Lead generation from energy comparison sites

Aug 29
3 min read

Introduction

An installer signs up to a lead platform. Enquiries arrive immediately, the diary fills, and the business grows. A year later the conversion rate is low, every job is won on price, and the cost per enquiry has risen twice.

Comparison and lead platforms are a legitimate channel and they are structurally designed to commoditise you. The same enquiry goes to three or four installers, the customer compares on price, and the platform's incentive is a competitive auction. Using them well requires understanding that rather than resenting it. The installers who do best on these platforms are the ones who priced the channel honestly first.

1. Lead generation from energy comparison sites means buying a shared enquiry

Know what you have purchased.

The customer requested quotes from several installers and expects to compare them. You are entering a competitive situation at a cost, not receiving an introduction, and every part of your response should reflect that.

2. Calculate your real cost per job

The number that decides whether it works.

Cost per lead divided by your conversion rate gives the acquisition cost of each won job, and it is frequently several times what installers assume. Set against gross margin, that figure tells you whether the channel is viable. Installers who have never run this calculation are frequently working at a loss on platform jobs.

3. Respond first

The strongest predictor of winning.

Contact within minutes rather than hours consistently converts better, because the customer is still engaged and you frame the comparison. A lead answered the next day is competing against three installers who already visited.

4. Do not compete on price alone

The trap the channel sets.

Where every installer is quoting the same job, the temptation is to shave the figure. Competing on clarity, comparability, aftercare and speed of response wins a reasonable share at a sustainable price, and price-cutting wins jobs that lose money. Price-cutting wins the jobs that were never going to be profitable in the first place.

5. Qualify quickly and drop the unsuitable

Time is the real cost.

A proportion of platform leads are unsuitable, unaffordable or not seriously intending to proceed. Establishing that in a short call, rather than in a survey visit, is what keeps the channel economic.

6. Track conversion by source separately

Platforms vary enormously.

Cost per lead, contact rate, quotation rate, conversion and job value, by platform. Installers regularly discover that one source produces most of the revenue and another produces most of the wasted visits.

7. Watch the exclusivity and refund terms

Read what you signed.

How many installers receive each lead, whether unusable leads can be credited, and what the minimum spend commits you to. These terms vary considerably and they materially change the economics.

8. Build channels the platform cannot price

The strategic response.

Referrals, reviews, local search and past customers cost less and are not auctioned. A business where platform leads are one channel among several has negotiating power; one entirely dependent on them does not.

9. Review it against your own marketing

The honest comparison.

The same spending directed at local search visibility, content and asking past customers for referrals frequently produces cheaper enquiries within a year. Platforms are fast and rented; your own channels are slow and owned.

Ask customers who came through a platform how they chose. The answers are usually about responsiveness and how the quotation was explained rather than about being cheapest, which is useful because both of those are entirely within your control.

Conclusion

Understand that you are buying a shared enquiry in a competitive auction rather than an introduction.

Calculate the true acquisition cost per won job, respond within minutes because speed decides most of these, compete on clarity and aftercare rather than on price, qualify quickly and drop unsuitable leads before visiting, track performance separately by platform, read the exclusivity and refund terms, build referral and search channels that cannot be auctioned, and compare the spending against what your own marketing would produce.