Where a turf installer's ad budget should go first

WordStream by LocaliQ published its 2026 Facebook ads benchmarks last week. That completes the set a turf company needs to plan next spring’s spending: current published figures for Google search, for Local Services Ads and now for Meta’s lead campaigns. None of them reports artificial turf on its own, and the headline numbers mislead if you read them without the size of the job beside them. Here is how we read them for an installer.

Start with what a yard is worth

Thumbtack’s cost guide for artificial grass, updated in July, puts the national average for an installed project at $2,709 to $7,660, with most people paying around $4,569. For projects under 1,500 square feet it quotes $7 to $15 per square foot. That is vendor data from one marketplace, but it is the clearest public figure for turf, and it changes how every lead cost below should be read.

A lead is worth whatever share of it signs. Divide a channel’s cost per lead by your own close rate for that channel and you get the media cost of one signed yard. That number, set against a job worth thousands, is the one to compare across channels.

Google search: the priciest lead, closest to the decision

The benchmark studies have no turf category, so the nearest fit is Landscaping. LocaliQ’s home services study, covering April 2024 to March 2025, puts Landscaping at a median cost per click of $8.76, a conversion rate of 6.42% and a median cost per lead of $117.92. WordStream’s broader Home & Home Improvement category, for April 2025 to March 2026, came in at $8.33 a click with an 8.05% conversion rate.

Those are expensive leads, and for most installers they are still the best ones. Someone typing “artificial grass installation” and a city has already decided on turf and is choosing a company. The money goes further with three habits:

• Exclude mowing, sod, seed and DIY searches from the first day.
• Give pet turf and putting greens their own ad groups and landing pages, since those buyers ask different questions.
• Send every click to a page with photos of your own finished yards and an honest note on local rebates.

Local Services Ads: cheaper on paper, filed in the wrong drawer

WordStream’s guide to Local Services Ads, published in August, says the average lead costs “about $60”. It gives no sample, no category breakdown and no date range, so treat it as a rough marker rather than a benchmark.

The bigger problem for turf is the filing. Google’s category list has nothing for turf, so installers run under Landscaping services, and a Landscaping account draws mowing and yard cleanup requests. Google no longer credits leads for job types you do not serve, so each of those calls is one you pay for. Before you judge the channel, set the job types and service area tightly and check every lead against them for a month.

The channel is also changing shape. Since August, Google has been moving Local Services Ads into Google Ads as Performance Max campaigns with pay-per-lead goals. The first phase named lawn care among the home services going first; landscaping was not on that list. Once an account moves, manual max-per-lead bidding goes away. If you rely on manual per-lead caps to control spend, get the job types clean before the move takes that control away.

Facebook and Instagram: the cheapest lead, furthest from a signature

The new WordStream data, covering April 2025 to June 2026, puts Home & Home Improvement lead campaigns on Meta at a median $2.18 per click, a 5.32% conversion rate and $42.95 per lead, a little above the $41.26 in last year’s edition. That is roughly a third of the price of a Landscaping search lead.

The discount has a reason. A form lead from Facebook and Instagram is someone who tapped through while scrolling past a before-and-after video, usually earlier in the decision than a searcher. Turf suits the format, since a brown lawn beside a finished yard explains itself, but in our experience those leads need a call back within minutes, and more of them stop short of booking an estimate. We put that budget into the months when yards look worst, with photos and video from your own installs. How we run it is on our Meta ads page.

The arithmetic, with your own close rates

Here is the method with assumed close rates, chosen only to show how the comparison works. They are not benchmarks; your CRM has the real ones.

• Google search at $117.92 a lead, with one lead in four signing: about $470 of media per signed yard.
• Local Services at “about $60”, with one in four signing: about $240.
• Meta lead ads at $42.95, with one in ten signing: about $430.

Against a typical job of around $4,569, any of the three can pay. What breaks the arithmetic is the call nobody answers. Invoca’s 2026 home services report puts the share of calls answered by a person at 54% in Lawn & Trees, the sub-industry nearest to turf. An unanswered call from a paid lead costs the full price of the lead and often the job as well.

Where we would put the first dollars

For a residential installer with a phone that gets answered, we would start with Google search in the cities you install in, because it sits closest to a signed yard. Local Services comes alongside once screening clears, with the job types cleaned up before the account migrates. Meta comes third, timed to the brown-lawn months, once call-back speed is proven. In Arizona and Florida, where search interest on Google Trends stays high most of the year, that mix can run all twelve months. In the North, most of the money belongs in February through June.

What to do this month

• Pull last spring’s leads from your CRM and work out a close rate for each channel.
• Review your Local Services job types and service area before your account is moved.
• Build the negative keyword list for mowing, sod, seed and DIY searches now, not in March.
• Call your own number at lunch and again after five on a weekday, and note who picks up.
• Photograph and film this fall’s installs, before and after, for next spring’s Facebook ads.
• Set next year’s budget month by month for your region rather than as one flat figure.

The figures will shift again before spring, but the method holds. Our page for turf installers shows the full plan we would follow, and our Google Ads work covers search and Local Services together. Bring your close rates to the free consult and we will run the numbers with you.