Call Us
Text Us
Book a Call

The Landscape Marketing Index
First Half 2026

How landscape inquiries are bought, and which ones become work. What inquiries cost, which channels bring the larger jobs, and when the valuable ones arrive.

Built from campaigns, not opinion. H1 2026 vs H1 2025. Data as of September 21, 2026.

Aggregate data only. No individual business is identified.

130+

Advertisers
In the index

74,096

Inquiries
Jan 1 – Jun 30, 2026

−32.6%

Quotable lead cost
Design & build vs H1 2025

−41.9%

Quotable lead cost
Maintenance vs H1 2025

WHAT THE FIRST HALF SAYS

Five findings worth acting on

Built from the campaigns Intrigue runs, not from opinion. Every figure comes from campaign and lead-tracking exports, aggregated so no business is identified.

FINDING 1

Answer the phone.

Phone is 55.8% of all inquiries, and roughly one call in three never reached a person. Fixing that lifts the phone quotable rate from 19.4% toward 28.5%, on zero extra ad spend.

55.8% of inquiries

30.8% unanswered

No extra spend

FINDING 2

Move budget earlier.

February carried 28% of quotes above $20,000. April carried 15%, on three times the inquiries. Budget follows the phone into April and May, but the big builds get decided in January and February.

Plan for February

Same in 2025

FINDING 3

Split Search by service line.

Design and build: Search wins, qualifying 53.9% vs 46.3% at $4,870 vs $3,674 per quotable lead. Maintenance: Performance Max wins, qualifying the same at $71 a lead vs $187.

D&B → Search

Maintenance → PMax

FINDING 4

Use LSA to fill schedules.

An LSA lead costs $37 against $61 from Google Ads, but the job behind it is roughly a third the size. The cost advantage narrows from 39% to 30% on quotable leads.

US only

Smaller jobs

FINDING 5

Invest in what you don’t buy.

Organic search brings 28.2% of all leads at a $21,191 average quote. Google Business Profile brings just 4.8%, but the largest settled jobs in the index at $24,742.

Organic search

Google Business Profile

THE CALLS THAT GO UNANSWERED

Roughly one call in three never reaches a person.

Across 34,390 tracked calls from April to June 2026, 30.8% went unanswered or to voicemail. Phone inquiries qualify 19.4% of the time against 45.6% for web forms. Part of that gap isn’t the caller. It’s what happened after they dialed.

Better answering lifts phone qualification toward 28.5%, without buying one more lead.

Phone is 55.8% of all inquiries

30.8% of tracked calls went unanswered

Forms qualify about 2.5× as often as calls

Book a business review call

WHERE THE WORK COMES FROM

Organic brings the most leads. GBP and AI bring the biggest jobs.

Share and quotable rate are H1 2026, with the prior year beside it. Average quote is H1 2025, the latest settled period. *H1 2026, not yet settled.

ChannelShare of leadsQuotable ratePrior yearAvg quote
Google organic28.2%32.2%32.5%$21,191
Direct16.3%23.8%27.1%$15,814
Performance Max15.1%28.5%21.0%$22,507
Search (paid)12.8%34.0%33.2%$17,475
LSA (US only)8.0%34.3%29.8%$5,249
Referral and other7.8%34.4%31.7%$13,895
Other search engines5.4%29.7%31.4%$19,068
Google Business Profile4.8%26.4%23.7%$24,742
Social1.1%19.4%25.7%$14,365*
AI assistants0.5%48.3%31.4%$45,071

WHEN THE VALUABLE WORK ARRIVES

Value peaks before volume.

Budget follows the phone into April and May. The bigger design and build work gets decided earlier, by people planning a season rather than reacting to one.

  • February
    $22,838 average quote, with 28% of quotes at $20,000 or more
  • April
    Over 3× February’s inquiries, but a $12,323 average and 15% above $20,000
  • May
    Lead volume peaks, and ad budgets tend to follow it
  • 2025
    Same pattern: February averaged highest, with 30% of quotes above $20,000
MetricDesign & buildPrior yearMaintenancePrior year
Lead-to-quotable49.2%30.2%55.5%39.1%
Cost per quotable lead$279.61$414.70$211.12$363.16
Cost per lead$137.60$125.36$117.08$141.93
Cost per click$2.91$2.36$2.86$3.09
Click-through rate2.62%3.17%2.69%3.98%
Conversion rate2.12%1.87%2.44%2.17%
Unique leads3,6742,3621,722783

WHICH CHANNEL WINS

Cost per lead alone gives the wrong answer.

Search, Performance Max and Local Service Ads each win a different job. Judge them on what a quotable lead is worth, not what a lead costs.

Design & Build

Search wins

Search vs Performance Max:

  • 53.9% of leads reach quotable, vs 46.3%
  • $4,870 quoted per quotable lead, vs $3,674
  • About 2.5× the cost per lead, and it earns it

Maintenance

Performance Max wins

Performance Max vs Search:

  • Qualifies the same: 56.4% vs 54.0%
  • $70.73 per lead, vs $186.91
  • Quotes run about two-thirds the size; the cheaper lead covers it

Local Service Ads

Fills the schedule

LSA vs Google Ads (US only):

  • $37.02 per lead, vs $60.61
  • 44.4% reach quotable, vs 50.7%
  • $5,249 average quote, vs $17,475 from paid search

A SIGNAL WORTH WATCHING

AI-referred leads are few. They’re also the best in the index.

Inquiries referred by AI assistants grew 600% over 2025, but are still under half a percent of leads. A year ago they came from one assistant; this year, four. Many people find a business on AI, then convert through Google, so this count is a floor.

People who find you on AI arrive qualified. Treat it as a strategy.

48.3% quotable rate, highest in the index

$45,071 average quote (H1 2026, 13 quotes)

Direct traffic grew from 13.3% to 16.3%

Book a business review call

WHERE TO START

Fix what you already pay for before you buy more.

Three moves, cheapest first. None of them needs a bigger budget to begin.

Answer the phone

One call in three never reaches a person. Fixing it costs nothing in media.

Move budget earlier

Larger builds get decided in January and February. Spend that waits for April arrives too late.

Rebalance by service line

Search for design and build, Performance Max for maintenance, LSA to fill the schedule.

HOW THIS INDEX IS BUILT

Questions about the data

Every figure comes from campaign and lead-tracking exports across the businesses Intrigue runs campaigns for.

Your numbers against these

Book a business review call. We’ll map out exactly where your opportunities are, starting with the figures where your numbers sit furthest from the index.