When a contractor asks about Google Ads, they're not really asking about Google Ads

A one-man waterproofing operator gets on a call about Meta ads. Twenty minutes in, he asks: "Do you guys do Google Ads too?" On the surface, it reads like a platform preference. It isn't. It's a trust question wearing different clothes.

This happens constantly with contractors who've already paid an agency and gotten nothing. The Meta-vs-Google question is almost never about channel strategy. It's about looking for an exit before the conversation gets too far. If Meta didn't work last time (or if he suspects it won't work for his trade), Google feels like a safer bet. It's a lateral move, a way to keep evaluating without having to say "I don't trust this."

Understanding what's actually behind the question changes how you think about the whole decision.

The prior agency is the real subject of the question

When contractors say "I tried Meta and it didn't work," they almost never mean Meta as a channel failed them. They mean the agency running their Meta ads failed them. Those are different problems with different solutions, but the experience of paying and getting nothing tends to collapse them into one conclusion: Meta is the problem.

The move to Google is about getting away from the thing that burned them. New channel, clean slate, no bad memories attached. The logic makes emotional sense even when it's not strategically sound.

The tell is in how specific they are about why Meta didn't work. If a contractor can say "the leads were coming from outside my service area" or "we were getting people looking for jobs, not waterproofing work," that's useful. It points at something fixable: targeting was wrong, the offer was wrong, the creative was misleading. Those are agency execution problems, not platform problems. But if the explanation is vaguer ("it just didn't work," "I didn't get anything"), the platform probably isn't the issue at all.

One painter ASN worked with said exactly that: "I was getting people looking for jobs instead of people looking for to-do work." That's a targeting problem. The campaign was pulling in applicants instead of customers because nobody thought carefully about who they were actually reaching. Fixing that is a creative and audience decision, not a platform switch.

What Google Ads actually does versus what Meta does

There's a real strategic answer to the Google question, and contractors deserve to hear it plainly rather than getting a sales pitch for whatever the agency sells.

Google Search captures demand that already exists. When someone types "waterproofing contractor near me," they're ready to hire. Google puts your name in front of them at exactly that moment. The leads tend to be higher intent because the person searched first.

Meta creates demand. The waterproofing contractor's ad appears in front of someone who wasn't actively looking, but who matches the profile of someone who might need the work done. They're a homeowner in the right area, in the right age bracket, maybe living in a house old enough to have water intrusion problems. The ad interrupts their scroll rather than answering a search.

Neither channel is better. They solve different problems. Google is better if your market has high search volume for your specific service and you can compete on bid. Meta is better if you're trying to reach people before they're actively searching, or if search volume in your area is thin. A one-man waterproofing operator in a mid-sized city might find that Meta out-performs Google simply because there aren't enough people searching "basement waterproofing" per month to sustain a Google campaign at his budget, while Meta can surface him to thousands of relevant homeowners for the same spend.

The actual question worth asking is: does my market have enough search volume to make Google viable at my budget? If the answer is no, Meta isn't a consolation prize. It's the better tool.

The proof problem is what makes the channel question feel necessary

Here's the real gap. A contractor asks about Google because he's looking for something he can evaluate before committing. He doesn't have any proof yet that Meta will work for waterproofing in his market, and the agency he's talking to probably can't show him any. So he grasps for a familiar alternative.

Generic case studies make this worse. Showing a painter's 10x ROAS to a waterproofing contractor doesn't move him. Showing a lighting company's results to someone in water delivery actively backfires, because it signals that the agency doesn't understand why specificity matters. "You're showing me someone else's win" is what a burned contractor hears, even if he doesn't say it out loud.

What actually moves a skeptical contractor is proof from a business close enough to his that he can map the numbers onto his own situation. Safe Step, a rubber resurfacing company, ran a Meta campaign that produced 247 leads at $11 per lead on $2,800 in total spend. That's a concrete trade, outdoor surfaces, homeowners as the buyer. A waterproofing contractor looking at those numbers can do the math: at $11 per lead, with a close rate of even one in ten, what does a waterproofing job need to be worth for this to pay? Most jobs in that trade clear that threshold in the first hour of work.

Specific numbers from a real, adjacent trade reframe the channel question entirely. It stops being "should I trust Meta" and becomes "does the math work for me."

What to actually look for before committing to any channel or any agency

The channel decision matters less than the commitment structure around it. A contractor who signs a three-month contract and pays $1,500 upfront for Google Ads is in the same position as one who did the same for Meta. If the results don't come, they're locked in either way.

The right question isn't Google or Meta. It's: what does the agency ask for before they've proven anything? An agency that asks for a long-term contract and a large upfront payment before running a single ad is building in protection for themselves, not accountability to you. The lock-in comes first, then the work. If the work doesn't land, the exit costs you.

A no-contract, no-setup-fee structure inverts that. The agency's protection comes from actually producing leads, not from locking you in before they have to. That structure applies regardless of which channel the campaign runs on.

When a contractor asks "do you do Google Ads," the honest answer is to address what he's really asking: is there a way to test this without getting burned again? The channel is secondary.

What to do if you're in this position

If you're a contractor who's been burned by a Meta campaign and you're wondering whether Google would have been smarter, the first thing worth doing is figuring out whether the channel actually failed or whether the agency did. Talk to someone who can show you what the targeting and creative actually looked like on your last campaign. If nobody can explain what went wrong specifically, that's the tell.

If you're evaluating a new agency, ask what they'll show you before you sign anything. Ask for a case study from your trade or something close to it, with real numbers, not percentages and qualitative adjectives. And before you decide on Google or Meta, ask whether the market you're in has enough search volume to sustain a Google campaign at your budget. A good agency will tell you honestly if it doesn't.

If any of that sounds like the kind of conversation you want to have, ASN's contact page is the right next step.