Industries · Solar
Value-Based Bidding for Solar Companies: Bid on Installation Value
A submitted form is months away from a completed installation, and many never get there. Use your own history of consultations, contracts and installs to estimate what each new inquiry is likely to be worth, so bidding learns from installations rather than form fills.
Why lead counts fall short
Why a count of solar inquiries misses installation value
Solar funnels are long and leaky. An inquiry becomes a consultation, a site assessment, a signed contract and, sometimes months later, an installed system. Some contracts cancel before installation. A form fill is the cheapest thing to count and the furthest from revenue.
Projects also differ in size. A rooftop system with a battery, a rooftop system on its own and a small commercial installation can differ several times over in contract value, and they do not convert at the same rate.
Installation, not signature, is the outcome
If a signed contract later cancels, recording it as lost keeps the model honest. Pricing on signatures alone overvalues the segments that cancel most.
The wait is long, the value is not delayed
Each new lead is priced when it arrives, from leads like it that already resolved. The long cycle delays proof, not the signal.
Sensitive data stays out
Nothing here needs credit scores or financial details, and the product refuses credit, health and similar fields as inputs. They do not belong in an advertising signal.
The funnel
From inquiry to completed installation
- Inquiry
- Consultation
- Site assessment
- Contract
- Completed installation
Known when the lead arrives
What a new lead can be priced from
- Requested installation type
- Stated project scope
- Service area
- Purchasing timeline
Learned later
What the history is trained on
- Consultation and site assessment held
- Contract signed or cancelled
- Installation completed, and its contract value
What the inquiry form asks is what prices a new lead. Consultations, assessments, contracts and installs are learned later, and the long gaps between them are why values are estimated up front.
How it works
From your sales history to what the ad platforms see
- 1
Bring in your history
A CRM export or a HubSpot connection: leads with their outcomes, won, lost or still open.
- 2
Find what relates to value
Each field known when a lead arrives is tested against your closed deals. Only the ones that clearly moved outcomes are kept.
- 3
Estimate each new lead
Its expected value: how likely leads like it are to become customers, times what those customers were worth.
- 4
Send the value
To Google Ads or Meta, as a conversion value on the lead. Sending changes no bid by itself.
- 5
Judge it on real outcomes
Compare closed deals before and after your campaigns start optimising on the values, never the values we sent.
Worked example
Three leads, three different values
Expected lead value = the estimated chance of becoming a customer × the expected value of that customer.
Value basis: Contract value of a completed installation. Counting only contracts that reached installation as won; cancellations count as lost. Set a margin share and the same estimate is expressed as profit instead.
Small commercial rooftop
- Scope: business premises
- Timeline: this year
4% × $120,000
$4,800
estimated value of this lead
Residential rooftop with battery
- Scope: full system with storage
- Timeline: within three months
10% × $32,000
$3,200
estimated value of this lead
Residential rooftop only
- Scope: panels without storage
- Timeline: six to twelve months
5% × $22,000
$1,100
estimated value of this lead
Illustrative example, not customer results.
The commercial inquiry rarely installs, but its size makes it the most valuable of the three. In practice the product caps any deal above three times your median installation, so very large projects are priced at the cap, and the report shows exactly which ones it clipped.
How the product actually estimates this
It does not score each lead on its own. It starts from your overall close rate times your average won deal, with any deal above three times the median counted at that cap, then applies a multiplier for each field that clearly moved outcomes in your history, and rescales so the average estimate matches what your leads were actually worth. Fields that do not clear the evidence thresholds are left out and listed. The formula above is the same idea in one line.
What data you need
Your CRM already has most of it
- Inquiry dateWhen the lead arrived, so a lead from last spring is not judged against this month's.
- Installed, cancelled or openMark cancelled contracts as lost. Open leads are left out of the fit until they resolve.
- Contract value of completed installationsThe installed system's contract value, or your margin on it if you prefer profit.
- Fields from the inquiry formInstallation type, scope, service area and timeline. Leave out credit, income and other financial details.
- Matching informationGoogle's click ID or the customer's email for Google; email or phone, plus Meta's cookies from your site, for Meta.
What matters most is reliable outcomes and enough of them. The report checks your own file and names anything it could not price, rather than applying a one-size minimum.
How activation works
Estimating, sending and optimising are three steps
The product estimates each lead's value and sends it. Your campaigns use it only once you set them to optimise for value, a change you make in the ad platform, and the platform decides when an account qualifies.
Google Ads
Sends each inquiry's estimated value to a conversion action in Google Ads on the day it arrives. If a stage such as a booked consultation reliably happens within Google's seven-day window, the product can raise that value once when it does; later stages cannot change what Google bids.
Switching a live campaign, step by stepMeta
Sends a ValuedLead event with the value through the Conversions API for website-form leads. Meta bids on values only once an ad set qualifies for value optimisation; instant-form ad sets can learn from later stages through Conversion Leads.
How the Meta route worksThe full method, from pricing a lead to measuring the result, is in the complete guide. Leads that reach your CRM without a click ID are covered in the click ID guide.
How to judge success
Measured in outcomes, not in the values we sent
Installation value per lead
Completed contract value divided by the inquiries that produced it.
Cost per installation
Ad spend against installed systems, not against consultations booked.
Cancellation rate by segment
Whether the leads bidding now favours go on to install, not just to sign.
A rising reported conversion value proves nothing on its own. The product's evaluation waits for enough installations to resolve on both sides of the switch, which in solar can take months, and compares them with leads from other sources as a control.
Questions
Solar, specifically
Our installs take four months after signature. How does that affect this?
Values are estimated when the lead arrives, so the delay does not hold back the signal. It does mean the model needs a history long enough for leads to reach installation, and the evaluation needs about one and a half of those cycles after the switch before it reports.
How should cancellations be recorded?
As lost. A contract that cancels before installation brought in nothing, and counting it as won would teach bidding to favour the leads most likely to cancel.
Should we send credit or financing information?
No. It is sensitive, it does not belong in an advertising signal, and the product refuses credit and similar fields as inputs. Installation type, scope, area and timeline are the fields to use.
We sell both residential and commercial. Is one model enough?
One model with the installation type as an input is usually right: it prices the difference where your history shows one. Very large commercial contracts are capped at three times your median installation so they cannot dominate the signal.
Incentive changes moved our demand last year. Does old history still help?
Older leads still show which kinds of inquiry install, but close rates may have shifted. Fit on the period that reflects today's market, and refit when the market moves again. The product reports when fresh deals have drifted far enough to call for it.
Check whether your lead data is ready
Upload a CRM export or connect HubSpot. In about five minutes you see which of your fields relate to value, what new leads would be estimated at, and whether your history is enough to send. The file is read in your browser; you are asked for a name and work email before the full report.