How Incrementality Testing Justifies Your Marketing Spend in Home Services

As a CEO in the home services industry, you’re no stranger to the challenge of balancing operational costs with marketing investments. You want every dollar spent on marketing to drive real business growth, but how do you determine which channels and campaigns are truly contributing to your bottom line? Enter incrementality testing—a data-driven approach that goes beyond vanity metrics to provide clear, measurable insights into what’s actually working.

What is Incrementality Testing?

Incrementality testing is the process of isolating the impact of a marketing campaign or channel to determine how much additional revenue or conversions it drives beyond what would have happened organically. Unlike attribution models that often over-credit certain touchpoints, incrementality testing helps you distinguish between correlation and causation.

For home service businesses, where customer demand is often need-based and influenced by external factors like seasonality, market competition, and local trends, incrementality testing is a crucial tool for making smarter marketing decisions.

Why CEOs of Home Service Companies Should Care

Whether you run an HVAC company, a roofing business, or a pest control service, every dollar you invest in marketing should be accountable for real business impact. 

Here’s why incrementality testing should be on your radar:

1. Eliminates Wasteful Spend

Many marketing strategies rely on attribution models that inflate the impact of certain channels. For example, if a customer searches for “emergency plumbing near me” and clicks on your paid ad, would they have found your business anyway through organic search? Incrementality testing helps you determine whether your ad spend is truly driving incremental business or simply capturing customers who would have converted regardless.

2. Provides Clarity on High-Performing Channels

Home service companies often invest in a mix of paid search, local SEO, social media advertising, and direct mail. Without proper testing, it’s challenging to know which channels are truly driving new customers versus those that are just intercepting existing demand. Incrementality testing helps identify the channels delivering the highest return on investment, so you can allocate your budget accordingly.

3. Justifies Budget Increases (or Reductions) with Confidence

Marketing spend should be an investment, not an expense. With incrementality testing, you can confidently make the case to increase (or reduce) spending on specific campaigns based on real revenue impact rather than gut feeling. This data-driven approach provides executives and stakeholders with the transparency they need to make informed financial decisions.

4. Improves Customer Acquisition Strategy

The home services market is highly competitive, and understanding customer acquisition dynamics is key. Incrementality testing can help answer critical questions like:

• Are we attracting new customers or just retaining existing ones?
• Which promotions or offers actually drive incremental bookings?
• How much should we invest in brand awareness versus direct response campaigns?

How Power Digital Helps Home Services Companies Implement Incrementality Testing

At Power Digital, we take a strategic and data-driven approach to incrementality testing, helping home service businesses maximize their marketing investments. Our process includes:

Custom Test Design

We work with your team to develop customized incrementality tests tailored to your specific business goals and marketing channels. Whether it’s paid search, social media, or local SEO, we design controlled experiments to measure real impact.

Data-Driven Insights

Our proprietary technology and analytics team help track and analyze key performance metrics, ensuring you get clear, actionable insights. We use rigorous statistical models to differentiate between organic conversions and true incremental lift.

Optimization & Budget Reallocation

Based on the test results, we refine your marketing strategy—cutting ineffective spend and reallocating budget to the highest-performing channels. This ensures your marketing dollars are driving the most profitable growth possible.

Ongoing Testing & Performance Refinement

Marketing landscapes change, and so do customer behaviors. That’s why we continuously test, analyze, and optimize to ensure your marketing strategy remains ahead of the competition.

The Power of Incrementality Testing in Home Services

Let’s apply this to a real-life example. Consider a home cleaning service that invested heavily in Facebook ads. The business saw a surge in leads, but after running an incrementality test, they discovered that 40% of those conversions would have happened without the ads. This insight led them to reduce Facebook ad spend and shift budget toward Google Local Services Ads, which were shown to drive more incremental customers. The result? Lower customer acquisition costs and higher overall profitability.

Next Steps

Marketing isn’t just about getting more leads—it’s about getting the right leads at the best possible cost. Incrementality testing ensures that your marketing dollars are being spent wisely, eliminating waste, and driving true business growth. By adopting this data-driven approach, you can make smarter decisions, justify budget allocations, and ultimately, maximize profitability.

At Power Digital, we specialize in helping home service businesses unlock the full potential of their marketing investments. Ready to take a data-driven approach to your marketing strategy? Let’s talk!