Case study · Solar Companies · New Zealand

Solar Case Study New Zealand: +105% Leads

Name: Marketing & Lead Expert
Address: IN
Price range: $$

How a solar installer with 5 install crews in Tauranga grew quote requests 105% and cut cost per lead 40% in 6 months with UX/UI & CRO, GEO and Meta Ads.

Illustrative case study: the business is anonymised and the figures are modelled on typical results for this market.

Solar Companies · New Zealand

Solar

A solar installer with 5 install crews based in Tauranga, serving the wider Tauranga area and focused on residential solar and home batteries. Before working with us, 56% of enquiries came through Builderscrack and similar paid platforms, where the same lead often went to three or four competitors. The goal was more exclusive quote requests, a lower cost per install and a pipeline the owner controls.

Results After 6 Months

Leads per month

+105%

Cost per lead

-40%

Marketing-sourced revenue

+166%

Return on marketing spend

13.9x

The challenge

Where the business was stuck

Solar buyers research for weeks, compare several quotes and are wary of pushy sales, so generic lead lists convert poorly.
Rebates, tariffs and incentives change often, and campaigns that aren't updated quickly start making promises that are no longer true.
Shared solar leads are often sold to five or more installers, making cost per sale far higher than the cost per lead suggests.
Peak season (interest rises in spring and summer and after power price increases) was not being planned for, so budget ran out when demand was highest.

The approach

Three services, one goal

We focused on Website Optimisation (UX/UI & CRO), GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) and Meta Ads (Facebook & Instagram), the three channels with the best cost per install for solar installation businesses in Tauranga. Every call, form and chat was tracked to a booked outcome from week one, so every decision was based on revenue, not clicks.

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What we did

The technical work behind the numbers, service by service.

Service 1

Website Optimisation (UX/UI & CRO)

Ran a UX audit using heatmaps and 2,500 session recordings to find where mobile visitors dropped off.
Rebuilt 8 landing pages with one offer, one call to action and proof (reviews, licences, guarantees) above the fold.
Cut the enquiry form from 11 fields to 3, added a sticky click-to-call bar and a multi-step quote form on mobile.
Ran 4 A/B tests on headlines, form placement and offers; the winning variants now carry all traffic.

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Service 2

GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation)

Created a consistent entity profile: the same business facts across the website, Google Business Profile, directories, LinkedIn and review sites.
Published 56 citation-ready answers on costs, timelines, regulations and brands, written in the formats ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity quote.
Earned mentions on 29 trusted third-party sites (industry bodies, local news, comparison articles) that AI models draw from.
Tracked 60 buyer prompts across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews every month to measure citations and share of voice.

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Service 3

Meta Ads (Facebook & Instagram)

Installed the Meta Pixel and Conversions API server-side, lifting event match quality from 4.4 to 9.0 out of 10.
Launched Instant Form lead ads with 5 qualifying questions (area, job type, timeframe) to filter out low-intent leads.
Tested 39 creatives: before and after photos, short job videos and owner-to-camera clips; the top 6 now carry the budget.
Built audiences from website visitors, video viewers and a 3% lookalike of past customers, excluding existing clients.
Synced lead ad submissions to the CRM in real time so every lead was called within minutes.

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The numbers

Before and after

Metric	Before	Month 6	Change
Quote requests per month	37	76	+105%
Cost per lead	NZ$297	NZ$179	-40%
Cost per install	NZ$2,063	NZ$958	-54%
Lead-to-job rate	14%	19%	+4 pts
Website conversion rate	3.3%	5.5%	+68%
Marketing-sourced revenue / month	NZ$89k	NZ$237k	+166%
Share of leads from paid directories	56%	21%	-35 pts
Enquiry form fields	11	3	-8
AI answer citations (tracked prompts)	1 of 60	25 of 60	+24
Meta Ads leads / month	0	21	new channel

Lead growth

Quote requests per month

Marketing-sourced revenue went from NZ$89k to NZ$237k a month, measured from booked installs in the CRM.

Optimisations That Moved The Numbers

01
The shorter 3-field form lifted form conversion rate by 41%.
02
The sticky mobile call bar increased calls from mobile visitors by 30%.
03
The business is now cited in 25 of 60 tracked AI prompts, up from 1.
04
Adding qualifying questions to the lead form cut junk leads by 41% while keeping cost per lead 20% below the account average.

The 6-month timeline

From tracking to scale.

Weeks 1 to 2
Audit, tracking and baseline
Call tracking, conversion tracking, CRM connection and a full audit covering UX/UI & CRO, GEO and Meta Ads.
Weeks 3 to 6
Build and launch
UX/UI & CRO, GEO and Meta Ads live for residential solar and home batteries.
Months 2 to 4
Optimise
Weekly search term, call and landing page reviews. Budget and effort moved to the jobs that close.
Months 5 to 6
Scale
Expansion into Hamilton and nearby areas, plus new services with proven demand.

Illustrative case study: the business is anonymised and the figures are modelled on typical results for this market. Your results depend on your market, budget, capacity and follow-up. We share realistic forecasts in your free audit.