A blended LSA + Search + Database Reactivation engine for HVAC contractors, priced on Searchlight Digital's 2026 benchmarks, sold behind a guarantee that refunds below the floor and gives the overage away above it. Every soft spot is called out where it lives.
Searchlight's funnel is lead → book rate → booked appointment → close → paying customer. Cost per booked appointment is CPL ÷ book rate. LSA is the cheapest booked appointment and the highest ROAS in the trade, which is why it leads the mix.
| Channel | CPL | Book | Cost / booked | Cost / paying | Ticket | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LSAlead the mix | $51 | 44% | $116DAD real: $153 | ~$233 | $2,110 | SL Feb |
| Brandedvolume-capped | $34 | 55% | $61 | $104 | $2,398 | SL Jan |
| Non-brand Searchration it | $149 | 38% | $396 | $804 | $2,516 | SL Jan |
| Reactivationnear-free media | list | — | ~$0 | ~$8 | $1,200 | see 02 |
| Blend @ $23K media | — | — | ~$180 | $259 | ~$2,050 | ~88 paying / yr |
These are Jan/Feb peak-heating-season figures; book rates and tickets sag in shoulder months, so the headline is annualized ~15% below peak. And non-branded Search at $804 per paying customer breaches Searchlight's own $625 first-job profit line, so it is rationed to a small slice, never scaled. LSA, branded and reactivation are what hold the blend at a profitable $259.
Texting and emailing a contractor's own dormant customers is the lowest-cost, highest-return lever in home services, because the trust barrier is already gone. It is also the number no benchmark house audits, so it is modeled conservatively and deliberately kept out of the guarantee.
Industry reporting runs hotter, 20–30% conversion on the contacts who reply, 20–100× ROI, single campaigns under $500 recovering six figures. Modeled here at the floor of that range: a 3–5% take on the active dormant list, a $1,200 blended ticket (maintenance and small repair skew), ~$8 all-in cost per booked job once tooling and SMS are counted. One real anchor from the field: 800 dormant contacts booked 14 appointments in the first five days.
Reactivation volume is entirely a function of the client's list size and hygiene. A 4,000-contact shop with clean records is a goldmine; a new operator with 300 stale rows produces almost nothing. That dependency is exactly why reactivation revenue is real in the model but never counted toward the guaranteed floor, a thin list can never trigger a refund.
Total marketing budget runs 5–15% of revenue depending on size (smaller and hungrier spend more of it). The split between paid acquisition and reactivation is not fixed, it tracks how big an installed base the company already has to mine.
| Company size | Mktg % of rev | Typical list | Paid ads | Reactivation | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under $1Mstartup / early | 10–15% | < 500 clean | 80% | 20% | Little to reactivate, must buy growth |
| $1M–$3Mscaling | 8–12% | 500–3,000 | 65% | 35% | Base big enough to mine every quarter |
| $3M+established | 5–8% | 3,000+ | 55% | 45% | Installed base is the cheapest channel |
The acquisition-to-retention math (new customers cost 5–7× more than reactivating an old one) is well established, but the exact size splits above are directional, blended from home-services agency budget guidance, not a single audited table. Treat them as starting allocations to tune per client, not laws.
The client pays Google directly for media; RPC charges a performance fee per booked appointment. That single choice is what makes the guarantee safe, above the floor RPC's only exposure is uncaptured fee, never lost ad spend. Below the floor, RPC refunds. Above it, the extra is half price up to a cap, then free.
The floor counts booked appointments, but the client judges you on sold jobs, so the monthly report shows both and the floor is set low enough to stay profitable even at Searchlight's close rates. And a fresh account runs below benchmark for its first 60–90 days, which is exactly why the guarantee doesn't switch on until month 3. The collar caps RPC's upside by design, that predictable, capped bill is the thing that closes the owner; the deleted rev-share idea was dropped on purpose, since a client can quietly under-report closed revenue.
The floor is 8 booked at a $250 CPBA. Real blended cost is ~$180, and DAD alone booked 13 on a single channel in one month. You clear the floor with 40–90% headroom in a normal month, so the refund is a closing device, not a funding line.
Because the client funds the media, an appointment above the floor costs RPC almost nothing to produce. Half-price to the cap recovers most of the fee while still capping the client's bill; fully free would leave real money on the table every good month, so the cap is where the line is drawn.