Mike Andes talks to small business owners about how lead-generation platforms like Thumbtack drain their profits. One junk-removal business spent over $40,000 on ads last year while generating $176,000 in revenue, with most of that ad spend going to Thumbtack fees. Google's opaque suspension policies and dominance in local search make it worse.
Over $40,000.
Google will not tell you what you did wrong. My Google's been suspended for the past eight months. They say look at the terms and conditions. You're the business owner. You need to figure out what you did wrong.
Oh, that's huge. No one can find you outside of thumbtack without.
Google is king.
Yeah.
And there's over 200 junk removal companies in Charlotte.
You mean like with 26 reviews? If you get say 100 Google ones, I think you replace all of your thumbtack leads. But then you don't have to pay for them.
We've been. We just want to get off thumbtack so bad.
Well, because if on thumbtack, if you're paying $150 for a booked appoint and then they're doing like a hundred dollar takeaway, you're basically losing money.
Yeah. And so for all of last year, $176,000, we spent over $40,000.
Crazy.
On just advertising.
So out of the 40,000 you spent on advertising, how much would that you went think went to thumbnail thumbtack? Like 35 of it. Yeah.
Because it all depends on your clothes rate. Right, Right.
