11:34
Why we changed the first question in our solar funnels
Last time, we made a single change to our lead generation funnels for solar installers.
One question.
Nothing clever.
No redesigns.
That change doubled conversion rates across every client using the system.
The reason was simple.
We realised we were asking people to think before they were ready to think.
This video is an update on what we’re testing next, and why.
Not theory. Not opinions. Just patterns we’re seeing as we run the same funnels across a portfolio of installers, at scale.
We’re now testing stripped-back demo forms against long-form pages with significantly more context, education, and brand exposure. The question isn’t whether one “looks better.” It’s how it changes behaviour further down the funnel — and ultimately, who actually closes.
Some tests improve start rates.
Others improve outcomes.
This one is about the second.
For context, this video was originally recorded on 5 December 2024, views & strategies may have changed since.
Featuring
Video transcript
Hello and welcome back. Would you look at this? We have seriously upgraded. We’ve got a light bar going on, it’s even adjustable. I can go mega bright, I can go low, I can do all sorts… and Joe’s pretending not to hear me.
But today I’m going to talk about something very important — not before I show you my new hotkey setup where I can do this: bang, bang, bang.
You’ll remember last time we made one very simple change to the way that we generate leads for solar installers. That one very simple change doubled our conversion rate throughout all of our funnels for all of our clients. In essence, it halved our entire cost per lead across our entire client portfolio.
That one simple change was literally just changing the first question that we asked. We changed it from a service-based question — “What are you looking for?” — to a question that basically said, “Do you own your home?”
The logic behind this was that many people were clicking “Help me decide” for the service. So we were asking them a question where, for the first step, they didn’t actually know the answer. There was too much thought involved. They were confused and uncertain, and even though there was a “help me decide” option, they didn’t really know how to progress further. There was too much friction.
So we swapped that question to “Do you own your home?” and obviously 99% of people know the answer to that question. They were able to progress very easily to the next step.
That test reached absolute 100% statistical significance across all clients. You can see the data behind that as well. The tool we use — Perspective — tells us that we don’t even need to go ahead and do the maths. We do more in-depth, advanced calculations and progression rate analysis, but Perspective tells us everything we need to know to make the judgment.
So what is the next test that we’re making? We’ve reached significance on that one — what are we doing next?
Obviously all of our clients use these demo funnels, which means that when we make a change and run a test, we can test across 10 clients instead of just one. The power of doing that is huge. An individual client might have £2,000 to £5,000 per month in ad spend, which could take three, four, five, or even six months to reach statistical significance — especially if it’s a test that requires understanding lead quality and pipeline impact.
When we’ve got a portfolio of clients all running the same system, we can reach the same conclusions ten times faster. That allows us to compete against lead aggregators, tech-first companies, and even energy companies. Maybe not at the same scale, but we get close.
Our next test is going to be taking this style of form — very simple and very stripped back — which we’ve found has the highest start rate. That means the highest percentage of people actually interact with the first step of the form.
We’re testing that against something much more in-depth: a long-form style page. It includes interactive video, Mark’s famous Solar 101 video, different calls to action throughout the page, long-form copy, customer images, benefit lists, testimonials, recent installations displayed as a slider, and finally a long, detailed message from the founder of the business.
We’re very confident this approach will deliver better results across the board for all clients. What we’re less confident about is whether it will increase the start rate. We believe the simpler, stripped-back form will still have a higher start rate.
However, because people have consumed more content, they’re warmer to the brand. They’ve heard more of the benefits, more of the sales proposition, and more of the value proposition for solar. Our hypothesis is that they’ll therefore progress further through the funnel.
The next questions are things like: What is your name? What are you looking for? What appeals to you? How much do you spend on energy? We get progressive drop-off at each of these steps. If someone has consumed more content up front, we believe they’ll progress further.
Not only will they progress further within the funnel — meaning more leads for the client — but they’ll also progress further through the pipeline itself. These leads should be higher quality, more nurtured, and require less work on the back end because they’ve already consumed a lot of information on the front end. As a result, a higher percentage of them should close, which is the metric we really care about.
It’s one thing to increase the start rate. That increases volume and gives you more opportunities to test and speak to leads. But it’s an entirely different thing to increase the percentage of leads that actually close.
That’s basically the video — just an update on our strategy. We like to keep you cutting-edge and as up-to-date as possible. We’ll update you as the results of these tests come in.
Turn on post notifications and all that good stuff. If you want access to these insights ahead of everyone else following me on social media, put your email address into the link on this post. You’ll be the first to hear when tests are developing and when they reach statistical significance.
If you want implementation — if you want to be one of our clients actually running this live instead of playing catch-up — follow that same link. You’ll be asked a few additional questions so we can determine whether you’re a good fit and whether we can help you reach the next level.
That’s all for now. I hope this was useful, and I look forward to reporting back on the results of this test. It’s a really exciting one for us. We’ll probably let it run a little longer because we need to see how it impacts progression rates in the pipeline, not just the start rate.
It may take around two months to reach statistical significance, but we’ll keep you updated regardless. I hope that was interesting. See you in the next one. Good night. You can watch now.
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