Most of the deck builders I talk to have the same worry about running ads: what if it doesn't work?
Chris Walters had the opposite problem. It worked so fast that he ran out of people to run the appointments, and by the middle of August he asked me to turn the ads off.
Chris and his dad Edward run E&C Custom Homes on the Alabama Gulf Coast. Before we started, they were a word-of-mouth deck company. Good work, steady referrals, and no idea what happens when you put a real marketing system behind a business like that. This article is what happened.
The Word-of-Mouth Ceiling
Chris wasn't struggling. That's worth saying up front, because most case studies start with a builder who's desperate. He had work. What he didn't have was a way to grow past what referrals could bring in.
In his words: "Word of mouth is great, it keeps you busy, but it's never going to take you to the level that you want it to be. I knew advertising was the next step. I just didn't know how to go about it."
That is the exact spot a lot of seven-figure deck builders sit in for years. The phone rings enough to keep the crew moving, so there's never a crisis that forces the decision. But the business can't get bigger than the number of neighbors who happen to mention your name this month.
Chris had also never hired an agency before. No bad experiences, no scar tissue, no "I've been burned six times." Just a builder who knew the next step and wanted someone to walk him through it.
The 60-Day Numbers
Ads went live at the end of June 2026 at $100 a day. Here's what the first two months produced, pulled from his ad account, his CRM, and what he said on the call:
| Metric | First ~60 days |
|---|---|
| Daily ad budget | $100/day |
| Total ad spend (June 25 to September 1) | $5,109.15 |
| Homeowner inquiries | 106 |
| Opportunities in his CRM | 89 |
| Sales appointments | 13 to 14 every week, 42 completed plus 7 confirmed at the time of the call |
| Time to first appointments | Inside the first 24 hours |
| Jobs marked won in the CRM | 12 |
| Deck jobs booked (Chris's number) | $320,000 |
| Still pending | A $150,000 beachfront job, not counted above |
| Calendar | Booked out 10 weeks, ads paused around August 19 |
| Facebook followers | About 100 to almost 1,000 |
Chris's own summary: "The first few months we booked $320,000 worth of jobs. And that doesn't count the $150,000 job that's still out there."
Two things about those numbers. First, the $150,000 job is pending, not closed, so I don't count it. Second, the CRM logs fewer dollars than $320,000 because Chris doesn't enter every contract value into the software. The $320,000 is his figure from his books, and he said it on camera. I'll take his number over my spreadsheet.
The one that matters most to me is the spend. Five thousand dollars in ads for $320,000 in booked deck work. That is the math that makes a deck company a different size.
What "Too Many Appointments" Actually Looks Like
People hear "booked out 10 weeks" and picture a nice problem. It is a nice problem. It's also a real one, and Chris described it better than I could.
"It hit so fast that we ran through our staffing, and we were doing somewhere around 13, 14 appointments every single week without fail."
Then the part that should get any owner's attention: "There's probably 40 or 50 that we never even talked to because things were just so busy so quickly."
Read that again. Forty or fifty homeowners who raised their hand for a deck estimate and never got a call back, because the two people running the company were on job sites and in driveways from the moment the ads turned on. That is not a demand problem. That is a capacity problem wearing a demand problem's clothes.
His line on the speed: "It's not a slow-go thing. It just hits all at once."
He's right, and it's the piece nobody warns you about. A referral business grows in a smooth line. A system that puts your ads in front of every homeowner in your service area does not. It arrives like a wave, and if your crews and your calendar aren't built for a wave, you spend the first month drowning in the exact thing you asked for.
Why We Paused the Ads On Purpose
Around August 19, with the calendar full 10 weeks out, we shut the ads off.
I know that sounds backwards coming from the guy who gets paid to run them. But my job isn't to generate the maximum number of appointments. It's to fill a deck builder's calendar with exclusive, high-quality appointments he can actually run and close. Past 10 weeks out, every additional homeowner Chris booked was a homeowner he'd have to disappoint, either by pushing the install into next year or by never showing up to quote it at all.
Those 40 or 50 people who never got a call back are the cost of running ads past your capacity. They're real homeowners in his market who now think E&C doesn't return calls. Better to stop, hire, and turn it back on when the crews can catch up.
So that's what he did. Chris used the pause to bring on three more guys. When they're producing, the budget goes back on, and now he knows exactly what $100 a day does to his phone.
He's already thinking past that. His words, and I want to be clear this is his aspiration and not a number I've promised: "I think I could do $4 million a year if I had everything in place with just my $100 a day." The interesting part of that sentence is "if I had everything in place." He learned in 60 days that the ads were never going to be the constraint.
What Changed in How the Business Feels
The dollar figure is the headline, but the thing Chris kept coming back to on the call was the feeling of not wondering anymore.
"We've made our advertising and then some, and we're steady. There's no longer wondering when the next job is coming. Just put it on the calendar."
And: "It's so much nicer to know that I don't have to wonder if I'm going to keep my guys busy. It's just planning now: how do you get all the jobs done."
Every deck builder who has lived through a feast-or-famine year knows what that's worth. The stress in this business is rarely the work. It's the quiet weeks where you're not sure the next one is coming and you've got payroll either way. Chris's problem flipped from "where's the next job" to "how do we schedule all of them." Same company, same two owners, completely different kind of day.
The jobs got better too, not just more frequent. "We're actually landing better jobs now, on top of the fact that we're landing at a higher rate." When homeowners come to you already knowing who you are and what you build, you stop competing on the cheapest bid.
One more thing he brought up that I didn't expect: the CRM. "The app is huge. We lost so many things through Facebook, just losing track of people we didn't follow up with. That part has been the biggest game changer." When the volume hits, the software that keeps every homeowner from slipping through the cracks stops being a nice-to-have.
Before You Turn the Ads On: A Capacity Checklist
If Chris's story is going to be useful to you instead of just impressive, this is the part to act on. He would tell you the same thing. Before you put a real budget behind ads for a deck company, have answers to these:
- Who runs the appointments when there are 13 a week? If the answer is "me, between job sites," you will end up with your own version of 40 or 50 homeowners who never got a call back. Someone has to own the calendar.
- How far out can you install before homeowners walk? Ten weeks worked for Chris in a strong market. Know your number before you hit it, because that's your signal to hire or pause.
- Can your crews absorb a second one? Chris paused to hire three guys. If you have a bench or a sub you trust, you get to keep the ads on while your competitor is figuring out payroll.
- Is every inquiry landing somewhere you'll see it? Not your Facebook inbox. A CRM with follow-up built in. The volume arrives all at once, and the first month is where the money leaks.
- Are you ready for it to work in 24 hours? Chris had appointments booked the first day. That's typical, not lucky. Have the next week open before launch day.
None of that is complicated. It's just the stuff a word-of-mouth business never had to think about, because referrals never showed up 14 at a time.
The Bottom Line
Sixty days, $100 a day, $320,000 in booked deck jobs, and a calendar so full the smart move was to stop. Chris's constraint was never whether homeowners in Gulf Shores wanted a deck from him. It was how many of them he could get to.
When I asked what he'd say to a builder sitting where he sat in June, he didn't hedge: "Just pull the trigger. At this point, to me, it's a no-brainer. If you're on the fence about those kind of leads, you've just got to pull that trigger. It's money in the bank that you're just throwing away."
He also said something about why he trusted a first agency at all that I'll leave here without comment: "You were honest. You were upfront. You gave me examples. You walked me through the process to where I felt comfortable that I knew in the end it wasn't whether or not it was going to work. It was how well was it going to work."
The appointments are the part I control and the part I put money behind: 100 exclusive sales appointment opportunities in 100 days or less, or we write you a check for $10,000. Whether your crews can keep up is the part you control, and after reading this, you know to plan for it.