Here is a number most Facebook ads gurus will not show you. Across 17 metros and 834 roofing companies, we confirmed 141 live Meta ads. Total. The same companies keep 4,572 ads live on Google. For every roofing ad in a Facebook or Instagram feed, there are 32 on Google.
Only 75 of the 447 advertising roofers buy Meta ads at all, and they average under 2 live ads each. In Oklahoma City and Tulsa, the two busiest roofing ad markets in our pull by Google volume, the live Meta count is zero. Not low. Zero, across 100 companies checked.
Why working roofers skip the feed
Roofing demand is event-driven. A homeowner is out of the market for 20 years, then a leak or a hailstorm puts them in it overnight, and the first move is a search. Google intercepts that moment. A feed ad, by contrast, reaches people at a random moment, almost none of whom have a roof problem today.
The Oklahoma City case makes the logic vivid. It is the heaviest Google market in our data, 549 live ads, because hail and tornado seasons produce constant, insurance-funded demand. And it has zero live Meta ads. When demand arrives on its own schedule and announces itself in the search bar, the roofers closest to that demand spend nothing to interrupt people who do not have it yet.
The exception that explains the rule
Look at the top of that chart. Seattle, the lowest-storm market in our pull, carries 28 live Meta ads, a fifth of the national total. And 25 of the 28 come from one company, Mountaintop Metal Roofing. One Seattle metal roofer runs more Meta ads than any entire metro outside Seattle.
That is not an accident. Metal roofing is the one product in this trade that behaves like a considered purchase. It is a premium upgrade, chosen months in advance, researched, compared, financed. Considered purchases are what feed advertising is actually good at: reaching the homeowner during the long think, not the emergency. Where there is no storm to force the decision, the roofer who nurtures the decision wins it.
One Seattle metal roofer runs 25 live Meta ads. Entire storm metros run zero. The channel fits the product, not the trade.
So when is the lane worth taking?
The data points to three honest cases.
You sell a planned product. Metal roofs, premium re-roofs, solar-ready systems, anything bought on a timeline rather than after a storm. The one heavy Meta advertiser in our pull is exactly this business. If your product needs weeks of consideration, the feed is where consideration happens.
You retarget. A homeowner who visited your estimate page and left is no longer a cold impression. Only 37 of the 447 advertisers in our data run both platforms, which means almost nobody is following their own search traffic into the feed. That follow-up audience is small, cheap, and warm.
You want the empty lane in a dark market. In metros where the feed has zero or near-zero roofing ads, a modest budget makes you the only roofer a homeowner sees between storms. That is a brand position bought at floor prices. It will not fill this month's calendar, and it is not supposed to. It decides whose name gets searched when the storm does come.
What not to expect
Do not expect Meta to replace search, and be suspicious of anyone selling that. The 447 working advertisers in our data have voted with 32 times more ads on Google, and the two most demand-rich markets in the country ignore the feed completely. If your search coverage is thin, fix that first. Google ads for roofers shows exactly what the field runs there.
And if you do take the lane, go in knowing what the few existing advertisers in your metro are running. You can browse any advertiser yourself in the Meta Ad Library, one company at a time. Or we do the whole market for you: Muffin Intel tracks the ads, we read them, the written benchmark lands inside one business day.
Frequently asked questions
Do Facebook ads work for roofing companies?
For lead volume, rarely, and the market says so. Across 834 roofing companies in 17 metros, only 75 run any Meta ads and just 141 are live in total, against 4,572 on Google. Roofing demand appears suddenly and goes to search. Meta works in narrower jobs: considered products like metal roofing, retargeting your own site visitors, and cheap brand presence where the feed is empty.
Why do so few roofers advertise on Facebook?
Because the buying moment is search-shaped. A homeowner enters the market when a leak or a storm forces the decision, and their first act is a Google search, which is why 409 of the 447 advertisers in our pull buy Google ads. The pattern is strongest where demand is heaviest: Oklahoma City and Tulsa, the two busiest Google markets we counted, have zero live Meta ads between them.
What kind of roofing business should try Meta ads?
The clearest fit in our data is the planned-purchase roofer. The one heavy Meta advertiser across all 17 metros is a Seattle metal roofing company running 25 live ads, selling a premium product that homeowners research for months. If your work is emergency repair and storm replacement, put the budget into search first. If your work is chosen on a timeline, the feed can carry the consideration phase.
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Written by Sarah Mitchell, Muffin Media
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