Running a landscaping or tree surgery business often feels like a balancing act. During the spring and summer rush, you are likely on site from dawn until dusk, managing crews, quoting new jobs, and trying to keep clients happy. When the colder months arrive, the focus shifts to securing enough maintenance work to keep the cash flow steady.
Amidst this cycle of seasonal demand, marketing often falls by the wayside. You might boost a Facebook post here or pay for a local directory listing there, but do you know which of those actions actually led to a booked job?
Many business owners rely on word of mouth or a general sense that “the phone is ringing,” but without tracking specific data, it is impossible to know where your best leads are coming from. This lack of clarity leads to wasted budget and missed opportunities. By understanding a few key marketing metrics, you can move from hoping for leads to generating them predictably.
Tracking success does not require a degree in data science. It simply means looking at the numbers that directly impact your bottom line. Whether you run a team of five or twenty-five, these insights will help you make smarter decisions, win more local contracts, and ensure your hard work translates into real profit.
Why Marketing Metrics Matter for Your Business
The landscaping and tree surgery industry faces unique challenges that make tracking essential. Local competition is fierce; in any given town, there are likely dozens of operators vying for the same high-value patio installations or tree removal contracts. Furthermore, services are highly seasonal. If you don’t capture leads during the peak interest windows, you may miss out on a whole year’s worth of revenue from that customer.
Tracking the right metrics allows you to see exactly what is working. Instead of spending £500 on a magazine ad and guessing if it brought in work, data allows you to track the exact return on that investment. It moves you away from “vanity metrics”—numbers that look good but don’t pay the bills—toward actionable insights that lead to more profitable jobs.
Website Performance Metrics
Your website is your digital shop window. However, a beautiful portfolio of garden redesigns is only useful if potential customers actually see it and take action.
Website Traffic: Quality Over Quantity
When looking at analytics, it is easy to get excited about high traffic numbers. However, for a local business, total traffic can be misleading. If your blog post about “How to prune roses” goes viral in the United States, it might bring thousands of visitors to your site, but none of them can hire you for a job in Leeds or Surrey.
You must focus on local traffic. Use your analytics tools to filter visitors by location. An increase in visitors from your specific service area is a strong indicator that your local SEO efforts are working. Even a modest number of local visitors is far more valuable than thousands of international ones.
Bounce Rate and User Experience
The “bounce rate” refers to the percentage of visitors who land on your website and leave without clicking anything else. A high bounce rate usually signals a problem. It could mean your site loads too slowly, looks unprofessional on mobile phones, or simply doesn’t answer the visitor’s question immediately.
For service businesses, you want potential clients to click through to your “Services” or “Contact” pages. If 70% of people leave immediately, you may need to adjust your homepage. Perhaps your phone number isn’t visible, or you aren’t clearly stating which areas you cover. Lowering your bounce rate often involves making simple changes to improve the user experience.
Conversion Rate: The Metric That Pays
Traffic is vanity; conversion is sanity. Your conversion rate is the percentage of website visitors who take a desired action, such as filling out a quote request form, clicking your phone number, or sending an email.
If 100 local people visit your site and only one contacts you, your conversion rate is 1%. If you can improve that to 3% by adding trust signals—such as recent 5-star reviews, accreditation logos, or clear “before and after” images—you have effectively tripled your leads without needing to find more traffic. Tracking these enquiries is vital for understanding the effectiveness of your website design.
Local SEO Metrics
For landscapers and tree surgeons, appearing in local searches is arguably the most critical marketing factor. When a homeowner types “tree surgeon near me” or “landscaper in [Town Name],” you want to be the first business they see.
Google Business Profile Insights
Your Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) is often the first interaction a customer has with you. Google provides powerful insights into how customers find and interact with this profile.
You should track:
- Search Views vs. Map Views: Are people finding you by searching for a service (like “garden fencing”) or by browsing the map?
- Direction Requests: This is a high-intent metric. If someone requests directions to your office or yard, they are likely serious.
- Photo Views: In our industry, visuals sell. Profiles with high photo views often see higher engagement. If your photo view count is low, it is a sign you need to upload more recent project images.
Local Keyword Rankings
It is important to know where you rank for specific terms. You might rank #1 for “gardener,” but if your most profitable service is “composite decking installation,” you need to track your position for that specific phrase.
Pay close attention to the “Map Pack”, the block of three local business listings that appears at the top of Google search results. Ranking here usually generates more calls than ranking in the standard organic results below. Monitoring your position for high-value keywords helps you understand where to focus your content efforts.
Citation Accuracy
Citations are mentions of your business across the web on directories like Yell, Thompson Local, and Checkatrade. The metric to track here is consistency. Your Name, Address, and Phone number (NAP) must be identical everywhere.
If Google sees your business listed as “Smith’s Landscaping” on one site and “Smith’s Garden Services” on another, it loses trust in your data, which can hurt your rankings. Regular audits of your citations ensure you aren’t losing visibility due to simple data errors.
Paid Advertising Metrics
If you are running Google Ads or Facebook Ads to combat seasonal dips or launch a new service, you must track every penny.
Cost Per Click (CPC)
This is the amount you pay every time someone clicks on your ad. In the tree surgery and landscaping sectors, keywords can be competitive. “Emergency tree removal” will likely have a higher CPC than “lawn mowing” because the job value is higher and the urgency is greater. Monitoring CPC helps you budget and decide which services are worth advertising.
Cost Per Lead (CPL)
This is arguably the most important metric for paid ads. If you spend £200 on ads and get 10 enquiries, your Cost Per Lead is £20.
You must determine what a lead is worth to you. If your average job profit is £500, paying £20 for a lead is excellent. If your average profit is £30, a £20 lead cost is unsustainable. Setting a realistic target CPL ensures your advertising remains profitable.
Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
ROAS measures the total revenue generated for every pound spent on advertising. To track this accurately, you need to know which jobs came from which ads.
If you spend £1,000 on Google Ads and book £5,000 worth of work from those leads, your ROAS is 5:1. For small service businesses, a ROAS of 4:1 or 5:1 is generally considered a strong result, allowing you to reinvest in growth with confidence.
Social Media Metrics
Social media is a powerful tool for building a brand, especially given the visual nature of landscaping. However, it is easy to get distracted by likes rather than business growth.
Engagement Rate
While “likes” are nice, comments and shares are better. Engagement indicates that your content is resonating with your audience. A post showing a dramatic garden transformation that generates questions like “How much would this cost?” or “Do you cover my area?” is far more valuable than a generic post with ten passive likes.
Follower Growth (Local Focus)
Having 10,000 followers is useless if they all live in Australia. You want to track the growth of a local audience. engaging with local community groups, using location tags, and using local hashtags (e.g., #BristolGardeners) helps attract followers who can actually hire you. Slow, steady growth of local homeowners is the goal.
Lead Attribution from Social
You need to know if your social media efforts are generating work. This can be as simple as asking every new enquiry, “How did you hear about us?” If they say, “I saw your patio project on Instagram,” you know that channel is working. More advanced tracking involves setting up specific landing pages or tracking phone numbers for your social bio links.
Reputation and Review Metrics
In the service industry, trust is everything. A homeowner is inviting you onto their property, often when they aren’t home. They need to know you are reliable.
Review Quantity and Velocity
Total review count matters but so does “velocity”, how frequently you get new reviews. A business with 50 reviews from three years ago looks less reliable than a business with 20 reviews, the last of which was posted last week. Consistent, fresh reviews tell Google and customers that you are active and currently providing good service.
Average Star Rating
Your star rating directly impacts booking decisions. Consumers often filter out businesses with a rating below 4.0. Strive to maintain a rating as close to 5.0 as possible. If you receive a negative review, responding professionally and quickly can actually help your reputation by showing you care about customer satisfaction.
Review Keywords
This is a lesser-known metric. When customers write reviews, the words they use matter. If a customer writes, “Excellent patio installation and the porcelain paving looks great,” those keywords help Google understand what you do. Encouraging customers to mention the specific service they received in their review can boost your rankings for those terms.
Job Profitability Metrics
Marketing metrics lead to enquiries, but operational metrics determine business health. These numbers bridge the gap between marketing and finance.
Lead-to-Customer Rate
This metric tracks your sales performance. If you receive 10 enquiries and book 5 jobs, your close rate is 50%.
If this rate drops, look at your sales process. Are you taking too long to send quotes? Is your pricing unclear? Improving this rate is the fastest way to grow revenue without spending more on marketing.
Average Job Value
Not all leads are created equal. You might find that leads from Facebook are mostly for small maintenance jobs, while leads from Google Search are for large landscaping projects. Tracking the Average Job Value by lead source helps you decide where to focus your marketing budget. You want to pour fuel on the channels that bring in the highest ROI.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
For maintenance companies or tree surgeons offering annual inspections, a customer isn’t just a one-off transaction. CLV calculates the total revenue a customer generates over their entire relationship with you.
Understanding CLV justifies spending more to acquire a customer. If you know a client will likely stay with you for five years of garden maintenance, you can afford a higher Cost Per Lead to acquire them initially.
Essential Tools for Tracking Metrics
You do not need expensive enterprise software to track these numbers. Several accessible tools are perfect for businesses of your size:
- Google Analytics 4: The industry standard for tracking website traffic and user behaviour. It is free and essential.
- Google Business Profile Dashboard: Provides all your local search and map visibility data.
- Call Tracking Software: Tools that record where phone calls originate (e.g., from an ad vs. your website).
- Job Management Software: Platforms like ServiceM8 or Jobber are fantastic for landscapers. They help track quotes, job values, and customer details, often integrating with accounting software to give a clear picture of profitability.
How Often Should You Review Your Metrics?
Data is only useful if you look at it. However, you don’t need to obsess over it daily.
- Weekly: Check your enquiries and active job leads. Ensure no quote requests have been missed.
- Monthly: Review website traffic, social growth, and ad spend. Look for trends—did traffic dip? Did ad costs spike?
- Quarterly: Do a deep dive into profitability. Which services were most profitable? What was your ROI on marketing spend? This is the time to adjust your strategy for the upcoming season.
Take Control of Your Growth
Data-driven growth is not about removing the human element from your business; it is about giving you the confidence to make better decisions. When you know exactly how much it costs to acquire a customer and which marketing channels bring in the best work, you stop gambling with your budget and start investing in your future.
Start small. If you aren’t tracking anything right now, begin with your Google Business Profile and simple website enquiries. Consistency is key. Over time, these numbers will paint a picture of your business that helps you navigate the seasonal challenges of the landscaping industry with ease.
If you are ready to take your marketing seriously but aren’t sure where to start, professional support can make all the difference. We specialise in helping landscaping and tree surgery businesses turn these metrics into meaningful growth. Whether you need a marketing audit or a full strategy overhaul, getting the numbers right is the first step toward building the business you want.
