Owned vs. Rented

We Cut Aggregators for Five Years. This Year We Raised Them on Purpose.

The Ledger already holds the two halves of our aggregator record: how we cut the aggregator in half and what we built first, and the platform that launched at 137% COM. This note is the part that looks like a contradiction: after five years of cutting aggregator share from 22.6% of the budget to 9.3%, we raised it back to 14.5% this year, on purpose.

Why cutting was right

A channel that swings hard year to year cannot be the foundation of a marketing plan, because you find out which year you got after the money is spent. Our combined Angi and HomeAdvisor line has run anywhere from 13.4% to 29.9% COM across six years. Some years it earns its place. Other years it quietly runs double the target band while the invoices keep arriving on schedule.

The deeper problem is what heavy aggregator reliance does to the rest of the business. Every aggregator dollar buys a lead that belongs to the platform. It builds no search presence, earns no reviews under your name, and creates no reason for the next homeowner to call you directly. The five-year cut moved that money into channels that compound, and the compounding is now on the books: the review base tripled and organic revenue nearly doubled over the same period.

Why raising it was also right

So why did the share go back up in 2026? Because the brand engine changed what an aggregator dollar buys. With demo-to-sale close rates at an all-time high and a sales calendar that can absorb more appointments, bought leads became a capacity-fill tool: a dial we turn when the calendar has room, at prices we now negotiate from strength.

The numbers back the decision so far. Our longest-running aggregator relationship is producing at 10.6% COM this year, the most efficient it has ever been in our data, largely because the close rate improvements apply to bought leads too. The same homeowner who found us on a platform now also finds 1,600 reviews when they look us up before the appointment.

Zero aggregator spend was never the goal. The goal was a business where bought leads are a choice rather than a dependency, and a choice is exactly what 2026 is.

The takeaway for your budget

If aggregators are more than about 15% of your budget and you cannot say who decided that number, pull your own COM% per platform before renewing anything. Take each platform’s annual spend, divide by the net revenue your CRM attributes to it, and compare the percentage to your blended cost of marketing. If a platform has been running triple your blended number for years, the cut comes first. The permission to turn the dial back up has to be earned by the channels you own. The grading framework is here: COM%, the number that governs a contractor marketing budget.