Hi everyone, another ad breakdown for you today. This time we’ve got Arc Technical.

Now, this is an absolutely fantastic father-and-son business. Their campaigns, to be honest, have absolutely flown. We’ve gone really hard on the angle of family-owned local business—small enough to deal with each customer one-on-one and give them a really personalized and bespoke service and consultation. Agnostic to certain manufacturers, etc., etc.—basically the most bespoke provider that you could possibly find, right?

And the ads as a result have just absolutely killed it. I think they’re on an average cost per lead of about £28 right now. And these are not bottom-of-the-barrel leads. These are leads that genuinely want Oliver and Jonathan’s advice and consultation to help them achieve their goals with a renewable energy system.

Okay, so let’s take a look at the concepts that we’ve used to create such successful ads with those USPs in mind. Let’s jump right in.

“There’s no better compliment than when a customer recommends us to install solar and batteries for their neighbor and their neighbor and their neighbor.”

So right away—we’re not even six seconds into the ad and we’ve immediately gone hard on the referrals angle. Okay, so the best thing is the referral, right? The second best thing is talking about referrals.

So what we’ve done is try to bring the lead quality as close as humanly possible to what you would find from a genuine referral from one customer to the next. We’ve basically hijacked that concept and said: “Look, this is a street. This is a street where we’ve got not one referral, but two referrals, and then actually a third one that they’re quoting for.”

And we’re going to talk you through how that played out and why that’s the case—why one person has gone solar on this street and all of a sudden everyone wants to join them.

A lot of people think: “Oh well, you know, all of my business so far has come from referrals because I do such a good job. And it’s only then that people really talk about what’s so different about us and how we do such a good job.”

But I’ve got some news for you: you can present that in an ad like this. You don’t need to wait for someone to have that experience for you to get the word out there. You can take that feedback and the things people most commonly cite as a reason for referring you, and just slam that straight into an ad creative that you can show to thousands of people.

And that’s not going to change how you’re already generating business from referrals, but it means you can reach so many more eyeballs with that same concept and those same USPs.

“When we install solar systems and we do a great job, word spreads fast. We’re here in this street doing several properties. We’ve done three already and we’ve got a fourth one that we’re quoting. We’re here today installing a 14-panel system with a Duracell battery and inverter in the garage.”

“Come on, let’s go and have a look.”

Little segments like that are lovely—“Come on, let’s go and have a look.” It feels very human, very conversational, as if you’re there on site with them.

The last thing you want is to stick someone in one spot and have them just talk at the camera for two minutes. We need to make it flow. We need to make it feel authentic.

“A lot of older solar panel systems have these silver rails which really stand out and don’t blend in. We only use all-black rails with all-black panels so your system looks modern and sleek.”

I love that. Even little things like that—someone was telling me the black rails are only a couple quid extra per meter, but it makes such a difference.

When people see solar systems, they’ll see one and think it looks okay, maybe a bit obtrusive. Then they’ll see another that looks absolutely the bomb and they can’t quite tell why it looks so different.

There are so many small details: the colour of the rails, whether end caps are on the rails, whether it’s a true all-black panel versus one with a deep blue hint… all that stuff. To an untrained eye, you might not even spot it. So a video like this that breaks down why these systems look so good is super valuable—because people might not even know what they’re looking for.

“Many installers have all the equipment delivered directly to the customer site. We don’t do that. We always have the stuff in our own unit where we take it over. So we have panels delivered to our storage unit, we take out the individual panels for the customer, bring them to site ourselves to make sure nothing gets damaged on the way.”

Just a quick note: natural language. “We always have the stuff ourselves.” It’s simple and understandable.

One of the most common rules in advertising is to write copy or speak in a grade-three reading level—like year three reading level. And intentionally or unintentionally, these guys do a fantastic job of that. They just speak in a language that sounds like a real conversation. Saying “stuff” is what you’d normally say.

“So these panels are 450W each. We’re fitting 14 on the roof up there to give us 6.3kW of total power.”

That segment could have been static and boring if Oliver was just stood in one spot. But quite often, when I’m directing, I’m literally telling someone: “Go back over there, then walk towards me. Go back, walk. Tuck to the left, tuck to the right.”

Movement and changing background keeps it active. It feels like progress is happening rather than someone being stuck in place.

“So these panels are 450W each… This is what we call a puff bag. It’s a safety bag for lifting solar panels.”

Now we talk about safety bags, right? Everyone says solar saves you money, helps the environment, increases property value—but no one’s talking about puff bags.

You might think it’s irrelevant to the customer, but I promise you it’s not. It’s the accumulation of all these considerations—things people might not even know exist—that create the overall feel that this company is worth paying a little bit extra for.

They might think everyone holds the panel as they go up the ladder. Different gravy.

And it’s stuff like that which makes people think: actually, this company really knows their stuff.

Sorry, I’m a bit out of breath—I’ve been lifting panels.

“So this allows us to lift the panels safely. We put the panel in the bag. It’s a special non-slip surface and it protects the solar panels on their journey up onto the roof. Just because we’re a small company doesn’t mean we compromise on safety. Everybody can do it this way, but not everybody does.”

Go on—what a line. “Everybody can do it this way, but not everybody does.” That was cold from Jonathan. Love it.

“Always stand back when I’m lifting the panel so that I can see if it gets caught or if there’s likelihood of anything falling. There’s nobody underneath. The panels we use are bifacial panels, meaning they generate power from the front and the back, so you get a slight extra from the reflection underneath them.”

“So if you want to get an honest solar quote from a local family-run business…”

And now we’re into the call to action, which is super important. But instead of saying: “If you want the most price-competitive quote with the fastest ROI,” that’s not the angle here.

We’re sticking to one angle and one type of customer. In this case: you want an honest solar quote from a local family-run business that’s close to you. The CTA reflects that.

“Just click the button below, give us a few of your details, and myself or Jonathan will be in touch to arrange a solar quote for you.”

Also lovely how he made it personal: “myself or Jonathan.” Not “the team.” Not “one of us.” It’s just local and human.

And then there you go—that’s the full ad.

I think this is a great example of how we adapt our approach. We work with national installers where this doesn’t match at all, but we also work with local installers doing kind of four to twelve installations a month—smaller businesses that actually have really strong USPs. More often than not, they just need help conveying those to customers—why you should choose them over the guy down the road, or the national installer who might be slightly cheaper.

And you can imagine the leads coming from this ad are quite insensitive to price because they’ve got different goals. They want that consultative experience and to be advised on the kit that’s best for them.

And they’re coming in at a rate that is pretty unbelievable—£28, £29 per lead. And they’re surveying a great deal of them.

In fact, Arc have literally just hired someone—I think they’ve got the trial literally today—for someone who is going to be employed just to handle the leads we’re generating for them. They said it’s happened far quicker than they expected, which is fantastic feedback for us.

So yeah—if you want ads made like this one, maybe you’re a local business in a similar position to Jonathan and Oliver. Maybe you haven’t advertised before, or you have and it was a complete write-off, and you’re looking for someone who can deliver these kinds of results for a local company with similar USPs—fantastic work, high quality, not the cheapest rates in the market—then we’re the company for you.

You should book a call. You should see a “book an appointment” button at the top of the video above this here. If you do that, you’ll be able to book straight into my diary and we’ll have a chat and see what we can do.

Appreciate your time, and I’ll see you in the next one.