A whole-home impact window package runs roughly $15,000 to $30,000 installed in most coastal markets. A standard vinyl replacement job on the same street runs $12,000 to $22,000. Same crew, same truck, same permit office, same install week.
Most window companies in hurricane country run one campaign, at one cost per lead ceiling, and let those two jobs fight over the same budget. Then they wonder why the pipeline fills up with two-window quotes in April and goes quiet in August.
The impact buyer is not a slightly richer version of the standard buyer. Different trigger, different timeline, different objections, different ticket. That means a different ad and a different number at the top of your lead math.
Why do impact window leads behave differently from standard replacement leads?
Standard window replacement is sold on comfort, drafts, energy bills, and how the house looks. Those are soft triggers. The homeowner can wait a year and nothing bad happens.
Impact and storm-rated windows carry a hard trigger underneath the soft ones. Coastal homeowners are buying protection against a specific event with a specific calendar attached to it. That changes the shape of the lead.
The three triggers that actually produce impact leads
- The forced buyer. A permit, an inspection item on a sale, or a carrier letter about opening protection. These homeowners have a deadline and they call whoever can inspect, quote, and pull a permit first.
- The planning buyer. Somebody who boarded up twice, watched a neighbor's house get hit, and decided this is the year. They are shopping six to twelve weeks before they ever fill out a form.
- The post-storm buyer. A near miss, a damaged unit, or a close call. Urgent, emotional, and very easy to lose to whichever company answers the phone.
The forced buyer and the post-storm buyer find you through search and referrals. The planning buyer, who is the biggest ticket of the three, usually does not search at all until the decision is already made. That one is won earlier, on a feed, by a company whose finished work they have already seen. If you want the full channel breakdown for the trade, our window lead generation page walks through what each source costs and what it closes.
Why code and insurance change the conversation
Many coastal jurisdictions require opening protection in wind-borne debris zones, and carriers in several coastal states offer wind mitigation credits when a home is fully protected. The specifics vary by jurisdiction and by carrier, so a rep who quotes numbers he cannot back up will lose the job at the kitchen table.
What matters for your marketing is simpler: code and insurance give the homeowner a reason to act now instead of next year. Your ad does not need to explain the code. It needs to name the problem the code exists to solve.
What is an impact window job actually worth in 2026?
Price per opening is the entire reason this campaign is worth running separately. Impact and storm-rated units cost materially more than standard replacement units, and the install carries more labor, more permitting, and more inspection time.
| Scope | Typical installed ticket | Decision speed |
|---|---|---|
| ScopeOne or two impact openings | Typical installed ticket$1,800 to $5,000 | Decision speedDays to a few weeks |
| ScopeImpact sliding glass door | Typical installed ticket$3,000 to $8,000 | Decision speedWeeks |
| ScopePartial home (front elevation or bedrooms) | Typical installed ticket$8,000 to $15,000 | Decision speedWeeks to months |
| ScopeWhole-home impact package | Typical installed ticket$15,000 to $30,000 | Decision speedSix weeks to six months |
| ScopeStandard vinyl whole-home replacement | Typical installed ticket$12,000 to $22,000 | Decision speedTwo to eight weeks |
These are typical installed ranges for coastal work, not quotes. Your numbers move with opening count, frame material, glass package, and how much stucco or structural repair the install uncovers.
Why is cost per lead the wrong number for impact window contractors?
Cost per lead tells you what you paid. Cost per acquired job tells you what you earned. In a trade where tickets range from $1,800 to $30,000, the first number is almost meaningless on its own.
Start with the ceiling, then work down to a target.
Max cost per lead = average job value x gross margin x close rate
Then divide by three to get a working ceiling that leaves room for profit instead of break-even.
Example: A coastal window company averages $20,000 on impact packages, runs a 35% gross margin, and closes 20% of the leads it works. That is 20,000 x 0.35 x 0.20 = $1,400 break-even cost per lead. Divide by three and the working ceiling is roughly $465 per lead.
Example: The same company's standard replacement work averages $16,000 at a 32% margin and a 20% close rate. That is 16,000 x 0.32 x 0.20 = $1,024 break-even, or roughly $340 as a working ceiling.
Two different ceilings. One campaign cannot honor both.
Now run the channels against each other on the number that matters.
| Channel | Typical cost per lead | Typical close rate | Cost per acquired job |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChannelShared marketplace leads | Typical cost per lead$30 to $90 | Typical close rate2% to 8% | Cost per acquired job$1,100 to $3,000+ |
| ChannelSelf-run Meta campaigns | Typical cost per lead$25 to $110 | Typical close rate10% to 20% | Cost per acquired job$250 to $1,100 |
| ChannelExclusive leads | Typical cost per lead$50 to $200 | Typical close rate15% to 25% | Cost per acquired job$200 to $1,000 |
| ChannelGoogle search | Typical cost per lead$100 to $300 | Typical close rate15% to 30% | Cost per acquired job$500 to $2,000 |
| ChannelExclusive booked appointments | Typical cost per lead$200 to $400 | Typical close rate25% to 40% | Cost per acquired job$500 to $1,600 |
The $40 shared lead that four other window companies also received is the most expensive line on that table once you price the close rate. We broke the full arithmetic down in exclusive vs shared leads, and it holds up even harder in coastal markets, where the same homeowner gets called by five companies during storm season.
How do you reach coastal homeowners before hurricane season?
The planning buyer is not typing anything into a search bar in February. She is scrolling, and she is thinking about the two days she spent screwing plywood over her own windows.
That is a Meta problem, not a search problem. Search captures demand that already exists. Feed advertising creates the demand window and then captures it, which is the only way to get in front of a whole-home buyer before she asks a neighbor for a name.
Three things make it work:
- Real finished installs from your market. Interior shots through new glass, exterior elevations, a slider that actually got replaced. Stock photos and manufacturer brochures read as a franchise ad and price you like one.
- Geographic targeting that matches your permit footprint. Coastal service areas are narrow and permitting is jurisdiction by jurisdiction. Running ads two counties outside where you can actually pull a permit is just donated budget.
- Your own ad account. Ads run under your company name, the pixel and the audiences build in your asset, and you see every dollar that goes to Meta. A homeowner who has seen your work four times before she fills out a form is a different sales conversation than a stranger from a marketplace.
If you are deciding where the next dollar goes, the window replacement leads guide covers positioning that keeps you out of a price fight.
What should an impact window ad actually say?
Short answer: name the house, name the scope, name a real starting price.
Lead with the problem, not the product name
Homeowners do not shop for a glass package. They shop for not boarding up again, for sleeping through a storm, for a quiet bedroom on a busy coastal road. Write the ad about that and let the rep handle the specification.
Put a real number in the copy
A starting price filters the two-window shopper out before she costs you a drive. It also tells the serious buyer you are not going to waste her afternoon. Keep it honest and range-framed so nothing gets walked back at the table.
Ask the project-size question on the form
How many openings. Single family or condo. Timeline. Three questions, asked before delivery, separate a $2,500 job from a $25,000 job without a single phone call.
Never promise a no-pressure visit that is not one
An in-home estimate is a sales appointment where a price gets presented. Say that plainly in the confirmation. Homeowners who know what is coming show up. Homeowners who were told otherwise cancel or sit there with their arms folded.
How many impact window leads do you need to hit a revenue target?
Work backward from revenue, never forward from budget.
- Pick the revenue number. Say $1,200,000 in impact work over a year.
- Divide by average job value. At $20,000 a job, that is 60 jobs.
- Divide by close rate. At 20% lead to sale, that is 300 leads.
- Divide by twelve. That is 25 leads a month, which is not evenly spread in a coastal market.
- Multiply by cost per lead. At $120 a lead, 300 leads costs $36,000 in lead cost against $1.2M in revenue.
Then pressure test it against capacity. Sixty whole-home packages is a real install schedule with real material lead times. If your crews cannot physically install 60 packages, the lead number is not the constraint and you should be buying fewer, better-qualified leads or booked appointments instead.
What does the coastal advertising calendar look like?
| Window | What to run | Why |
|---|---|---|
| WindowDecember to February | What to runWhole-home impact campaigns, quiet-season pricing | WhyCheapest auctions of the year, and buyers plan in winter |
| WindowMarch to May | What to runPeak impact push plus financing conversations on the page | WhyInstall and permit lead times still fit before season |
| WindowJune to August | What to runMixed impact and standard replacement, tighter qualifying | WhySeason is open, urgency is high, install timelines are tight |
| WindowSeptember to November | What to runPost-season repair, damaged units, partial-elevation jobs | WhyNear misses and damage convert fast with a real inspection |
The mistake almost every coastal window company makes is turning budget on the week a named storm enters the forecast. The auction is at its most expensive, the leads are panicked, and nothing you order will arrive in time to matter. The money is made in the quiet months. Seasonal contractor marketing lays out how to think about that calendar across trades.
What kills impact window leads after they come in?
Most of the loss happens after you have already paid for the lead.
- Slow first contact. Coastal homeowners are talking to multiple companies, and the one who calls inside five minutes usually controls the appointment. Our speed to lead breakdown shows what each hour of delay costs.
- Booking one decision maker. A $25,000 protection purchase is a household decision. If the second decision maker is not home, you are presenting twice at best.
- No property context before the call. Year built, square footage, exterior type, and owner-occupied status tell your rep what the opening count probably is before he dials. Reps who open informed sound like professionals. Reps reading a name off a sheet sound like telemarketers.
- Vague lead times. Impact units are ordered, not pulled off a shelf. Give the real install window up front. A homeowner who finds out about a ten-week lead time on install day becomes a chargeback and a review.
- Quitting after three attempts. Most paid-lead sales land after five or more touches. The whole-home buyer in February is still a buyer in April.
The short version
Impact and storm-rated window work is the highest-ticket thing most coastal window companies sell, and it is usually marketed with the same campaign that sells two-window jobs. Split the campaigns. Set a cost-per-lead ceiling from the formula, not from a benchmark. Advertise in the quiet months, qualify on opening count, and judge every channel on cost per acquired job instead of cost per lead.
Minyona installs and manages that system inside your own Meta ad account. You pay ad spend directly to Meta and see every dollar of it, leads are exclusive to your company, and the fee is tied to delivered results: from $50 per qualified lead or from $200 per booked appointment, with a one-time $2,000 setup. Track-record specifics for window companies are available on request.
If you want impact window leads that match the ticket you actually want to install, start on the window leads page or get started here.
Frequently asked questions
What do impact window leads cost in 2026?
Expect roughly $30 to $90 for shared marketplace window leads, $25 to $110 on self-run Meta campaigns, $50 to $200 for exclusive leads, and $100 to $300 on Google search, with booked appointments at $200 to $400. Coastal markets run at the higher end of each range during hurricane season because every window company in the county is bidding at once.
Is an impact window job actually worth more than a standard replacement?
Usually yes. Impact and storm-rated units cost more per opening than standard vinyl replacement, so a whole-home package commonly lands at $15,000 to $30,000 against $12,000 to $22,000 for a standard job on the same house. The higher ticket is what lets the impact campaign carry a higher cost per lead and still hit the same cost per acquired job.
Should impact windows get their own campaign or run with standard windows?
Give them their own campaign. The creative, the qualifying questions, the seasonal timing, and the cost-per-lead ceiling are all different, and a blended campaign means you either overpay for small standard jobs or get outbid on the whole-home impact buyer. Separate campaigns let you read the cost per acquired job on each one honestly.
When should a coastal window company start advertising for hurricane season?
Start 10 to 14 weeks before the season opens in your market, because lead times on ordered units plus permitting plus inspection easily eat two to three months. Advertising in the week a named storm is in the forecast gets you panic calls you cannot install in time, and auction costs spike exactly when everyone else turns their budget on.
Do homeowners buy impact windows for the insurance savings?
Insurance credits and wind mitigation incentives are a reason to act, not the reason to buy, and the amounts vary by carrier and by state. Most buyers are motivated by not boarding up again, by noise and energy performance, or by a permit or inspection requirement, and the insurance question comes up as confirmation after they have already decided.