"You get work from your leads, then you get a domino effect"
Everything you need to know about what your ad spend actually returns
We send this conversation to the owner who has already done the sum. You know your margin on an install, your overheads, and how long it runs from paying for advertising to the money landing. Most people who have tried to sell you leads have never asked about any of that.
Ronan started Solar Green PV from nothing with a mate. This was the position before we ran an ad.
- Two founders, a new company, no advertising experience of any kind
- Every lead came out of their own electrical and roofing work
- A startup watching overheads build faster than revenue
- No brand recognition in a market crowded with bigger names
The Sum You're Doing In Your Head
Ronan's hesitation was never whether ads produce leads. It was cash flow.
"I suppose the hesitation we'd have, it being a small kind of startup company, is overheads. I'm sure as any company, small overheads start to build up very fast."
"…that we'd get return from the investment, you know, to keep cash flow… my main hesitation was putting an outlay of money into advertisement month over month."
That deserves a real answer, not a screenshot of someone else's lead count.
The Front End Has To Work
The first job of your spend is simple: the installs it produces have to pay for it. Nothing compounds if the front end doesn't work. Those installs are not small either — Val, their sales rep, puts their closed contracts at "13,000, 40,000".
All of that work arrived from one place, and Ronan is blunt about the ceiling on it.
"Most of our leads were coming from our own work, us being electricians and roofing contractors… but you will dry up on that revenue."
The first thing the campaign bought them wasn't a job. It was a hire.
"The leads give us the help to take on a sales representative, Val, that we have a steady stream, you know, of work for him every day."
Then It Starts Stacking
This is the part nobody puts in a pitch, because it takes months to show up.
The testing window. We find out which ads, angles and offers your market responds to. Leads arrive; some close early, plenty don't.
The honest read. The winners are known, the pipeline has depth, and installs are landing against the spend.
This month's wins, plus a drip from every month behind it: word of mouth from jobs you finished a while ago, and the thinking-about-it pile finally moving.
"You get work from your leads, then you get a domino effect. Even from one lead, it can follow that lead to his neighbour. It helps the workflow."
Their own pipeline proves the tail is real: a lead generated in the first month of the campaign, back in November, signed seven months later.
Another of our clients, on the leads that don't close first time.
“"Just because someone says, yeah, I'm having to think about it, you need to follow up because we've had many sales where initially it was like, yeah, we're still thinking about it. That initial, we're still thinking about it, turns into a sale, whether it be eight weeks later, 12 weeks later."
A no with a date on it isn't a lost lead. It's next quarter's install, already sitting in your own CRM rather than out in the market.
The Name Starts Working For You
Then there's the return you can't invoice.
"Brand recognition, like it has 100% helped us. It's very hard in this solar to stand out a bit and get your company recognized. People start to remember, they hear Solar Green PV and then they know you're not just kind of a one man band show."
"I've heard back from videos enough times in my own local town."
And this is what it sounds like a year in.
“"Where I go in the country, people say, oh, I've seen you on TikTok. I've seen you on Facebook."
"We've absolutely seen a return on our investment."
Different country, same machine.
WHAT IS IMPORTANT FOR YOU
- Judge the front end on installs against spend. Not on clicks or a lead count. If the installs don't cover the money going out, nothing after it matters.
- Month four is the honest read. The early weeks are for finding what your market responds to. By month six you're also collecting from months you already paid for.
- A no with a date on it is a sale. Most of it lands eight to twelve weeks later, and only if someone is tracking it.
- Recognition is unbilled return. Being the name people already know makes every later ad cheaper.
Satisfied Contracting and Trades Businesses