Why Your Social Media Ads are Failing (and How AI Quotes Can Fix Them)

Stop Wasting Your Marketing Budget

If you run a home or commercial service business, you’ve heard people tell you that you need a social media marketing strategy right? But for those who have gone down this path it really hasn’t usually panned out so well.  The reality is that you pay a marketing agency $2500 per month to manage $2000 per month ad spend that may get you some leads but most of them are ‘lead form’ contacts that don’t even remember clicking on your ad in the first place.  This is a losing game and the only winner is the ad agency.

Here’s how you stop buying crappy leads and start winning high intent business.

The Home & Commercial Services Marketing Trap

I talk to a lot of home services business owners and I was one.  If you’re planning on going down this road, let me first explain what this road entails.  There’s three traps that most fall into.  The first trap is that when you hire a marketing agency, they will create value.  BUT, the value they create will oftentimes be eaten up by what they charge.  They charge you for what they call ‘creatives’ - basically the images and text that they put together to make your ads.  They may want to do a photoshoot and pay someone to write ‘copy’ - the words that are meant to be the honey to attract your customers. 

"We hired a marketing guy. He was pushing Google ads, Facebook ads, SEO... but it didn't generate quality leads. The leads that came through, they're all kind of tire kickers. It was a lot of wasted time... they just say 'too much money, bye' and that was it."

— Evan Pantano & Russell Olschner, Owners of Texas Handyman Here > Episode 26 | Austin, Texas

The next trap on this novice social media journey is that you probably can’t do it yourself by creating content and managing the Facebook and Instagram accounts unless you’re really prepared to spend a lot of time on them.  Meta (Facebook and Instagram) Ads are pretty complicated if you want to try to manage from there.  It’s kind of like flying a 747 in that it's overcomplicated and frankly intimidating to a small business owner that does other things besides Meta ads.

Maybe you do get some ads launched with either the marketing agency or you navigate the cockpit of Meta Ads and launch some ads.  You’re probably launching ‘form’ ads which is when the prospect sees your ad, hits “learn more” and a form pops up with all of their contact info that Meta stores.  It’s filled out and submitted in two clicks.  These lead forms are the epitome of ‘low-intent’ leads.  In my experience most of these leads don’t even remember clicking on your ad.  Maybe they had too much to drink or maybe their toddler did it but these leads seem to equate to ghost leads who don’t answer the phone when you try to contact them.

The Solution: Traffic Over Leads

Now Meta knows that getting the customer details are important for companies who have dedicated sales people or processes to pressure sell them with relentless calls, emails and texts.  First, no potential customer likes being stalked like that  and second, what small home services company has that kind of sales machine working for them?  Very few!  Moreover, Meta prices those form leads so they are 10-50x more expensive than regular traffic ads.  Why?  Because traffic ads will do one thing - the prospect clicks and goes to your website.  They don’t capture their contact info.  Swivl’s Max Ads is the easiest and cheapest way to create and publish dynamic videos, images, and carousels just by plugging in your website url and letting AI do the rest.

Now, the value is still there potentially.  But if your website sucks, you’re not getting anything from that prospect.  They will remain just a visitor.  But if your website is engaging that’s a different story, but alas, the vast majority of home services websites are really not engaging but that is changing.  Up until last year in fact, the only website ‘conversion’ tools that engaged and converted the traffic was a telephone number or a form.  Meh.  Last year (2025) we started seeing online scheduling functions that helped convert some visitors more than just a phone number or form. 

Now, let’s put ourselves in the mindset of the prospect.  What do they want?  What question are they asking themselves and really want you to answer?  The answer is easy: “How much will it cost!”  

The Solution: High-Intent Conversion via Swivl

"The person who's able to quote the quickest is usually the one that's going to get the job... I quote within about five minutes of being on that customer's property."

— Ryan Rhodes, Owner of Mystique Waters > Episode 12 | Mobile, Alabama 

The answer to scratch that itch is AI estimators or what we at Swivl call “Instant Quote” since some people are still afraid of embracing the AI revolution in any form.  The ability to engage the website traffic in the primary question that they have of “How much does it cost?” is just the apex predator of website conversion tools.  And we’ve seen how successful it actually is.  The prospect has to describe his or her project, answer a few clarifying questions about the project like quality level, add-ons, etc., and add some photos and Swivl’s AI estimator goes to work, providing a price window between X and Y.   Let’s say a customer comes on and asks how much to replace a water heater.  If they uploaded images but it's not clear the AI will ask to clarify if it's a 40 gallon gas for example and if the expansion tank will require changing.  The more questions are answered, the tighter that window gets.  The more you train your AI, the tighter the window gets.

With this Instant Quote tool, you are engaging the customer; satisfying their immediate curiosity, and providing them with a sense of instant gratification, something that builds confidence in your services without even getting on site yet!  By providing project details, the prospect is building high intent naturally.  

The Flywheel Effect 

Now, after the prospect has engaged enough and they’ve filled out the Instant Quote form their mindset is different.  The lead is warm.  They’ve already invested time and emotion in your brand and you’re already into a trust stage.  

"Don't ever convince or sell something that isn't necessary or beneficial. I consider a good sale as not just selling something, but retaining that customer lifelong... I consider a good sale as... earning people's trust."

— Aaron Cleveland, Owner of Ace’s Plumbing > Episode 25 | Hilton Head, South Carolina

Closing the deal is now much easier.  They have a ballpark figure and the ‘sticker shock’ is gone.  Now, your follow up isn’t a sales call, it's a consultation.

Now you’re building real value.  Good leads are worth much more than the cost of the traffic or the conversion.  They lead to better jobs, more referrals and a sustainable business model that doesn’t rely on an agency.  

Cheap traffic + Hi Conversion website = Low-cost, high-intent leads.

The Conclusion: Stop Chasing, Start Converting

The old way of digital marketing just doesn’t work.  Paying a middle man to manage expensive lead forms where the lead ghosts because they don’t remember hitting the form in the first place is a relic of the past now.  Today, if you give your prospects value you win.  

By adopting the Traffic Ads to Conversion strategy - by using Swivl’s Max Ads and Instant Quote, you’re doing three things that your competitors aren’t:

1. Lowering overhead:  You’re creating work at a lower cost structure.  The lowest Cost Per Lead (CPL).
2. Respecting your prospect’s time:  You’re answering that main question they have before they start looking for a solution - “how much?”:   You’re answering that now, not later.
3. Filtering for intent: You’re not just collecting names and numbers of people who click something, you’re starting a conversation with someone who has already invested and ‘bought into’ your pricing and process.

Get rid of the agency tax.  It doesn’t have to be a cost of doing business.  When you own the traffic’s destination and provide the engaging interactive experience that converts traffic, your marketing stops being an expense and starts being the engine that drives your business’s growth.

It’s time to stop wasting your marketing budget and start giving your customers the instant answers they’re looking for.

Ready to see how an AI Estimator can transform your website? Visit Swivl.tech and let’s turn your traffic into your best customers.

------------------

*Swivl’s Max Ads is an extremely inexpensive way to create great ads with Max AI.  Ad creation is free and the Max Ads will create multiple versions of your ads to then optimize your spend so over time, your ad spend will move toward the better performing versions and away from the lesser performing versions.  Cost per clicks is usually under $0.50! 

*With Swivl, the AI Estimator or Website Instant Quote gets even smarter.  Every time you use the AI Estimator tool out in the field, or every tim you upload older estimates, or every time you upload supplier invoices, or every time you adjust some of the assumptions the AI makes on initial iterations or every time you complete a job and AI can compare actual costs to estimated costs, the AI gets smarter and starts to think like you think and the ‘window’ gets smaller and smaller until the AI is fully trained and can accurately create quotes as good if not better than you!