How Installers Can Maximise Lead Generation ROI

“What returns can I expect from lead generation?” It’s the question that installers and contractors ask most when they partner with us to get qualified leads.

Or, in other words, “How much profit will I make?” And it’s a fair question!

We know that return on investment (ROI) is one of your most valuable bottom-line metrics. So, we strive to ensure that the leads you get from us aren’t just filling your pipeline. We prioritise lead quality, delivering exclusive, qualified leads so you can convert interest in your product into installs that generate proven revenue.

In this article, we’ll discuss everything installers need to know about lead generation ROI: how to measure it, what affects it, and how to improve it.

What is Lead Generation ROI for Installers and Contractors?

Your lead generation ROI measures the total revenue earned from your lead generation investments, compared to the total amount you spent.

In short, it tells you how profitable your investment is. Think of it as the contextual link between what you spend on lead generation and how much money you earn from it through booked installs that end up with paying customers.

How to Measure Lead Generation ROI

This is the basic formula:

Lead gen ROI = (Total Net Revenue / Costs) x 100

Let’s say you buy 1,000 qualified leads from Sales Fuel at a total cost of £25,000. From these leads, you earn a total of £70,000 in net revenue. The formula you’d use would look like this:

(£70,000 in total net revenue / £25,000 marketing cost) x 100 = 280% ROI.

If you handle lead generation in-house, measuring marketing ROI can get complicated fast. Costs are spread across multiple areas (training, ad spend, content production, software, staffing, even electricity and rent costs). So, you have to factor in a lot of overheads that might not seem obvious to start with.

There’s also the challenge of attributing sales to specific channels. Did the enquiry that led to an install and a paying customer come from your Google Ads campaign, your blog post, or the flyer you put through the door?

When attribution isn’t clear, it’s hard to see your true marketing ROI.

With Sales Fuel, calculating ROI is much clearer. It’s simply money spent vs revenue won, without all the added attributions and overheads that cost you and your business more and eventually take from your profits.

Want to see just how easy it is? Try our ROI calculator!

Our Lead Generation ROI Calculator

Use our FREE ROI calculator to see projected returns with Sales Fuel’s qualified, exclusive leads, based on the lead volumes you want and our average conversion rates. View your total marketing spend, net sales, cost-per-lead, cost-per-sale, and other figures to unlock your revenue potential.

No sign-up needed. No strings attached. Just a straight answer.

Did you know? You can even set your own conversion rates from pitch should you know them. We go on a typical average conversation rate but if you convert better, your ROI would be higher!

What Factors Affect Lead Generation ROI for Installers?

Want to make sure you achieve a high ROI? There are a few factors to consider, from how quickly you respond to leads to whether you use a sales or marketing automation platform.

Lead response times

Knowing how to improve lead response times has a huge impact on your ROI potential.

The faster you respond to leads, the more likely they are to actually pick up the phone and convert. If you’re too slow, leads lose interest or get snapped up by another installer, as they are likely to be shopping around at the point of submission with high intent.

Let’s compare two scenarios to see the full impact of speed.

Say you purchase 1,000 leads at £25 each, totalling £25,000. For easy maths, each individual sale generates £1,000 in revenue. Here’s how your ROI might vary based exclusively on your response time.

Scenario A: slow response time (e.g. 1-24 hours)

Contact rate: 20% (200 leads)

Conversion rate of leads contacted: 20% (40 leads)

Revenue: £40,000

Your ROI is 160% (good, but could be better).

Scenario B: fast response time (e.g. within 5 minutes)

Contact rate: 70% (700 leads)

Conversion rate of leads contacted: 20% (140 leads)

Revenue: £140,000

Your ROI is 560% (great!).

In each case, you converted 20% of the leads contacted. But when you respond faster, you’re able to make initial contact with more warm leads who are ready to buy. So, you’re able to close more deals and scale ROI much further.

Staffing factors

Let’s say you’re a small installation company. You have a two-person sales team, but you want to purchase 4000 leads a week. When those leads come in, your two sales reps will instantly become overwhelmed.

Leads will be left in the pipeline for hours or days before your reps finally make contact. By then, the leads have gone cold and your ROI has tanked.

By aligning lead volumes with your capacity, you’ll be able to contact all the leads you get within an optimal timeframe. So, there’s a higher chance of you seeing your investment turn into profits.

At Sales Fuel, we always ask you about your business’s size and capacity. This helps us set you up with optimal lead volumes to deliver the best ROI from your leads.

While we do want you to buy more leads, we don’t want to end up giving you too many leads! It lowers the quality of our leads and, in turn, your ROI.

Software considerations

Ideally, you want to use customer relationship management (CRM) software for the best chance of scaling ROI.

CRMs have multiple benefits. They centralise data, automatically assign leads to reps, and can be accessed by mobile to power instant responses.

Some companies use less-efficient methods, like spreadsheets or email. We can deliver leads to those tools, too. However, their lack of automations and centralisation makes it harder for you to move leads quickly through your sales cycle.

If you don’t have a CRM yet, we can guide you on how to get set up with one to boost conversions. Or, if you want to see how we deliver qualified leads to CRMs like HubSpot, Salesforce, and more, check out our API integrations.

Lead quality

This is a big one, but it isn’t something you have to worry about when you partner with Sales Fuel!

Low-quality leads drag your ROI down. Think: leads with inactive contact details, insufficient budgets, or low intent. A low-quality lead could also be a shared lead (a lead that’s been sold to multiple companies).

These leads are unlikely to convert. But if they’re in your pipeline, you’ll have to waste time chasing them. This is why we take careful steps to deliver the highest quality leads.

All of our leads are verified homeowners with real, working contact details, sent exclusively to you to maximise quality. And, we have a detailed lead qualification checklist that we use to pre-qualify leads against specific industry criteria like budget, property suitability, timeframe, and more.

These leads are more likely to convert into paying customers. So, your sales team can prioritise prospects that actually lead to completed installs, driving a positive ROI.

Value propositions and offers

Even high-quality leads can grow cold if your offer is weak. So, take a look at your pitch and consider if there’s any way to improve your value proposition.

We’ve seen that leads respond well to:

• Installers who showcase their unique selling points and professionalism, such as accreditations, high-tech solutions and warranty guarantees.
• Exclusive and/or time-sensitive offers, such as offering £500-£1500 off their install if they purchase within a month.
• Price matches against competitor quotes (providing they give you hard evidence, of course!).
• Convenient timeframes, especially if the lead requires an urgent repair or replacement.
  
  

Improving your value proposition is a great way to handle objections and convert leads on the brink of buying. Even just one of the suggestions above can help you achieve higher returns.

Demand fluctuations

Demand fluctuations in home improvement can cause your lead generation ROI to swing from high to low in a matter of weeks.

For industries like insulation, ASHP, and boilers, demand tends to spike during autumn and winter when homeowners are feeling the chill. But during the summer months, demand can dry up.

Other home improvement industries see booming demand in the spring and summer. It’s when homeowners start thinking about installing solar panels, for example, or getting their kitchen or bathroom renovated. But during autumn and winter, interest tends to fade.

At Sales Fuel, we understand the demand fluctuations across all the industries we serve. We strive to attract and nurture leads year-round so that you can capitalise on demand during peak seasons and still enjoy a steady flow of leads during off-seasons.

That said, it’s normal for your ROI to fall at specific times of the year. So, always take that into account.

Average order values (AOV)

If two of our clients purchase the same volume of leads at the same price, and they both convert the same percentage of leads, one company can still have a higher ROI. This is almost always down to AOV.

It’s simple: if you sell low-ticket products, you’ll have to convert more leads to achieve the same margins as installers that sell high-ticket products.

This doesn’t mean you should just raise your prices (a high AOV doesn’t guarantee more profits). The key here is optimising your lead volumes and lead response times to make sure you receive and convert enough leads to see the profits you want.

We offer different lead options at various price points to suit your business’s products, budget, and revenue goals. So, you can achieve optimal ROI whether you sell low, mid-range, or high-ticket services! Plus, you can mix and match lead options for different products.

Check out our lead options for a full comparison.

How Installers Can Improve Lead Gen ROI With Sales Fuel’s Leads

For installers and contractors, the biggest obstacle to increasing lead gen ROI is lead quality. If your pipeline is full of cold, unqualified leads, they simply won’t convert into sales and revenue. So, it’s important to prioritise quality over volume.

This is something Sales Fuel can fix. Our leads are:

• Exclusive: We don’t share your leads, so you won’t have a pipeline full of price-sensitive prospects that are being contacted by multiple businesses.
• Hyper-targeted: We use strategic marketing campaigns across various channels to attract the right target audience.
• Verified: Receive active contact details only – no more dead numbers or emails.
• Pre-qualified: Our leads live in your target region and have the budget, authority, and intent to buy home improvement products. This means that they’re ripe for conversion.
• Sent in real-time: We send leads to your CRM in real-time at a predictable schedule, so you can win more jobs with fast responses.
  
  

With all that said, plug your figures into our ROI calculator and see what our leads could make you. If you need help using it, give our team a call and we’ll walk you through it.

Or, if you want to see what our average conversion rates are or how quickly you can expect returns, read our lead generation FAQs. We answer a lot of common questions about how we generate leads for installers across solar, insulation, windows & doors, and more.