How Tradespeople Can Generate More Leads in 2025

James Dooley: So, if I am looking for lead generation and I’m a trades business, what are some strategies that I should be looking into? Well, firstly, I highly recommend using a professional trades lead generation agency. I’m absolutely biased because I part-own FatRank.com, so I strongly recommend going over to Fat Rank, filling in the form, and seeing whether you qualify for the trades lead generation service. But there are other platforms as well, like Checkatrade, Bark, Yellow Pages premium advertising, Builder Builder, and TrustATrader. There are loads of different platforms you can use. I would strongly recommend trying them all on a trial period and seeing which generates the leads that give you the highest return on investment, and then double down on those platforms. You’ve also got other ways of generating leads for tradespeople such as SEO, PPC, or social media ads. So if you were a tradesperson, Kasra, what would you be doing? I’ve said diversify but then track your KPIs and start removing the ones that don’t get a return on investment. What KPIs should business owners be looking for if they are tradespeople? Kasra Dash: A commonly mentioned KPI that comes to mind is cost per lead. That’s what a lot of businesses track. But what you should actually be tracking is cost per sale or cost per acquisition. That’s essentially the cost of how much it takes you as a business to get money into your bank account. That’s one thing I would be tracking and I would also track that per channel. If you’re doing multiple channels—say £12,000 a month on PPC, £6,000 on SEO, £4,000 on Facebook or Meta ads—I would be tracking all of those individually. Then there are other channels like Bark, Yellow Pages, Checkatrade, and different lead generation services. Not all of them will generate a positive ROI. When we do a business audit, it’s very rare that every channel is positive. In many cases, they may be overspending. They might have been spending £4,000 or £5,000 a year for the last several years on premium Yell, and many people just assume they need to renew it or risk losing their website or rankings, which is not the case. So running an internal audit of spend, ROI, cost per acquisition, cost per lead, conversion rate on every channel—this helps you quickly figure out which channels you should stop spending on and where you should double down, whether that’s SEO or Fat Rank, for example. James Dooley: For sure. If you are a business owner looking for trades leads, I strongly recommend doing a few Google searches I’ve done for previous videos with me and Kasra on Fat Rank versus Checkatrade, Fat Rank versus Builder Builder, and Fat Rank versus Bark. You’ll realise that as the founder of Fat Rank I’m going to promote what we do, but I never say don’t use Checkatrade, Bark, TrustATrader, or Builder Builder. What I actually say is try them all and decide which gives you the highest return on investment. Track those KPIs and see what’s working best for you. Because being a plumber versus being a solar panel expert—Checkatrade might work well for one industry but not the other. Bark does quite well in the financial industry for accountants, but I wouldn’t use it too much for plumbers. So depending on your industry, you should test them all, run a small trial period, and then double down on the ones that give you the highest return on investment. If you’re looking for more trades leads, head over to FatRank.com, fill in the form, and see whether you qualify for our tradespeople lead generation service.