Elie's Fencing: Deck and Fence Contractor Google Ads Case Study

Twice the calls in one season.

Elie's Fencing builds fences and decks in Ottawa, and we've run its Google ads since 2019. In 2026 the calls from those ads more than doubled on a budget that grew by less than a fifth. This Elie's Fencing case study shows the numbers, where they come from, and what we can and can't say about why.

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Deck and fence contractor Google Ads case study: a grey composite privacy fence with black posts around a backyard pool and cabana, built by Elie's Fencing

5 ★ on Trustindex (5.0 from 49 reviews)
Owner-run since 2010
863 College St, Toronto

The facts

Client: Elie's Fencing Solutions
Trade: Fences and decks, plus backyard makeovers and fence rentals
Town: Ottawa, Ontario, with Kanata and the other Ottawa suburbs
What we did: Google ads, separate for fences and decks; a phone number on the ads; the website quote form; brochures and flyers
Working with us since: March 2019
Sources: Google's own call log, the website's quote form and the ad account's spend

Results at a glance

477
phone calls from Google ads, March to September 2026, up from 203 over the same months of 2025. Of the 2026 calls, 246 lasted 30 seconds or longer.
298
quote requests from the website, March to September 2026, with forms the account counted twice removed.
Ad spend
$24,292
in the 2026 season, against $20,633 in 2025.
That's 18% more money for more than twice the calls.
Cost per call or quote request
Down from $59 over the 2024 season to $25 in April 2026 (April 2026 is from a second Elie's ad account).
Across the whole 2026 season on the main account it was $45.
1,216
phone calls from the ads since March 2019.
Fence ads on their own
1,613
calls and quote requests since 2019, at about $38 each.

These are calls and quote requests, not signed jobs. The account doesn't hold job data, so we don't claim jobs we can't count.

Results depend on your market, your budget and how fast you answer the phone.

The challenge

Fence and deck work in Ottawa has a short, loud season. From spring to early fall the phone rings. In the dead of winter, almost nobody is shopping for a fence. A fence company has a few months to fill the year, and plenty of homeowners call two or three companies before they pick one.

That makes two things matter more than anything else: showing up when someone types "fence company" and their town, and knowing which ads are actually making the phone ring. Without the second, you're guessing with real money in the busiest weeks of the year.

What we did

Get found: ads for the searches Ottawa homeowners type

We split the Google ads by job: fences, decks, backyard makeovers and fence rentals each get their own ads and their own budget, plus a small set of ads on the company's own name. The ads chase the searches homeowners actually type when they're ready to hire: "fencing ottawa", "fence companies ottawa", "deck builders ottawa", "kanata fence companies".

In the first few years we also tried display and video ads. They brought in almost nothing, so the money moved to search ads, where people are looking for a fence company right now.

The budget follows the season. It's heaviest from April to June, when the calls are there to be had, and close to nothing in the dead of winter.

A two-level composite deck with wide steps, black railings and lounge furniture, built by Elie's Fencing

Know what works: a phone number for the ads

The ads carry their own Google phone number, and the website shows one too when a visitor arrives from an ad. So every call from the ads lands in Google's own call log, with how long it lasted. Quote requests from the website are counted the same way. That's how we can put a number on this page and tell you where it came from.

Print, too

We've also done brochure and flyer work for Elie's Fencing, so what homeowners see on paper matches what they see on Google.

If you run a fence or deck company, the full picture is on fence company marketing. For what a fence company should expect from an agency, read Fence Marketing Agency, and for decks, Deck Builder Marketing. The ads side for any business is on Google Ads management.

Why it worked, and what we can't claim

Here's the honest version. The 2026 season had more budget in the spring weeks, and cheaper searches than the years before. The account doesn't tell us which change did the most, so we won't pick one and call it the reason.

What the numbers do show is where the money works hardest. A fence call or quote request costs about half what a deck one does. So the fence ads get the bigger share of the budget, and the deck ads have to earn theirs.

In the owner's words

quote to come

What Elie's Fencing did well

They answer the phone.
Of this season's calls from the ads, 430 were answered. Ads can't book a job if nobody picks up.
They stuck with it.
Every season since 2019 adds real numbers, and that is what lets us cut the ads that don't work and keep the ones that do.
They built a name.
People search for Elie's Fencing by name. That comes from their reputation, not from us.

How we count

Every number on this page has a source and a date. We count calls from Google's own call log, not taps on a phone number. Where a form was counted twice, we took the duplicate out. We never put a client's name on a number that isn't theirs.

Source: the Elie's Fencing Google Ads account (Google's call log, the website quote form and the account's spend), pulled October 3, 2026.

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