Everyone has a theory about how homeowners choose contractors. We decided to stop theorizing and just ask them.
We got tired of hearing conflicting advice about what homeowners actually care about when hiring contractors. So we went directly to the source: 1,600 homeowners who recently completed projects in HVAC, roofing, remodeling, and other home improvement categories. We asked them exactly how they found their contractor, what factors mattered most in their decision, and what would have changed their mind.
The Problem: Everyone’s Guessing About Homeowner Behavior
Most marketing advice for home service businesses is based on gut feeling. A consultant will tell you that reviews are everything because that’s what they think matters. An ad rep will insist that awareness advertising drives decisions because that’s what they’re selling. Your neighbor swears that door hangers work because he got one job from them once.
Meanwhile, you’re spending real money based on these assumptions. If you believe the wrong thing about how homeowners actually choose contractors, you end up investing in channels that don’t influence decisions and ignoring the ones that do.
What 1,600 Homeowners Actually Told Us
Here’s what we found when we surveyed homeowners who completed projects in the past 12 months:
Referrals still dominate initial awareness. 47% of homeowners said they first heard about the contractor they hired through a referral from a friend, family member, or neighbor. Online search came in second at 28%. Paid advertising — whether digital, TV, radio, or print — accounted for just 11% of initial awareness.
But here’s where it gets interesting: initial awareness and final selection aren’t the same thing.
The consideration set is larger than you think. The consideration set is larger than most business owners assume. Homeowners don’t hire the first company they hear about — especially for higher-ticket projects. Industry guidance consistently recommends getting at least three quotes before making a hiring decision, and the behavior we observe across home services categories bears that out. They’re building a list, doing research, and comparing options over days or sometimes weeks. If you’re only visible at the moment someone searches, you’re missing the entire window where that decision is actually forming.
Reviews matter, but not the way you think. 73% of homeowners read online reviews during their research process. But only 12% said reviews were the primary factor in their final decision. Reviews serve as a filter — they eliminate contractors from consideration, but they rarely cause someone to choose you over a competitor with similar ratings. If you have 4.8 stars and your competitor has 4.7 stars, that difference isn’t deciding the job.
Trust indicators trump everything else. When we asked homeowners to rank decision factors, “feeling like I could trust them” scored highest at 4.6 out of 5. Price came in third at 3.9. Availability and responsiveness tied for second at 4.2. This pattern held across all project types and price ranges.
What builds trust? Homeowners pointed to three things: how quickly the contractor responded to their initial contact, whether the estimate process felt professional and thorough, and whether the contractor seemed genuinely interested in solving their problem versus just making a sale.
The Role of Advertising in the Decision Process
Here’s where it gets interesting: advertising didn’t drive many initial contacts, but it influenced final decisions in ways homeowners didn’t always recognize. When we ask homeowners whether they’d heard of a contractor before a referral or search led them there, the answer is often yes.
Advertising creates familiarity. When someone gets a recommendation and already knows the name — from a truck in the neighborhood, a radio spot, a yard sign down the street — that prior exposure makes the referral feel more credible. It’s the difference between “I’ve never heard of them” and “Oh yeah, I know that company.” The referral gets the credit. The advertising made it land.
What This Means for Your Marketing Budget
If you’re allocating budget based on last-click attribution — giving all credit to whatever channel generated the phone call — you’re probably underinvesting in awareness and overinvesting in bottom-funnel tactics.
Here’s what the research suggests you should actually do:
Protect your referral engine. Since a majority of jobs start with a referral, anything that makes existing customers more likely to recommend you is high-leverage. That means faster response times, cleaner job sites, follow-up calls, and asking for referrals explicitly. If you’re spending $5,000 per month on Google Ads but don’t have a systematic referral process, your priorities are backward.
Build continuous brand presence. Homeowners are comparing multiple contractors over days or weeks. If you’re only visible at the moment they search, you’re missing the entire consideration phase. This is where consistent awareness advertising — whether that’s local broadcast, streaming audio, direct mail, or even vehicle wraps — builds familiarity that influences final decisions.
Optimize for trust signals, not just lead volume. Homeowners told us that responsiveness and professionalism during the estimate process were critical decision factors. If you’re generating 50 leads per month but losing jobs because it takes you 36 hours to respond, you don’t need more leads. You need operational changes that turn more leads into booked jobs.
Stop obsessing over review quantity. Once you’re above 4.5 stars with 50+ reviews, adding more reviews has diminishing returns. The homeowner who reads 200 reviews versus 75 reviews isn’t more likely to hire you. Focus on maintaining quality and responding to negative reviews professionally. Then invest that time and energy elsewhere.
Next Steps for Understanding How Homeowners Choose Contractors
- Survey your own customers about how they found you and what factors drove their decision. Ask them to rank trust, price, availability, reviews, and brand familiarity in order of importance. You might find your market differs from our national data.
- Track your lead sources, but also track what percentage of leads from each source actually convert to booked jobs. A channel that generates fewer leads but higher conversion might be more valuable than high-volume, low-quality sources.
- Test whether prior brand exposure changes conversion rates. If possible, ask new customers during the estimate: “Had you heard of us before your neighbor recommended us?” You’ll start to see patterns in how awareness and referrals work together.
- Audit your response time and estimate process. If homeowners say trust and professionalism matter more than price, but you take two days to return calls, you’re losing jobs before you get a chance to compete.
- Shift some budget from direct response to brand building, especially if you’re in a high-consideration category like roofing or remodeling. A 10% shift might yield better results than optimizing your Google Ads by another 0.2%.
The DW Creative Perspective
This research is exactly why we built our Media Mix Modeling and proprietary tracking tools. We wanted to move beyond last-click attribution and understand how awareness, consideration, and conversion actually work together in home services. When we plan media for clients, we use this homeowner research to model how different channels influence decisions at different stages — not just which channel gets credit for the phone call. If you’re making budget decisions based on Google Analytics last-click data alone, you’re probably leaving revenue on the table.
DW Creative is an agency built on evidence, not instinct. If you want help understanding how homeowners in your specific market choose contractors and where you should invest your budget, schedule a fit call with our team.
