ChatGPT ads · carpenters · Australia
Builder or carpenter? They ask ChatGPT first.
A deck board gives way under someone's foot. They don't know which trade fixes that, so they ask ChatGPT. The answer they get can have your ad under it, saying you take that exact job. I write it and I run it. We work for free and you cover your own ad spend. We only get paid a rev-share or a retainer, sorted once you have seen the results.
They don't know who does this work
Ask a homeowner who fixes a rotten deck board and most of them guess. Builder, handyman, chippy, the bloke who put the fence in. They ask ChatGPT because they don't want to ring the wrong trade and lose a day waiting.
That is the gap your ad closes. It says which of those jobs you take, before they pick up the phone.
What a homeowner types before they ring anyone
Most of them can't name the trade they need. Here is the kind of thing they type:
- "do I need a builder or a carpenter for a pergola"
- "my deck boards are rotten, can they be swapped on their own"
- "who fixes a door that won't close properly"
- "how much to build a deck off the back of the house"
- "built in wardrobes or flat pack, what does a carpenter charge"
- "can someone frame a wall to split one bedroom into two"
- "how much to replace skirting boards through a whole house"
Look at the pergola one. That person isn't searching for you yet. They're working out who to ring. I write hints aimed at that chat as well, and not only at the ones that say carpenter.
The ad that names your jobs
The ad itself is short. A title, a line of copy, and the page behind it:
- Title: "Carpenter for decks, doors and rot"
- Copy: "Decks, built ins, door and frame repairs. Fixed price before I start. Photos of finished jobs on the page."
Name the jobs you want and leave out the ones you don't. Write all carpentry and you'll get rung about a full house build and a wobbly chair in the same hour.
In NSW the licence number has to be in the ad itself, not only on your page, for residential building work. Other states write their own rule, so check yours. Send me your licence number and I put it in.
A click costs the same for a door or a deck
A click is someone tapping the ad, and it costs the same whichever job is behind it. OpenAI suggests starting at US$3 to US$5 for one. US dollars, so a bit more here. Say it takes 40 clicks before one of them books. I made the 40 up, and your own number comes out of month 1.
| A deck, say $6,000 to you in our dollars, as my example | 40 clicks is US$200. The deck carries that. |
|---|---|
| A sticking door, say $250, my example again | 40 clicks is still US$200. That one doesn't pay. |
Put your own 2 numbers in. Point the ad at the jobs worth driving to, and take the small repairs when they ring anyway. Nobody has published a carpentry number for Australia yet.
Your page has to answer builder or carpenter
People can't tell a carpenter from a builder from a handyman. Your first screen settles it before anything else. ChatGPT reads that page too, so it has to match the ad.
- One line that says what you are and what you take on.
- Photos of finished work. A deck, a built in, a rot repair.
- The jobs you don't do, in plain words.
- Your phone number on the first screen, not down the bottom.
- Your licence number, where your state licences the work you do.
- How you price. A fixed price for the job, or a day rate, said out loud.
Who gets the deck job now
I have no count to show you here, so read it as what I would expect. A builder with too much on hands a lot of this work down the line. Some comes out of the suburb Facebook group, where 3 blokes get tagged under the same photo of a rotten deck. Jobs sites take the rest, and a bloke with a ute and a drop saw quotes against you on price. The new one is the homeowner working out which trade to ring, hours before they ask anyone for a name.
No carpenter in Australia really knows about this yet, and if they do, they are doubtful because it is new.
Let ChatGPT show your business to high-intent customers
- ChatGPT has released paid ads, and this changes the marketing game absolutely.
- If you missed out on Facebook ads in 2007, where anything you posted would have popped off, don't miss out on the next big ad platform.
- Unlike Facebook, where people get interrupted mid doom-scroll, ChatGPT shows your business to people who are already researching something related.
- That makes ChatGPT a cheat code. The engine your customers ask for advice shows your business right under its answer.
- Most marketing agencies charge you thousands before you see any results.
- We work for you, for free. You just cover your own ad spend. The first month is free, so you see the results for yourself before you pay us anything.
- Then, if you want to keep getting those results month after month, we sort out a rev-share or a retainer. A rev-share is a cut of what it makes you. A retainer is a flat monthly fee. Agreed in writing before month 2 starts.
- In the free month, we don't get paid if you don't get paid. After that, it's the rev-share or the retainer you chose.
- Only 10 a month. The work up front is heavy and brings us no income at first. That is all we can take.
If the ads make you nothing, you pay us nothing and we stop there. You will have paid OpenAI for the clicks, and that is all.
3 things carpenters want to know
Half my calls are handyman jobs. Can we keep those out?
Mostly. The words in the ad decide who clicks it. Name decks, built ins and rot repairs, and the shelf bracket people go somewhere else. A few still get through, and you can say no on the phone.
They ask for a builder. Am I allowed to take that job?
That depends on the work and on your licence, and it's your call, not mine. What the ad can do is say which jobs you take. Then the person asking about a pergola knows whether to ring you or a builder before they call.
Can I run it only when the diary has a gap?
Yes. The daily cap and the pause are on the budget page for a tradie.
Where to read more
The offer and how I run the ads is on the ChatGPT ads page. A deck is quoted off a site visit and a drawing, and that case is on ChatGPT ads for service businesses. How the sum shifts from a call-out trade to a quoted one is on ChatGPT ads for tradies. The path from the pergola question to your phone is how a ChatGPT ad turns into a lead. If you pour the slab before the deck goes on, read the concreters page. If you hand the finished job over to a brush, the painters page covers that side.
30 minutes, then a straight answer
30 minutes on the phone, mostly questions about your business and your customers. You get 2 straight answers. Do people ask ChatGPT for what you do? And is it worth a run, where we only get paid a rev-share or a retainer, sorted once you have seen the results, to find out?