Door Hanger Marketing Glossary

A printed advertisement with a die-cut hole that hangs from a residential doorknob. Unlike flyers or mailers, door hangers sit alone at eye level on the front door, giving them multi-day dwell time before the homeowner discards or acts on them.

A door hanger or flyer delivery method in which every carrier carries a GPS device that logs a breadcrumb trail of the route, producing per-street and per-door timestamps that the advertiser can verify after the drop.

The number of homes a carrier can reach per walking mile or per hour on a given route. High route density compresses delivery cost; low density makes door hangers economically marginal in rural or acreage-heavy areas.

The total duration an advertising asset remains visible to the intended audience. For door hangers, dwell time is measured in days; for a Google Ads impression, it is measured in seconds. Longer dwell raises the probability the homeowner converts on their own schedule.

A USPS program that lets advertisers mail one piece to every residential address on a postal carrier route without addressing each piece individually. EDDM is exclusive to the United States Postal Service — it does not exist in Canada and is unavailable to Calgary or Alberta advertisers.

Any marketing piece delivered through a national postal service to a residential or commercial mailbox. Direct mail includes both individually addressed mail (e.g. a personalized postcard) and unaddressed bulk mail (e.g. Canada Post Neighbourhood Mail). Door hangers are not direct mail.

The total marketing spend on a campaign divided by the number of qualified leads it produced. CPL is the canonical KPI for home-service contractors because it isolates marketing efficiency before the effects of pricing, close rate, or job margin.

The price an advertiser pays each time someone clicks a paid ad on platforms like Google Ads or Meta Ads. CPC is set by a real-time auction against competing advertisers bidding on the same keyword or audience and varies sharply by industry, geography, and intent.

The fully loaded cost of converting a stranger into a paying customer. CAC equals total marketing spend divided by new customers acquired, or equivalently CPL divided by close rate. It is the metric that ties marketing to gross margin.

Revenue produced by an advertising campaign divided by the amount spent on that campaign. ROAS of 4 means every dollar of ad spend returned four dollars of revenue. It does not account for cost of goods or profit margin — only top-line revenue against ad spend.

Door-to-door field sales in which a representative walks a route, knocks on each home, and pitches the service in person. Canvassing produces high conversion when the homeowner is in but suffers from intrusiveness, schedule mismatch, and high labour cost per door.

The lift in response rate observed when an advertisement reaches homes close to addresses that are already customers. The effect is driven by visible work in progress, neighbor word-of-mouth, and a trust premium attached to local recognition.