What to ask an agency before it markets your concrete work

Mid-March is an odd stretch for a concrete company in the North. Homeowners start calling about driveways that cannot be poured until the ground and the nights cooperate, builders are firming up spring foundation schedules, and agencies call because they know the owner is about to spend. Crews in the South are already pouring. Whichever side of that line you work on, this is the month most owners decide who runs their marketing for the season.

A handful of questions separates the agencies that understand this trade from the ones selling a home services package with the nouns swapped. Put them to anyone you meet, including us.

Start with the question most pitches skip

Ask: “Which Google ad placements can my company actually use?” A good answer starts with the one you cannot buy.

Google’s Local Services Ads, the badge-topped ads that sit above the map, cover a long list of home trades. That list includes Foundations services, General contractor, Landscaping services and Handyman. It has no category for concrete, masonry, paving or driveways.

• Foundation repair and waterproofing may fit Foundations services, which Google describes as “installing, raising, repairing, maintaining, and waterproofing basements, crawl spaces, and other foundations”.
• A company holding a general contractor license may fit the General contractor category.
• Both are judgment calls. Both go through Google’s screening, which it says averages three to four weeks, and both now carry the single Google Verified badge Google introduced last October.

For driveways, patios, steps and brick, the paid route is ordinary search advertising, paid per click. An agency that promises a badge for your driveway work has not read the category list.

That is not bad news. Search is where most of the work is: CallRail’s January 2025 report on small businesses found Google Ads produced 47% of qualified leads, against 23% for organic search and 15% for Google Business Profile listings.

Questions that show whether an agency knows the trade

“How will you split my services?” Flatwork, decorative, foundations and masonry are separate searches. A homeowner typing “stamped concrete patio” and a builder hunting for a foundation sub need different pages. In California they are separate licenses too: C-8 for concrete work, C-29 for masonry units, veneer and paving. The CSLB’s advertising guidelines bar advertising outside your classification, and the board’s own example comes from this trade: a C-29 masonry contractor cannot advertise electrical work unless it also holds a C-10. One “concrete and masonry services” page feeding one ad group is the cheap version of the job.

“Where will my license number go?” California requires it in all forms of advertising, and the CSLB puts the civil penalty for a first offense at $100 to $1,000. Nevada’s rule, NRS 624.720, lists websites and directories among the places it must appear. Listen for a precise answer: ad text, site footer, Business Profile, truck door.

“What will my primary category be, and why?” Whitespark’s 2026 ranking factors survey, published in November, put the primary Google Business Profile category at the top of its map pack factors. A company that earns most from decorative patios and one that lives on builder foundations should not choose the same category. Ask the agency to name yours and justify it from your revenue, not from what the setup form suggested.

“How will you get reviews?” BrightLocal’s 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey, out last month, found 47% of consumers won’t use a business with fewer than 20 reviews, and 74% care only about reviews from the last three months. The FTC’s final rule from August 2024 bans incentives conditioned on a review saying something positive. The answer you want is a request after every finished job, sent around the day the homeowner first parks on the new slab, and an owner reply to every review.

“Who answers when my crew lead is mid-pour?” Nobody on a finishing crew can take a call with a float in hand. An agency should ask how calls are routed during a pour before it spends a dollar sending more of them.

What the first ninety days should look like

For concrete and masonry, being found comes first, because the season does not wait and there is no Local Services Ads slot to lean on while the rest is built. A plan we would sign off on:

• Weeks 1 to 4, being found. Search campaigns split by service and town, with negative keywords for do-it-yourself, bagged mix and job seekers. The Business Profile gets its primary category and a service area inside Google’s guideline of about two hours’ drive from your base.
• Weeks 1 to 3, alongside it, tracking. Every call and form tagged by source, by service and as homeowner or builder.
• Weeks 3 to 8, reasons to choose you. A gallery for each job type, the license number on every page, a page that explains what a written estimate covers, and review requests going out.
• Weeks 8 to 12, keeping the work. A builder follow-up list, sealing reminders for past driveway customers, and a word with the neighbors after each pour.

An agency starting in mid-March that promises all of it before the first April pour is skipping something. Ask which part.

What a monthly report should show

A useful report follows the job from the first call to the signed contract:

• Calls answered and missed, by hour of the day, so the pour-day gaps show.
• Leads by service, and by homeowner or builder.
• Estimates written and jobs signed, by source.
• Cost per signed job for each channel.

That last line matters more here than in most trades. No benchmark covers concrete alone, but the nearest published one, the Construction & Contractors (General) category in LocaliQ’s 2025 home services report, had the cheapest clicks of its 16 categories at $5.31 and the lowest conversion rate at 2.61%, for a median cost per lead of $165.67 between April 2024 and March 2025. Cheap clicks and few leads means an agency can report plenty of traffic and very little work. Ask to see signed jobs on every report.

What we are telling concrete and masonry owners this month

• Ask every agency which Google placements you can buy, and listen for “there is no concrete category” in the first answer.
• Write down your license classes and the services you want more of, and hold each proposal to that list.
• Check that your license number appears on your site, your profile and every ad or directory listing before spring spending starts.
• Choose your primary Google category from last year’s revenue rather than habit.
• Ask for reviews from any winter work, such as interior slabs and repairs, so the profile shows something recent when spring searches begin.
• Ask each agency for a sample monthly report with signed jobs on it, not just leads.

An agency worth hiring for this trade answers these plainly, starting with the slot you cannot buy. Our page for concrete and masonry contractors sets out how we plan the season, and our Google Ads work shows how the search campaigns run alongside your Business Profile.