When severe weather hits — hail, high winds, or hurricanes — homeowners start looking for help immediately. Roofers, siding specialists, and restoration companies who reach them first are the ones who win the job. By the time you've pulled a list, designed a mailer, and sent it the old way, competitors are already in the neighborhood. Storm Automation closes that gap by watching for matching storms and having mail ready to go the same day one hits your service area.
Who This Is For
Roofers and exterior contractors who need to respond fast after hail or wind events.
Restoration companies handling storm, water, or wind damage.
Siding, gutter, and window services capturing neighborhood-wide demand after a storm.
Any home services business that wants a repeatable, always-on storm response instead of scrambling to pull a list after the fact.
Choosing Hail vs. Wind Criteria
Pick the storm type that matches the damage you repair. Roofing and exterior-repair businesses typically key off hail size (a common starting range is 1.50" to 2.00"+), since even moderate hail reliably causes roof and siding damage. Wind-focused businesses (fencing, tree/debris, general exterior) often target wind speed instead (a common starting range is 90 to 120 mph+). You can only run one criteria type per automation, so businesses that respond to both damage types typically run two automations over the same service area — one for hail, one for wind.
Targeting Strategy: Reach vs. Accuracy
Every automation chooses between two ways of drawing the storm's footprint:
Maximum Reach combines algorithmic and meteorologist mapping for the broadest coverage. This is the right default when you plan to manually review and refine each detected storm before it sends — a wider net costs nothing extra if you're filtering it yourself.
High Accuracy uses only meteorologist-drawn maps, which are more conservative and closer to ground truth. This is the safer choice if you've turned on Send Automatically, since there's no manual review step to catch an overly broad footprint.
Manual Approval vs. Send Automatically
This is the core speed-vs-control tradeoff in Storm Automation:
Send Automatically is the fastest way to be first in the mailbox — the order is placed and paid for the moment a storm matches. Best once you trust your criteria and targeting strategy, and want zero manual steps in the loop.
Manual Approval gives you a review step (Refine → Approve/Skip) for every matching storm, so you can adjust volume, tighten thresholds, or skip an event entirely before any spend happens. Best while you're still dialing in criteria for a new service area, or when storm severity varies enough that you want a human check on spend.
Many businesses start with Manual Approval on a new automation, then switch to Send Automatically once a few storms confirm the criteria and targeting are producing the results they expect.
Protecting Budget and Customer Experience
Set Max Cards per Storm to the volume your crew can realistically follow up on — a cap protects you from one large storm consuming your whole budget or overwhelming your team's capacity to respond to leads.
Use the Re-sending window so the same household never receives back-to-back storm mailers in a short span — this keeps your messaging feeling targeted rather than repetitive.
Consider Holdout Testing once your volume supports it (2,000+ pieces per storm is the reliable threshold) — holding back a small control group is the cleanest way to prove Storm Automation's incremental lift over no mail at all.
Why Speed Matters Here
Homeowners affected by a storm are the highest-intent prospects you'll ever mail to — they're actively looking for help, often within days of the event.
Speed-to-market wins the job. The first piece of mail in the box is usually the call that gets made.
Automation ensures consistency. Once set up, you never forget to follow up after a storm — even ones you didn't hear about until Storm Automation flagged them.
Case study: see how a roofing company used Storm Automation after hail events to book inspections fast and drive measurable ROI — read the case study.
Key Takeaways
Match your storm type (hail vs. wind) to the damage you actually repair.
Choose Maximum Reach with Manual Approval, or High Accuracy with Send Automatically — pair your targeting strategy with your approval mode.
Use Max Cards per Storm and the Re-sending window to protect budget and customer experience.
Add Holdout Testing once volume supports it, to prove out the ROI of storm response mail.