Fence Company Competitive Marketing Analysis: What We Found and What We Recommended
This fence company competitive marketing analysis is a sanitized walkthrough of real research Coast333 conducted for an owner-operated fence and deck installer in North Central Florida. It showed up on the local map almost everywhere it was searched. It almost never showed up in the three spots people actually call.
This is a real Competitive Marketing Analysis with the business taken out of it. The company’s name, its owner, its city, its spending and its competitors have been generalized or withheld. The findings themselves are unchanged.
The same owner runs a separate remodeling company, and both businesses were reviewed in one session in December 2025. The remodeling analysis is published as its own breakdown. Nothing here describes implementation, and no outcome is claimed. These recommendations were presented, not executed.
The situation in twenty seconds
- Business
- A fence and deck company installing wood, vinyl, chain link and aluminum fencing, gates and decks, with its own crews. Roughly 70% of its jobs are fences and 30% decks.
- Capacity
- About ten to twelve fence jobs a month at the time of the review. With better-trained crews running three jobs at once, the owner saw room for roughly twice that.
- Market
- Homeowners first, and some commercial work, in and around a mid-sized metro area in North Central Florida.
- Marketing in place
- A monthly SEO arrangement with the developer who built the website, a local magazine ad run every other month, and Facebook ads that had been running for less than two weeks.
- Main challenge
- Booking far enough ahead to hire and train, with leads that are local and ready to buy rather than leads that need weeding out.
- Constraint
- The owner was on most job sites himself, and the business did not own the domain its website runs on.
- Areas reviewed
- Google Business Profile and reviews · geo-grid map rankings for four searches · website rankings and traffic · three competitors · city-name fence searches · fence keyword costs · Facebook lead quality · website ownership
What the business was actually dealing with
The fence business was busy. Most work came in as phone calls, with four or five web forms a month, and the crews were close to the number of jobs they could comfortably finish. The owner did not mainly need more leads. He needed enough of the right ones, far enough ahead, to justify hiring and to stop being on three-quarters of job sites himself.
He preferred fences to decks. Decks paid better per job but needed drawn plans and about a month of lead time. A fence could be quoted by phone and built the following week. So the goal was more fence work, mostly residential, with decks kept in the mix.
Two things were holding it back. First, the business was paying for leads that did not fit. Facebook ads aimed at the local area were drawing people who lived hours away, and the owner only found out partway through a call. Second, the business did not control its own website. As the owner understood it, the developer who built the site also held the domain, and requests for access had gone unanswered.
What this fence company competitive marketing analysis examined
For a trade business that runs on phone calls, the research centered on where the calls start: the map, the searches that name the city, and what each lead costs.
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Local map rankings
Geo-grid scans of 49 points each for “fence company,” “fence installation,” “fence repair” and “deck contractors,” at one-, two- and three-mile spacing.
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Google Business Profile
Rating, number and age of reviews, review responses, and how the profile compared with the businesses holding the top three spots.
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Website footprint
Every search term the site ranked for in the top 100, the page holding each ranking, and estimated organic traffic over two years.
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Three competitors
An established local fence company, a multi-state fence franchise with a local office, and a regional fence company based in another metro.
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Search costs
About 30,000 fence-company searches with estimated cost per click, and the franchise’s live search ads.
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Paid social
The owner’s own Facebook campaigns, reviewed on screen, including where the leads came from and how many were usable.
On the map everywhere, above the line almost nowhere
Google’s local results show three businesses. Everyone else sits behind a “More businesses” link. Each chart below sorts all 49 points of one map scan by the position the company held there.
The company was not missing from the map. It was one tap away from the calls.
map points where the company ranked 4th to 9th for “fence company.” Close enough to be listed, just below the three businesses searchers see first.
- Top three: in the map’s first view
- 4th to 10th: behind “More businesses”
- 11th or lower
Each dot is one scan point. Scans were captured on December 29, 2025. “Fence company” and “fence installation” used one-mile spacing, “fence repair” two miles and “deck contractors” three miles, so the wider scans cover a larger and more rural area and are not directly comparable. Grid values were checked against the scanning tool’s averages.
For the two searches that matter most, “fence company” and “fence installation,” the company held a top-three spot at 9 of 49 points each. It ranked in the top ten at every single point. Very little separated it from the businesses above it.
The wider scans looked better: top three at 18 of 49 points for “fence repair” and 19 of 49 for “deck contractors,” strongest east of the city and weakest to the west. So the profile was already doing well in the work the owner wanted less of. The searches he cared about most were the ones just short of the top three.
The competitive landscape
The owner named three competitors. Only two of them actually compete in this city’s search results, and they compete in the map, not on their websites.
| Measure | The company | Local fence company A Same city | Fence franchise B Multi-state, local office | Regional fence company C Based in another metro |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ranked keywords | 80 | 54 | 26,100 | 175 |
| Page-one keywords | 19 | 31 | 3,965 | 18 |
| Estimated organic visits | 56 | 165 | 65,800 | 298 |
| Estimated paid visits | 0 | 0 | 11,400 | 0 |
| Domain authority | 8 | 9 | 36 | 10 |
Searches that name the city: who is in the map
| Search | Monthly searches | The company | Local fence company A | Fence franchise B |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| “fence contractors” + city + state | 140 | 6Website position 6 | MapIn the map results | MapIn the map results |
| “fence company” + city + state | 110 | 5Website position 5 | MapIn the map results | MapIn the map results |
| “fencing” + city + state | 110 | 15Website position 15 | MapIn the map results | MapIn the map results |
| city + “fence company” | 90 | 2Website position 2 | MapIn the map results | MapIn the map results |
| “fence company in” + city | 90 | 21Website position 21 | MapIn the map results | MapIn the map results |
| “fence repair” + city + state | 70 | 11Website position 11 | MapIn the map results | MapIn the map results |
| city + “fencing” | 50 | MapIn the map results | MapIn the map results | MapIn the map results |
| city + “fence installation” | 50 | MapIn the map results | MapIn the map results | 2Website position 2 |
| city + “deck staining” | 50 | MapIn the map results | —Not in the top 100 | —Not in the top 100 |
- MapIn the map results
- 5Website position, below the map
- —Not in the top 100
The local competitor won with its profile, not its website. All of its 54 rankings pointed to a single page, and its domain authority was barely above the company’s. Yet it appeared in the map for 15 of the 18 city-name searches. That is a profile advantage, and a profile advantage can be closed.
The franchise is a different kind of competitor. Its national site ranked for more than 26,000 searches and it bought an estimated 11,400 paid visits a month across many markets. Locally, its office’s profile appeared in the map for 14 city searches. Its search ads opened with “Over 2,000 Five Star Reviews,” showing how much weight it puts on review volume.
One named competitor was not a local rival in search. The regional company ranked for neighborhoods in another metro and for none of this city’s searches. It may compete for some jobs, but not in the results this company’s customers see.
The company’s website was doing its job. It ranked on page one for 14 of the 18 city searches, often just below the map. Its organic traffic grew from close to nothing in early 2024 to about 56 visits a month by late 2025.
What was already working
This was not a struggling business. It was a busy one with a few gaps that cost it its best calls.
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Top ten everywhere
For “fence company” and “fence installation,” every scanned point ranked between 2nd and 9th. The profile was relevant; it needed more weight.
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A perfect rating
Five stars from every review, with responses posted. The problem was how many reviews there were and how old they were, not their quality.
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Steady website growth
Page one for most of the city-name fence searches, and first place in Google’s AI overview for “deck and fence company near me.”
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Calls, not forms
Most leads phoned in, which suits a business that quotes most fences over the phone and needs no chasing.
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An owner who knows his numbers
Job capacity, job mix and the margin on each type of work were all at hand, which makes paid search much easier to plan and to judge.
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Ad copy worth keeping
The owner’s own Facebook ads were well written. The problem was where they ran, not what they said.
The five opportunities we identified
The review resolved into five themes. For each: what we found, why it mattered, and what we recommended.
Eight reviews, most of them old
- What we found
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The profile had eight Google reviews, all five stars, and the business had replied to them. Most were old, and there was no routine for asking. The owner knew he should be sending customers a review link but had not been doing it.
- Why it mattered
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Review count and rating are among the signals Google uses to rank local businesses, and they are what a homeowner compares when choosing among the top three. They also decide whether Google’s Local Services Ads, the sponsored listings above the map, are worth running. With eight reviews, the company would be competing in those slots against advertisers with hundreds.
- What we recommended
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Make the review request part of finishing every job. The crew lead asks in person whether the customer was happy and whether they would leave a review if sent a link. A simple tool then sends the link by text or email, followed by a couple of reminders. People who have said yes out loud are far more likely to follow through. Reply to each review, mentioning the work that was done.
A profile that needed weight, not repair
- What we found
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The two core fence searches ranked in the top ten at all 49 points and in the top three at 9. The pattern was the same in both: strongest in the east and center of the scanned area, weakest to the west and southwest, where it fell to 7th, 8th and 9th.
“Fence company”Top three at 9 of 49 · average position 4.8
6765554666654456654445565433655232276544228975543“Fence installation”Top three at 9 of 49 · average position 5.1
7755554775545466544436554322785422298854328887644- 1–3
- 4–10
- 11–20
- Why it mattered
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Moving from fifth to third is a small step in the rankings but a big one in calls, because the top three are all most searchers see. The company did not need a new profile. It needed more of what Google weighs in local results: reviews, recent activity and current photos of finished work.
- What we recommended
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Post finished fences and decks to the profile every week, with photos and a short description of the type of fence and the part of town. Keep services and categories complete, including each fence type and gate repair. Track the grid every month, and judge the work by map position, calls and website visits rather than by activity. This is the core of our local SEO work.
A website the business did not own
- What we found
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As the owner understood it, the developer held the domain and the site, and the business paid monthly for SEO and call routing. Some of the content listed neighborhoods the owner said had nothing to do with his work. The rankings showed the same carelessness: the site ranked for searches about a city with the same name in another state, and 48 of its 80 rankings pointed at the home page.
- Why it mattered
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A website, a domain, a Google profile and ad accounts are business assets. If someone else holds them, every dollar spent improving them builds value for that person, and leaving becomes harder. The good news was that the site was a small part of the company’s visibility, about 56 organic visits a month. Most of its reach came through the map profile.
- What we recommended
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Confirm the owner has full access to the Google profile. Ask the developer, in writing, whether the domain can be transferred. If not, plan a rebuild on a domain the business owns: a simple, fast site with a call button and a short quote form at the top, a page for each fence type and for decks, and only the areas the company actually serves. Do it before putting meaningful ad spend behind the site. More on website design and optimization.
Ad money aimed at scrollers instead of searchers
- What we found
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The fence ads had been running for under two weeks, and the two businesses’ campaigns appeared to share one ad account. Leads needed a lot of weeding, and some came from people living hours away who had simply passed through the area. The owner wanted to move to Google Ads but had never run them. Estimated costs per click for the searches he wanted were moderate:
- Chain link fence company near me$5.91
- Wood fence company near me$6.04
- Residential fence company near meThe work the owner preferred$6.81
- Vinyl fence companies near me$6.81
- Fence company near meThe core search$7.94
- Deck and fence company near me$10.01
- Commercial fence company near me$13.36
Coast333 planning assumptionFor planning, we assume about one in ten search-ad clicks becomes a call or form. At roughly $7 to $8 a click for the core searches, that means about $70 to $80 per lead. These are national tool estimates, not results, and actual costs depend on the market.
- Why it mattered
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Someone searching “fence company near me” wants a fence now and is likely to call. Someone scrolling Facebook has to be interrupted and persuaded. Residential searches, the work the owner preferred, also cost about half as much per click as commercial ones.
- What we recommended
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Move the budget to standard Google search ads aimed at homeowners, covering every fence type, and limited to the area the crews serve. Hold off on Local Services Ads until the review count can compete. Set up call tracking so every lead is counted, and give each business its own ad account. Allow about three weeks to build the campaign before it goes live. Retargeting on social can follow later, aimed at people who have already visited the site. More on paid advertising for lead generation.
Steering the mix toward the work that fits the crews
- What we found
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The map was strongest for “deck contractors,” the work the owner wanted less of, and only middling for fence searches. Decks needed drawn plans and about a month of lead time. Fences could be quoted by phone and built within a week. Commercial fence searches cost the most per click, and the owner preferred residential work anyway.
- Why it mattered
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Marketing tends to bring more of whatever it is pointed at. If the goal is to book fence crews further ahead, the paid budget and the profile’s posts should lead with fences, so that growth adds the work the business can turn around fastest.
- What we recommended
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Put paid search behind residential fence searches. Let decks continue to come in through the profile and the website, where they already rank well, rather than paying for them. Revisit the mix once bookings reach the point where hiring and training another crew makes sense.
What we recommended doing first
The order puts the free fixes first, the fastest source of calls second, and the slower rebuild where it cannot hold the rest up.
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1
Start collecting reviews on every job
A verbal ask at the end of each job, an automated link and a couple of reminders.
It costs nothing, and it is the main thing standing between the company and the top three.
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2
Work the Google profile every week
Photos and posts of finished fences, complete services, and a monthly grid scan to measure the movement.
The profile is already in the top ten everywhere. Small, steady gains turn into calls.
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3
Move ad spend from Facebook to Google search
Residential fence searches, a tight service area, call tracking and a separate account for each business.
It reaches people already looking for a fence, so there are fewer leads to weed out and fewer from out of town.
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4
Secure or rebuild the website
Ask for the domain. If the answer is no, rebuild on one the business owns, with a page per fence type.
Everything the business invests in should stay with the business.
Do this week, whatever the budget
Confirm the owner’s own login has full access to the Google profile. Ask the last ten happy customers for a review, a couple at a time. Post photos of three recently finished fences. Ask the developer in writing who owns the domain. Tighten Facebook location targeting to people who live in the service area, or pause it until search ads are ready.
What other fence and deck companies can take from this
Six things from this review apply to most local trade businesses.
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Fourth place is invisible
Ranking in the top ten on the map feels like success. The calls go to the top three.
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Reviews are a routine, not a favor
Ask at the end of every job, get a yes in person, and let a system send the reminders.
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Own your assets
Your domain, website, Google profile and ad accounts should sit under your own login, whoever does the work.
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Pay for searches, not scrolls
For trades, people searching for the service are usually better leads than people who see an ad on social media.
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Point the budget at the work you want
Paid search brings more of whatever it targets. Choose the jobs your crews can turn around fastest.
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Check who your competitors really are
The rival you worry about may not appear in your city’s results. The one in the map every time is the one to study.
How Coast333 approaches owner-operated trades
Owners who are on job sites all day need marketing that makes the phone ring with the right calls and does not take more of their time. That is why this analysis focused on three things: the Google profile, search ads and reviews. It also recommended keeping each of the owner’s two businesses in its own accounts, so each can be measured on its own.
This analysis was researched and presented by a senior strategist with long experience in search. You can see published results from Google Business Profile work in our Google Business Profile optimization case study (results from a different business).
Related resources
- Local SEO Google Business Profile, reviews and map visibility for businesses whose customers search nearby.
- Paid Advertising for Lead Generation Search campaigns built around calls and forms, with tracking from the start.
- Paid Social Advertising Audiences, retargeting and follow-up on Meta, and why it is not always the right primary platform.
- Website Design and Optimization Fast, simple websites built to turn a map click into a call.
- Why Most Businesses Don’t Need More Traffic The difference between visitors and customers, and why more of the first rarely fixes a shortage of the second.
Related analyses
- Remodeling Competitive Marketing Analysis The companion analysis for the same owner’s remodeling company, starting from a much earlier stage.
- HVAC Competitive Marketing Analysis A real analysis for an owner-operated trade, with a map-first strategy.
- Wildlife Removal Competitive Marketing Analysis A real analysis for a home-service company and its coverage across the local map.
See what we would find in your marketing
Coast333 runs a complimentary Competitive Marketing Analysis for businesses that want a clear read on their own marketing, their competitors and the opportunities in front of them. It is the same research process described on this page.
- 01You fill out a short form with your details, and we reach out to arrange a conversation.
- 02We talk through your business, your goals and who you consider your competitors.
- 03Our strategy team conducts the research on you and on those competitors.
- 04We walk you through everything we found, in detail, and answer questions.
The first conversation gives us the context we need to prepare the analysis. Our strategy team then conducts the research and walks you through what we find. The Competitive Marketing Analysis is complimentary, with no obligation attached.
Method and sourcing
Research for this analysis used third-party keyword, traffic and rank-tracking tools, geo-grid local rank scans captured on December 29, 2025, and direct review of the company’s website, Google Business Profile and Facebook campaigns. Context, including capacity, job mix, lead sources and the website arrangement, was supplied by the owner during the review.
Figures described as estimates are third-party tool estimates. City-name search volumes are local; generic search volumes and costs per click are national. The map-position distributions, the city-search counts and the planning cost per lead are our own analysis of the research data, and the grid values were checked against the scanning tool’s averages.