In-Home Advertising: A 390% ROI for Atlanta Painting Company

Campaign Overview

Atlanta Painting Company is one of the largest and most trusted painters in the metro, and the kind of operator that scrutinizes every marketing dollar. For more than five years its brand has lived in City Publications' In-Home Advertising, the card pack that lands in homes across the area. In 2025 the company sat down with City Publications Atlanta and put hard numbers to it for the first time. Counting nothing but the phone calls the piece generated, with no matchback and no QR codes, the In-Home Advertising returned a 390% ROI on a profit basis, nearly a 4x return, while lifting the average job it produced by $2,000.

Location: Atlanta and Surrounding Areas

Atlanta Painting Company serves Atlanta in Fulton and the surrounding counties, part of the Greater Atlanta metro. The campaign reached active homeowners across the area, including Roswell, Alpharetta, Marietta, Canton, Peachtree City, Athens.

Why Atlanta Painting Company Needed Better Leads

Atlanta Painting Company never lacked for leads. As one of the metro's largest painters, it runs a vast marketing mix, and inquiries pour in from every direction. The trouble with a firehose like that is telling the good leads from the noise: which calls are real buyers, which turn into high-end jobs, and which channels actually deliver them. A sophisticated operator will not keep funding a channel on faith. After more than five years in the card pack, the fair question was which leads it was really producing, and whether they were worth it.

• A sprawling marketing mix where leads arrive from many channels at once, hard to untangle
• No easy way to see which channel produces the high-end, high-ticket painting jobs
• A management team that scrutinizes every dollar and expects a channel to earn its place
• Five years of trust in the card pack that, until 2025, had never been put to the numbers

The Results: A 390% ROI in Atlanta

When the team finally ran the numbers, the In-Home Advertising held up to the scrutiny it had always faced. Measured the most conservative way possible, counting only the phone calls the piece generated, with no matchback analysis and no QR codes to inflate the tally, it returned a 390% ROI on a profit basis. That is nearly a 4x return on the hardest, narrowest measurement available, and the jobs it produced ran about $2,000 larger on average than the company's typical ticket. The number is a floor, not a ceiling, because everything the phone-call count misses goes straight to the upside.

A conservative floor: every booked job the call count cannot see is upside on top of 390%.

How the Growth Program Worked

City Publications Atlanta does not chase volume. The Growth Program surrounds the right homeowners with In-Home Advertising all year, then proves what works. For Atlanta Painting Company that means a full-color piece landing in the hands of high-end homeowners across the metro, season after season for more than five years: one full season cycle is four mailings across all four seasons, capturing homeowners at every point in the year when a painting decision gets made. The brand shows up in the affluent neighborhoods where $2,000-plus jobs actually live, not scattered at random. Every inbound call from the piece is tracked, and that conservative count is the floor behind the 390%. The next layers of the Growth Program, matchback reporting and Visitor ID, are built to capture everything a phone-call count cannot see, which is exactly where the measured return climbs from here.

Program Components

• In-Home Advertising card pack: put Atlanta Painting Company's brand in the hands of high-end homeowners across the metro, season after season for more than five years
• High-end neighborhood targeting: concentrated the reach in the affluent areas where the company's biggest painting jobs come from, targeting strategy over raw volume
• Call tracking: captured every inbound call the piece generated, the conservative measure that still proved a 390% ROI
• Matchback reporting: the next layer of proof, ready to tie booked jobs back to the mailing list and count what phone tracking alone cannot see
• Visitor ID: the Growth Program's signature, stitching anonymous website visitors to real contact info to activate follow-up, upside not yet counted in the 390%

Why Atlanta Home Service Businesses Trust Us

City Publications Atlanta is not in the business of selling lead volume. It is in the business of putting trusted local brands in front of the homeowners most likely to buy, as a strategic advertising partner rather than a print vendor. Atlanta Painting Company is the proof. A sophisticated advertiser that questions every dollar kept the In-Home Advertising in its mix for more than five years, and when it finally ran the numbers, the medium earned its place the hard way.

• A targeted, trusted medium that reaches real homeowners, not noise
• A strategic advertising partner, not a print vendor
• Proven for high-ticket trades like painters, roofers, and remodelers
• Results that hold up to a sophisticated advertiser's scrutiny, measured conservatively
• Matchback and Visitor ID ready to prove even more of what the program produces
• Local market knowledge and advanced neighborhood targeting that reach affluent, high-value homes

Key Benefits

Summary

Measured the hard way, on phone calls alone with no matchback and no QR codes, City Publications Atlanta's In-Home Advertising returned a 390% ROI for Atlanta Painting Company and lifted the average job it produced by $2,000. After more than five years in the card pack, one of the metro's largest painters put the medium to the numbers and it earned its place. For high-ticket home service businesses, City Publications Atlanta proves the right lead source beats the loudest one.