Case study · Construction hiring and websites
Murphy Constructions: 88 labourer applicants in four days
A Buderim commercial concreter with a full pipeline and not enough hands. We rebuilt the website around the projects, then ran the Meta hiring campaign that helped fill the crew.
A$1.50
Per labourer applicant · four days in July 2026 · 94% local · Meta form results
Case study result. Outcomes vary.
- Client
- Murphy Constructions Australia Group, run by Ciaran Murphy
- Industry
- Commercial concreting and construction
- Location
- Buderim, Sunshine Coast QLD, working from North Brisbane to Noosa
- What we did
- Websites for Builders
- Hiring Campaigns
- Ad creative
- Working together
- Website from January 2026, hiring ads from February 2026, still running
The problem
A full pipeline needs people to pour it
Murphy Constructions pours for schools, supermarkets, apartment blocks and retirement villages across the Sunshine Coast. Ciaran had spent two decades building that reputation on site. Online, you'd never have known.
The old website didn't show the projects, so a builder or developer checking them out before a tender had nothing to go on but a phone number. For a subcontractor chasing bigger commercial work, that's a real cost.
The second problem was hands. With the work lined up, Murphy needed concreters, labourers, supervisors and leading hands. The good ones are mostly employed already. They aren't scrolling job boards on a Tuesday night, so a job listing only reaches the few who are actively looking.
So the brief was two jobs in one: make the business look online like it does on site, then find the crew to deliver the work.
Who they needed
Concreters, formworkers and steel fixers. Experienced labourers who could start straight away. Then supervisors and leading hands, the hardest roles to fill.
Who they had to impress
Head contractors and developers who look at your past projects before they ever pick up the phone.
What we built and ran
The website first, then the hiring campaign
The website went live in January. The first hiring ads followed in February, and they've been running in waves ever since, a new batch each time a role opens up or the creative gets tired.
A website built around the projects
20 years of projects, sorted by sector: education, retail, multi-storey and commercial. A head contractor can see what Murphy has poured before the first call.
Hiring ads split by role
Separate Meta ads for concreters, for labourers, and for supervisors and leading hands. Each role gets its own wording and its own picture, because a leading hand and a first-year labourer don't stop scrolling for the same thing.
A form that screens for you
A few short questions on the form: trade, time on the tools, start date and where they live. Every applicant arrives already sorted.
A shared applicant sheet
Applications land in one sheet the team works from their phones, so nobody digs through an inbox at the end of a pour.
What the website did
Ciaran more than 9x'd his daily search traffic with the new website.
Case study result. Outcomes vary.
The ads
Hiring ads that look like they belong on site
The ads use plain words and name the trade and the area, so a tradie scrolling after work knows in two seconds whether the job is for them.
The video covers our construction work. Murphy is the second story: the website, the hiring campaign and how it all fits. The statics below are two of the hiring ads that ran. Tap either one to look closer.
Case study results. Outcomes vary. The ad shows client results on screen.
The receipt
What an application is, and what it isn't
Across the life of the campaign, Ads Manager shows 1,105 applications at A$2.31 each. That's the number of times someone filled in the form. It isn't the number of different people, because some tradies apply for more than one role. And it certainly isn't the number worth hiring.
So we report three things separately: applications, cost per application, and the people Murphy actually put on. As at September 2026, that's 7 successful hires. We didn't hire them. Ciaran's team did the calls, the interviews and the start dates. Our job was to put enough of the right people in front of them.
The four-day labourer push in July is the tightest window we have receipts for: every dollar and every applicant counted, and almost all of them living in the Sunshine Coast and Noosa catchment.
Case study result. Outcomes vary. Cropped to the numbers; nothing else is edited.
The numbers, with where they came from
| Metric | Value | Window | Metric type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Job applications, whole campaign | 1,105 | Campaign lifetime, to Aug 2026 | Meta lifetime results |
| Cost per application, whole campaign | A$2.31 | Campaign lifetime, to Aug 2026 | Meta lifetime results |
| Labourer applicants, one push | 88 at A$1.50 | Four days, Jul 2026 | Receipt-backed form results |
| Applicants living locally | 94% | Same four days | Receipt-backed form results |
| Successful hires | 7 | As at Sep 2026 | Client hires (owner-confirmed) |
| Website | 20 years of projects | Live Jan 2026 | Build |
January 2026
The new website goes live
Projects up front, sorted by sector, with a clear way to get in touch.
February 2026
First hiring ads
One ad and one form per role, with the screening questions built in.
July 2026
A four-day labourer push
A new batch for experienced labourers, with every cent of spend tracked against a receipt.
August 2026
Supervisors and leading hands
A separate batch written for people who already run a crew.
What's next
Hire in waves, as the contracts land
Concrete work comes in lumps. A big contract starts and you need a crew this month, then nobody for a while. So the campaign runs in waves: switched on when a job starts, refreshed when the ads tire, paused when the crew is full.
The website keeps doing its job in the background, showing head contractors what Murphy can pour. Ciaran has since sent another business owner our way.
Questions builders ask about this
Hiring ads for construction, answered
Anything else, ring Jed on 0400 463 257.
Do hiring ads on Facebook and Instagram actually reach tradies?
Yes, if the ad looks like it belongs on a site and the form is short. Most good tradies are already employed and never open a job board, but they're on their phone every night. We split the ads by role and ask a few screening questions, so you only ring the ones worth ringing.
Can we pause the ads when the crew is full?
Yes. The campaign runs in waves: we switch a role on when a job starts and pause it when you've got the people. Nothing runs just to spend the budget.
Do you do the interviews?
No. We bring in the applicants, sort them with the form questions and hand them over in a sheet your team can work from their phones. You make the calls and the hiring decisions. We're not a recruitment agency.
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