• Fewer searches. Fewer homeowners look for foundation repair around the holidays, so there are fewer chances to win a lead.
• Steady or rising competition. Some contractors raise their ad budgets to keep the phone ringing through the slowdown. More money chasing fewer searches can push up the cost per click, and the cost per lead rises with it.

The graphic below shows the same idea. Homeowner demand drops in the slow season, and competition between advertisers can rise at the same time. When the two move apart, clicks and leads usually get more expensive. Knowing this can help you adjust your plan and avoid overspending when fewer homeowners are looking.

What Happened to One Client's Lead Costs in December 2024?

In December 2024, one of our foundation repair clients saw their cost per conversion in Google Ads rise 582%, from $121.59 in November to $829.21 in December. That is close to seven times as much for each conversion. When we reviewed the account, the campaigns were not the cause. The jump came from the auction: fewer searches and more competition for each click.

How Do You Know When Paid Ads Stop Paying Off?

The number to watch is what a lead is worth to you. Some owners call it Average Dollar per Lead, or ADL.

What Is Average Dollar per Lead?

Average Dollar per Lead is the average revenue each qualified lead brings in. To work it out, divide your total revenue by the number of qualified leads. It tells you how much you can spend to win a new lead and still make a profit.

Here is how it looked for the client above:

• Their Average Dollar per Lead was $4,500.
• In December, paid leads cost more than $800 each, or $1,200 to $1,400 for each qualified lead, which was more than their marketing budget could carry.

When the cost of a lead climbs past the share of its value your margins can carry, spending more on paid ads that month may stop making financial sense. Relying only on pay per click ads through the slow months can strain your cash and your patience.

How Can Organic SEO Keep Leads Coming in the Slow Months?

Organic search results are the unpaid listings on Google. There is no auction for them, so the cost of an organic lead does not climb when the ad auction heats up. SEO and content built up through the year can keep leads coming in when paid clicks get expensive.

For the same client, paid leads cost more than $800 each in December. Their organic leads that month held steady at about $250 each.

Another way to see the value is Ahrefs' organic traffic value. It is an estimate of what the same visits would have cost if you had bought them through Google Ads. It is not a record of real spend, and your analytics remain the true count of visits.

For December 2024, Ahrefs estimates that buying the same visits on Google Ads, for searches like "foundation repair near me", "concrete repair near me" and "basement waterproofing near me", would have cost $36,959. That estimate uses the average cost per click across the year, so it does not include the higher December prices.

Organic traffic can keep your lead volume steadier in the slow months at the end of the year. In the chart below, the orange line is organic traffic and the light blue line is paid traffic for the same client through 2024. Organic carried most of the visits, even through the December drop, and the paid line is barely visible beside it.

Organic visibility takes time to build, and SEO usually takes months to show results. The work that pays off in December usually has to start many months earlier.

What Can You Do to Prepare for the Slow Months?

How to Plan for End of Year Slowness Before It Arrives

In most markets, a slowdown is a normal part of the foundation repair year, and it is easier to handle when you see it coming. The contractors who get through it best usually plan their budget around their own season, build organic visibility before they need it, and know what a lead is worth to them.

If you want the slow months planned around your own market, our Growth Planner builds a month by month plan from your goal and your season.