Residential solar case study

Carbon Energy Savings case study: domestic solar leads at about £2,100 per fitted install

In just 2 weeks, Carbon Energy Savings turned a £2,200 test batch from TNW MARKETING into £32,000 in closed installations - a 14.5x ROI. With a cost per fit of just £2,100 and clear, transparent communication, TNW is now in line to become a main lead partner for their seven-figure annual spend.

Watch the full interview with Carbon Energy Savings. This page summarises what they told us on camera.

Interviewee

Scott, operations director

Based

Glasgow, working across the UK

Type of work

Residential (domestic) solar

Test size

50 leads, then an order of 100

Cost per fitted install

About £2,100

Who Carbon Energy Savings are

Carbon Energy Savings is a home-improvement installer based in Glasgow, with experience across the UK and expanding south of the border. Scott, one of its operations directors, explains that the team used to write about 70% of the business of another company it worked under, so on Companies House it looks like it went from nothing to a turnover projection of about £10 million from a standing start in April, with the aim of doubling that within 12 months. Its spend on leads runs to seven figures a year.

The situation

This campaign was residential, not TNW's usual commercial site meetings. Carbon prefers to buy raw leads rather than booked appointments so that its own contact centre keeps control of what goes into its reps' diaries: each lead gets a first call, a quality assurance call and a QC check before an appointment is set. Scott says appointments booked by other providers have not converted as well into solid sales because they skip those steps.

Home improvement has a lot of cancellations, so Carbon measures cost per fitted install as well as cost per sale. Good reps convert one in three or one in four appointments, but fewer of those go on to be fitted.

What TNW delivered

TNW ran the campaign on Meta, testing static and video advert angles until it found the ones with the lowest cost per lead. People went to a website rather than a Facebook form, adding a little friction to filter out the uninterested, and a detailed quiz captured their details and screened out anyone who could not have solar, such as people living in flats. Qualified leads were sent by webhook straight into Carbon's CRM.

Carbon's side was the sales process: calling each lead within five minutes, a mapped follow-up of eight to ten calls, emails and texts over the first 24–48 hours for anyone who did not answer, agents prepared for every objection, and a fully mapped site survey.

TNW's own breakdown of the campaign gives the numbers: about £2,200 spent and about £30,000 of installations in under 14 days. Roughly one in five or six leads became an appointment, and about one sale came from every two pitches. Scott puts the cost per fitted install, after cancellations, at about £2,100, which he calls fantastic for the business.

The first test was 50 leads and the next order was 100. Scott says the service exceeded expectations, and that TNW's openness about how the leads are generated matters because Carbon buys from several sources and has to avoid overlaps and duplicates. He sees TNW as able to become Carbon's main lead partner.

TNW's commercial service works differently from this residential campaign: TNW finds and qualifies the business, books the site meeting into your diary and you pay per qualified, attended appointment, not per raw enquiry or a monthly retainer. Read how pay per appointment commercial solar leads work, or see the checks behind each booking in how to qualify commercial solar leads.

Results

• £2,200 spent → £32,000 closed installations in 2 weeks (14.5x ROI)
• Cost per fit of £2,100 - highly profitable in their model
• "Your delivery has exceeded expectations. Open, flexible, and you listen to what we want."
• "You have the ability to become our main partner - we spend 7 figures a year on leads."