You're spending money on marketing. But do you actually know what's working?

Most tree service owners I talk to can tell me what they spent last month on Google Ads or Facebook. But when I ask them their cost per lead by channel, or their breakeven CPC, I get blank stares.

If you're not tracking the right metrics, you're flying blind. And blind pilots crash.

The difference between a tree service doing $500K and one doing $2M isn't just more marketing spend. It's knowing exactly which dollars are working and which ones are burning a hole in your wallet.

Today, I'm walking you through 9 dashboard metrics that separate guesswork from growth.

If this feels like a lot, don't panic. Start with three numbers: cost per lead, cost per job, and close rate by channel. Layer the rest in later.

Here's the full breakdown and why each one matters:

Here's why this matters: Let's say you're getting leads from Google at $50 each and Facebook at $80 each. You might think Google is winning.

But when you look at cost per job, you realize Google leads close at 20% while Facebook leads close at 45%. Suddenly, Facebook's cost per job of about $180 beats Google's $250.

Without tracking both metrics, you'd be doubling down on the wrong channel.

Raw numbers are good. Trends are better.

You should be looking at:

When you track trends, you can spot problems early. If your cost per lead has been creeping up 5% per month for three months, you have a problem. Catch it at month two instead of month six when you've burned around an extra $10K.

Once you know these numbers, you can make real business decisions.

If your average job is worth $2,500 and your profit margin is 35%, that's $875 in profit per job. If your cost per job from Google is $200, you're making $675 per job in profit.

Now you know: you could afford to push cost per job all the way up to $875 and still break even. You've got $675 of room to scale while still making money on every job.

But most owners set a lower target—say $400–$500—so they're growing and still putting real cash in their pocket.

That means you can increase your Google budget until your cost per job hits your target or your lead volume maxes out. Most owners never do this because they don't know their numbers.

They're scared to spend more because they're operating on gut feel instead of data. Meanwhile, their competitor who knows these metrics is buying up all the market share.

Most tree service owners try to track this stuff in Excel or Google Sheets. That works until it doesn't. If you're serious about this, look into:

The goal isn't fancy software. It's having the right numbers in front of you when you need to make decisions.

Can we talk about "marketing gurus" for a second?

I see so many tree service owners getting sold on "we'll get you more leads" by agencies who have no idea what happens after the lead comes in.

They'll brag about generating 50 leads a month. Sounds great. Until you realize you only closed 3 of them and spent $4,000 to book $6,000 in work.

More leads isn't the goal. More profitable jobs from the leads is the goal.

Any agency that isn't asking about your conversion rates, average job values, and profit margins is selling you snake oil. They're optimizing for the wrong metric.

If someone's managing your marketing and they can't tell you your ballpark cost per job by channel they're running for you, fire them. Today.

You're in business to make money, not to collect leads.

P.S. If you want help building a simple dashboard for this, click reply and say ‘numbers’ and we can talk.

Written by Jacob Hastings
Head of Growth & Client Strategy at Growth Ring Media