Installer guide · updated 30 Oct 2026 · 20 min read
Solar Installer Marketing: Solar Marketing Services and Booked Surveys
Short answer: a solar marketing agency sells solar installer marketing services: it either builds your brand (website, SEO, social, ads) and leaves your team to turn interest into meetings, or generates leads and booked appointments for you. For commercial installers, the thing worth paying for is a site survey with the decision-maker at a business that can go ahead. TNW Marketing is a solar marketing agency for commercial solar installers that books exactly that: exclusive, pre-qualified commercial site meetings, paid per attended booking, with no retainer. (Heat pumps and battery storage too? See our renewable energy marketing page.)
For a UK commercial installer, the channels that put site surveys in the diary soonest are the ones that reach business owners directly. Search, reviews and referrals build trust and bring inbound work, but more slowly. This is what each main channel realistically involves, taken from our own channel guides and installer case studies.
Channel
What it involves
Time to first booked survey
What you pay for
Google search and guides
A commercial service page, a page per finished project, a Google Business Profile with genuine reviews, and several hours a week on pages and Search Console
Weeks to months, and unpredictable: Google says some changes take several months
Your time, or an agency: the two UK solar SEO agencies that publish prices start from £1,500 a month
Facebook and Meta ads
Lead forms with custom questions (business type, own or lease, electricity spend), and someone calling every enquiry back the same day. Meta targets people, not companies, so homeowners come in too
Enquiries within days; reliable qualified surveys usually take weeks to months of testing
Ad spend, charged for clicks or impressions rather than bookings, plus the time to call every enquiry
Referrals and reviews
Partners already in front of your customers (energy brokers, M&E and roofing contractors, landlords), a written referral agreement, and asking every customer for a review at handover
Weeks to months, depending on when partners' clients are ready
A few hours a week from the owner or a senior salesperson, plus any referral fees you agree
Cold outreach (calls, email, LinkedIn)
A dedicated caller for several hours a day, or one named person on lists, first lines and replies, with a CRM, a dialler or sequencer, and data screened against the TPS and CTPS
Days to weeks for calling; weeks for email while new domains warm up. Consistent results usually take weeks to months
Salary, data and software. The National Careers Service puts a sales representative at about £23,000 a year for a starter to £50,000 for someone experienced
Buying leads or booked appointments
Choosing a supplier and getting exclusivity, qualification and no-show terms in writing. A lead still needs calling and booking; a booked appointment goes straight into the diary
As soon as the supplier starts sending leads or booking meetings
Per lead or per booked appointment. TNW Marketing charges £250 to £1,000+VAT per booked appointment, with no retainer
Meta ads need fast follow-up. We ran a Meta campaign for Carbon Energy Savings, a domestic installer: about £2,200 spent and about £30,000 of installations in under 14 days. Carbon called each lead within five minutes, with eight to ten calls, emails and texts over the first 24 to 48 hours for anyone who did not answer. For commercial work the ad and the form also have to filter out homeowners; see Solar Surveys UK's guide to solar advertising.
Outreach is only as good as who does it.Castle Eco Solutions had paid another company that does outreach and email campaigns around £5,000 and had not heard from it since March. If you run it yourself, our guides to cold calling and cold email for commercial solar set out the hours, tools and UK rules.
Bought leads vary most on exclusivity. Before TNW, Luz Solar's bought leads were shared with three or four other companies. With exclusive meetings, Stephen James says: “Not one of the leads has been a waste, to be honest.” IndyGen, comparing us with hiring internally, put it as “Better than an in-house sales person” (IndyGen case study).
Solar installer marketing: the three jobs it has to do
Solar installer marketing is everything that gets you from "nobody has heard of us" to a surveyor on a roof with someone who can say yes. Whoever does it, in-house or an agency, it has three jobs:
Be found and trusted. A website that shows commercial work, reviews and case studies, and enough search presence that a business checking you out finds you.
Reach the businesses that fit. Phone, email, LinkedIn, paid ads and public tenders, aimed at owners and finance directors of sites that suit solar.
Turn interest into surveys. Qualify ownership, energy spend, roof and decision-maker, then book the meeting. This is the step most marketing budgets never pay for.
For a domestic installer the first job can carry the business, because homeowners search and fill in forms. For a commercial installer the second and third jobs matter more: the buyer is a business that was not looking, and every survey that should not have been booked costs a surveyor's day. Most installers hire out one or two of these jobs and keep the rest. The rest of this page covers who does which, and what each option costs you.
The three kinds of solar marketing agency
"Solar marketing agency" covers very different businesses, and most installers who have been let down by one hired the wrong kind for what they needed. There are three broad types.
Full-service marketing agencies. They build and run your website, SEO, social media, content and paid ads. They are paid to create attention for your brand. Turning that attention into site meetings is your team's job.
Lead suppliers. They run campaigns and sell you the enquiries, usually per lead. A lead is a name and number from someone who showed some interest; your team still has to call, qualify and book it, and it may have been sold to other installers too. If you plan to buy solar leads in the UK, check exclusivity, qualification and replacement terms first.
Appointment and lead generation agencies. They do the prospecting, calling and qualifying themselves and hand you a booked meeting. Some charge a retainer for their callers' time; others, like TNW Marketing, are paid per qualified meeting that actually happens.
Domestic and commercial solar need different things. A domestic installer can live on high volumes of homeowner enquiries. A commercial installer needs fewer, larger opportunities with a business owner or finance director who controls the building and the electricity bill, and every wasted survey costs a surveyor's day.
Solar marketing services: what a solar digital marketing agency offers
Whether it calls itself a solar energy marketing agency, a solar digital marketing agency or a team of solar marketing experts, an agency's offer is built from the same services. What differs is which ones it is good at and what it is paid for. This is what each one does, how it is usually charged, and how much it helps a commercial installer.
Service
What you get
For commercial solar
Website
A site that shows your commercial installs, accreditations, case studies and reviews
Essential, because every business you approach will look you up. It rarely brings commercial enquiries on its own
SEO
Content and technical work so you rank for searches like "commercial solar panels" in your area
Slow to build and useful for inbound and trust; many businesses that end up buying solar were not searching for it
Paid search (Google Ads)
Ads shown to people searching for solar now
Catches buyers already looking; needs tight keywords and negatives to keep homeowners out
Paid social (Meta, LinkedIn)
Ads aimed at audiences by job title, interest or location
LinkedIn can target owners and finance directors by role; Meta reaches business owners as consumers, so expect homeowner enquiries mixed in
Social media and content
Posts, project videos and case studies on your channels
Builds trust and gives your sales team proof to send; seldom books a survey by itself
Email marketing
Newsletters to past customers and cold outreach to target businesses
Cold email to the right businesses books meetings when it is personal; newsletters win repeat and referral work
Outbound calling
A team that phones target businesses to start conversations
The most direct way to reach the person who pays the electricity bill
Appointment setting
Prospects found, qualified and booked into your diary
Produces the thing you actually need: a site survey with a decision-maker
Most solar marketing services are sold by the month, so ask what each one is expected to produce for your business, not just what will be delivered. For a commercial installer the useful answer is a number of site surveys with decision-makers, and the services at the bottom of the table are the ones that produce them directly. Solar Surveys UK has more on solar advertising and solar SEO.
Marketing agency vs lead generation vs pay per booking
The real difference is who does the work between "a business showed interest" and "we are on site", and who pays when that work produces nothing.
Compared on
Full-service marketing agency
Lead supplier
Pay per booking (TNW)
What you get
A website, brand, SEO, social content and ad campaigns
Enquiries: form fills, names and numbers
Qualified site meetings booked into your calendar
How it is charged
Usually a monthly retainer, sometimes plus ad spend
Per lead, or a retainer
Per qualified, attended booking
Who does the selling work
You: the agency brings attention, your team turns it into meetings
You: calling, qualifying and booking
The provider, up to the meeting; you survey and sell
Who carries the risk
You: a quiet month costs the same
Mostly you: unanswered and shared leads are your cost
The provider: a booking that misses the brief is replaced or refunded
How long until results
SEO and brand take months; ads can be quicker
As soon as campaigns run
As soon as the first meetings are booked
Best for
Building a brand and a steady inbound pipeline over time
Teams with spare callers to work volume
Installers who want surveys in the diary and spend tied to outcomes
Whoever you hire, ask which channels they will use and why, because the answer should be different for a commercial installer than for a domestic one. Commercial decision-makers rarely fill in a solar quote form on a whim, so the channels that work reach them directly.
Phone. Still the most direct way to reach the person who signs off the spend and get a straight answer. Our guide to cold calling for commercial solar covers call lists, scripts and the UK rules.
Paid ads. Work best when they filter for intent rather than collect cheap form fills. Our sister site Solar Surveys UK has a guide to solar advertising.
SEO. The slowest to build, and it keeps bringing enquiries in once it works. See the solar SEO guide on Solar Surveys UK.
Most agencies are strong in one or two of these. An honest one will tell you which, and will show you installers it has done it for.
PPAs, roof work and the wider renewables sector
TNW Marketing books commercial solar appointments: rooftop, ground-mount and PPA (our guide to commercial solar PPAs explains how installers win zero-capex deals with funders). We do not book heat pump or standalone roofing surveys. The same warehouse that is right for rooftop solar may need roof work first, though, and some of the commercial solar sites we book also need a roof replacement or overcladding before panels can go on. Our guide to roof overcladding and replacement before solar covers how roofers and solar installers scope those jobs together.
If you are choosing an agency for more than solar, or want to see how we work with results from installers, our page on picking a renewable energy marketing agency compares the main kinds of provider and how each is paid.
How TNW Marketing works
TNW Marketing is a UK lead generation agency for commercial renewables installers, founded by Daniel Bell and Roman Steer-Love. We do the prospecting, the calling and the qualifying, and book the meeting into your calendar. You pay for qualified, attended surveys, not for our time.
Qualified before it reaches you. Every business is checked for ownership (or landlord consent), energy spend from meters and billing, roof suitability and buying intent, and you meet the decision-maker or bill payer.
Exclusive. Each booking goes to one installer, never shared with two or three others.
Paid per attended booking. No retainers, no monthly minimums. A booking that does not meet the agreed brief is replaced or refunded. Our show rate is 60%+.
Written up. Each booking comes with the energy usage, bill spend, location and likely system size, so your surveyor knows what they are walking into.
Paying per booked survey is not the answer to everything. A full-service marketing agency makes more sense when:
You need a new website, a brand or content before anything else.
You want to build inbound demand over the long term and can wait months for SEO to pay back.
You mainly sell domestic installs and want high volumes of homeowner enquiries.
You already have a team of callers who need a steady flow of raw enquiries to work.
Many installers use both: an agency for the brand and the website, and pay-per-booking lead generation for a predictable flow of commercial surveys. Our lead calculator shows how many surveys you need for your install target.
Solar installer marketing: questions installers ask
What marketing works best for solar installers?
For commercial installers, the channels that reach business owners directly: phone, personal email and LinkedIn, or a provider who books the survey for you. Google search, reviews and referrals build trust and bring inbound work, but usually take weeks to months. Facebook and Meta ads can bring enquiries within days, but Meta targets people rather than companies, so expect homeowners in the mix and call every enquiry back the same day. Whatever you choose, compare channels on cost per attended survey and cost per signed project. TNW Marketing charges £250 to £1,000+VAT per booked appointment, with no retainer.
How do solar installers get commercial customers?
Mostly by reaching businesses directly. Commercial decision-makers rarely fill in a solar quote form on a whim, so the channels that work are phone, personal email and LinkedIn aimed at owners and finance directors, public tenders for schools, councils and the NHS, and paid search for businesses already looking. Each prospect then has to be qualified on ownership, energy spend, roof and decision-maker before a survey is booked. Installers do this in-house, hire an agency for part of it, or pay an appointment setter for the booked survey.
Is pay per appointment better than a retainer?
It depends what you are buying. A retainer pays for activity whatever it produces, so a quiet month costs the same and the risk sits with you. Pay per appointment ties your spend to meetings, so the provider carries the risk of bookings that come to nothing. A retainer can suit website, brand and SEO work you are happy to wait months for; for a steady flow of commercial surveys, paying per appointment is easier to measure. TNW Marketing charges £250 to £1,000+VAT per booked appointment, with no retainer.
What should a solar marketing agency deliver?
Something you can measure against sales. For a commercial installer that means site surveys with the person who signs off the spend, at businesses that own or control their building and use their electricity in the day. Ask any agency what exactly you pay for, what counts as qualified, and how results will be measured: cost per attended survey and cost per signed project, not clicks and impressions.
How fast do appointments start?
It varies with your areas and how tightly the brief is drawn, so ask any provider for a realistic start date rather than a promise. From our own case studies, Simplicity Solar says leads started arriving within a fortnight, and Sol PV Group reached five appointments a week within six to eight weeks. SEO and brand work usually take months before they bring enquiries.
Which areas does TNW Marketing cover?
Commercial solar installers across the UK. You set the brief before we start, including the areas you cover and the kinds of commercial sites you want to meet, and bookings are made to that brief. Only ask for areas where your team can attend site meetings promptly.
Should I buy shared leads or leads for one installer only?
For commercial solar, leads for one installer usually win. A shared lead is cheaper per unit, but the business is fielding calls from several installers at once, which drives your price down and wastes sales time. An exclusive lead or meeting is yours to win. Get it in writing: sold once, never resold, including after you turn it down. Every TNW Marketing booking is exclusive to one installer.
Solar marketing agency FAQ
What are solar marketing services?
The services a solar marketing agency sells: websites, SEO, paid search and social ads, social media and content, email marketing, outbound calling and appointment setting. Full-service agencies cover the first group and charge a monthly retainer; lead generation and appointment setting companies cover the last group and are paid per lead or per booked meeting. For commercial installers, the services that reach decision-makers directly (calling, personal email, LinkedIn and appointment setting) usually do the most to fill the survey diary.
What does a solar marketing agency do?
A solar marketing agency helps installers win customers. Full-service agencies build websites, run SEO, social media and paid ads, and leave your team to turn the enquiries into meetings. Lead generation agencies concentrate on producing enquiries or booked appointments rather than brand work. For commercial solar, the output that matters is a site survey with the decision-maker at a business that can actually go ahead.
How much does a solar marketing agency cost?
It depends on the model. Full-service agencies usually charge a monthly retainer, often with ad spend on top. Lead suppliers charge per lead. TNW Marketing charges per qualified, attended booking with no retainer. Compare agencies on cost per attended appointment and cost per signed project, not on the monthly fee or the price of a form fill.
What is solar installer marketing?
Solar installer marketing is the work that wins an installer its customers: being found and trusted (website, reviews, case studies, search), reaching the businesses that fit (phone, email, LinkedIn, ads, tenders) and turning interest into booked site surveys. An installer can do it in-house, hire a solar marketing agency for some of it, or pay a lead generation company for the end result.
How do I choose a solar marketing agency in the UK?
Start with what you need: brand and inbound over time, enquiries for your own team to call, or surveys booked into the diary. Then ask each agency what exactly you pay for, how long the contract runs, whether leads or meetings are exclusive to you, who qualifies them, what happens after a no-show, and for examples of commercial (not domestic) work. Compare on cost per attended survey and cost per signed project.
Do solar advertising agencies work for commercial installers?
They can, with care. Paid search catches businesses already looking for solar, and LinkedIn can target owners and finance directors by role, but ads also pull in homeowners, so the keywords, targeting and landing page need to filter them out. Many businesses that buy commercial solar were not searching for it, which is why outbound calling, email and appointment setting often book more commercial surveys than advertising alone.
Is a solar lead generation agency the same as a solar marketing agency?
Not quite. A solar marketing agency usually builds your brand and your inbound enquiries: website, SEO, social and ads. A lead generation agency skips the brand work and finds businesses that are ready to talk, then passes them to you as enquiries or as booked appointments. Some agencies do a little of both, so ask which one you are paying for.
Is TNW Marketing a solar marketing agency?
TNW Marketing is a lead generation agency for commercial renewables installers. We do not build websites or run brand campaigns. We book exclusive, pre-qualified commercial solar site surveys for installers, and you pay per qualified, attended booking, with no retainer and no minimum spend.
Do you work with roofing and heat pump installers as well as solar?
We book commercial solar appointments only, and we do not book heat pump or standalone roofing surveys. Some of the commercial solar sites we book also need a roof replacement or overcladding before panels can go on, which roofers working alongside solar installers can quote.
Are the meetings shared with other installers?
No. Every booking is exclusive to one installer, so you are not quoting against two or three other companies for the same site.
What happens if a booked customer does not turn up?
You are billed only for qualified, attended surveys. A booking that does not go ahead, or does not meet the agreed brief, is replaced or refunded. Our show rate is 60%+.
What Lead Pronto offers, from its own website, and six alternative UK solar lead suppliers compared on lead type, exclusivity, price, contract and no-shows.
What has closed (PSDS) and what is open now: Great British Energy solar for schools and the NHS, Salix loans in Scotland and Wales, and how installers win the work.
Hire purchase, leasing and PPAs compared, and when the FCA rules on credit broking apply: individuals, the £25,000 business exemption and introducer ARs.
The VAT rate on commercial jobs, when the construction reverse charge applies, invoice wording, and CIS registration, deductions and returns, from HMRC.
For roofers and solar installers: overclad or re-roof first, asbestos and structural checks, RC62 fire classification, the Part L upgrade, sequencing and tax.
Official UK solar statistics: capacity and installations by size band and region, growth trends, 2030 targets and business energy prices, all with sources.
Year-by-year DESNZ tables since 2010: capacity and installations by size band, the commercial bands month by month, generation and share of electricity, with a CSV.
Cold email for commercial solar: who to email, UK rules (PECR, UK GDPR), deliverability set-up, example emails and follow-ups, and what it really takes.
What an outsourced solar calling campaign does, how telemarketing agencies charge, who is liable under PECR, the brief to write and the questions to ask.
What each signed job really costs you, profit after lead spend, and the most you can pay per lead or booked appointment, with a side-by-side comparison.
