Anyone Else Struggling with Expensive Leads but No Bookings?

SarzozaPhoto

I love Thumbtack. Just want to say that. In the last 45 days, I've have had 11 (EXPENSIVE) leads but ZERO and I mean ZERO bookings. All the leads have been people "just looking," hired someone else off Thumbtack, or weren't the decision maker. No refunds of course… So I'm hitting up the community to see if anyone else is struggling like this or with this same issue.

At first, I thought it was a fluke, but this is going far beyond what is statistically possible. I've been on Thumbtack for almost 2 years, and it has NEVER been this hard to book a client. Even when I had no reviews or hires. My prices haven't increased. I now have 58 jobs done and 34 reviews.

If others are struggling with this, what is the issue? My lead prices have exploded over the past 6 weeks, and every lead has 5 other pros contacted. So, competition is something that Thumbtack is pushing hard. But can that be it?

I don't want to hear "The Economy" because that's NOT it. Thumbtack is making money from all the leads they're selling.

Am I stuck in the 'odd pricing zone' of not charging enough, as my competition is willing to work in my price range for $10 an hour?

I'm baffled here. Do I just cut all Thumbtack spending as low as possible until this season passes?

Does anyone have insight?

SarzozaPhoto

A bit of an update. It seems that if Thumbtack is really pushing competition right now, it's best to let someone else bid high and let myself be one of Thumbtack's "Message This Pro Too" push at a lower price. I did that yesterday and still got a lead at a much more affordable price. I was one of the 4 other Pros they messaged. Good strategy? We'll see.

I know Thumbtack says the Top 5 Pros in the search book 85% of the work, but that just doesn't seem to be accurate.

I've also taken out ads on some social media platforms. Pretty affordable rates considering the current Thumbtack rates of $800 for zero bookings. So we'll see. Hope this is helpful for others.

jimmy_

si me paso algo similar me has sacado de mi tarjeta casi 300 y 0 contratos

itznae2u

Yes I just started and spent $107 and not one lead. I dont understand. I am trying to make money.

SarzozaPhoto

I attended the CommuniTEA meeting today, and it was very productive. Seems like they're working on some solutions. We gave some good feedback to them. I recommend attending one of the meetings to get some insights.

Beyondgazephotos

You are not wrong here, Thumbtack increased their prices this year aggressively. Users are completely oblivious to the fact that pros get charged money for sending an inquiry. Thumbtack has no intention to correct this since they can charge whatever they want to the pros. Wedding leads cost 60-80$, and am competing with 4-5 others. 90% of the leads prefer the cheapest option. This is unsustainable for any business owner. I am experimenting with ads as well, it might be a good idea for us to connect and share insights.

PTCoach

I am experiencing the same frustrations. If any of you want to connect to share ideas, I am very interested.

DustiO

@PTCoach and @Beyondgazephotos thank you for posting and for the feedback! Just to be sure, have you adjusted your Max Lead Prices to lead prices that make more sense for you and your business? And, we'd love to have you join our CommuniTEA networking sessions so you can connect with other pros and get suggestions/advice! They take place over Zoom and you can find all of the info here on our events page (we typically have some photographers there too!).

PTCoach

Yes, my Max Lead settings are very competitive. I would love to join the networking sessions. Is there a place to sign up? Is there a zoom link?

Beyondgazephotos

@DustiO

The core issue is price paid for ghosted leads. If 4 pros are contacted and none get hired it's thumbtacks poor lead quality. Thumbtack wins but the vendors loose. There is never an issue when pros are competing among themselves for a lead, eventually everyone gets an opportunity. Implementing a meaningful change that helps vendors would reduce ur bottomline in the short term, so i doubt there will be any transparency on if a lead hired anyone on your website.

Should be refunding automatically if a lead doesn't hire anyone on Thumbtack but contacted 5 wedding pros worth 50- 70 each. 200+ for thumbtack for a poor lead, zero for its users. Not sure how community networking would solve this.

Contrast to this, Zola shows when consumers hire a different vendor, helps understand the competition as well- transperency wins.

This year stats -

I got 3 wedding leads from thumbtack for avg of $47 per lead( 140).1 booked - had to offer lower price to lock in this booking. Shut everything off on thumbtack due to poor ROI.

spent about $500 on zola - 39 leads

$13 per lead. 6 booked. Most leads respond !

If you care about the ROI of your vendors, people will flock to your website. I could put up with the customer service if the ROI was atleast decent.

DustiO

@PTCoach I linked the page with all of the event info above :) You don't need to sign up - you just join the Zoom link when it's time for it to start!

@Beyondgazephotos this all totally makes sense, thanks for the additional context. Thumbtack does let you know if a pro was hired, however that is dependent on the pro/customer marking as hired, which often doesn't happen. We are actively working on ways to better capture when pros are hired.

PTCoach

Sorry, but I don't see it. Can you repost the date/time and link for me? Thank you.

DustiO

Yep! It's here in the events page - you'll see all of the upcoming sessions. We have them every other Thursday morning and then starting next week we will be having them on Tuesday afternoons every other week. Hope to see you there!

PTCoach

Ahhh, I see now. Thank you for your help!

Beyondgazephotos

@dustiO

I would be quite interested to see if thumbtack takes any action for clients that don't end up hiring anyone, i have come across several people that are quite great at communicating their issues on why they have backed off on hiring someone from thumbtack, infact couple of leads apologized extensively on why they aren't able to hire me or anyone else (does this qualify as a refund ?). It is quite normal for people to back off/test the waters on this platform. I understand client's might not always respond but your Pro's do ! "No hire" could happen to all the pros the client contacted, i havn't seen thumbtack take any action so far on this. And if the client says they have not hired anyone, and close their inquiry do you refund then ? If you don't intend to refund the cash you take from pros on an empty lead, then there's no point in capturing this data.

The client can simply change their mind or find pro on another platform. Why do pros still have to pay for this ? Feels Ethically dubious to charge pros for these kind of empty leads. Is Thumbtack interested in just getting the lead cost from pros or actually intending to get the pros high quality leads that will grow their small business ? Hope the org can get to a better place on their priorities.

If thumbtack's position on this issue is that all they will ever do is give pros a contact phone + email and take my money, then i'll very likely never use this platform and try and actively caution other vendors that use this. You can potentially do this if your lead prices were lower, but high cost for poor leads is just crappy formula.

The user interface and the platform is quite well built, please tweak your customer care attitude and refund policies to enable growth for your pros. Give transparency on who the client hired, check Zola on how they show all the vendors that a client hired. This fosters a sense of trust on platform and healthy competition.