Facebook and Instagram ads
for solar.

On Google, the buyer comes to you. On Facebook and Instagram you're interrupting someone who was looking at their cousin's wedding photos. That's not a weakness. A big winter bill, a neighbour's new battery and a news story about the rebate all happen before anyone types a search, and social ads can be there for that moment.

But interruption brings in people who were never going to buy. Some rent. Some live in an apartment block in Chatswood with a strata committee that will take a year to agree on anything. Some tapped the form because it was already filled in with their details. A solar lead form has to do the filtering that a search query does for you on Google.

The numbers make the case. In the 2021 Census, 31% of occupied homes were owned outright, 35% with a mortgage and 30.6% rented, and 16% of dwellings were apartments. Your audience isn't the Census, but those shares are a fair warning of how many leads can't sign a rooftop contract.

Instant forms let you ask multiple choice questions and, with conditional logic, send people who answer a certain way to a closing screen without submitting their details. Put the ownership and home type questions first. A renter who learns up front that the offer is for owners hasn't wasted your sales team's time, or their own.

Pick the questions you'd use and see what they do to your lead count.

Meta offers three form types. 'More volume' is quick to fill out and submit. 'Higher intent' adds a review step to confirm the details before sending. 'Rich creative' gives more room to explain the offer.

For solar I'd start with higher intent. A battery quote involves a phone call and usually a site visit, so a lead who doesn't remember filling in the form costs a lot more than the extra friction saves. If cost per lead climbs and quality doesn't improve, test the other type for a month, with the same questions, and compare signed jobs, not leads.

The best-performing solar ads typically look like something a neighbour would post. A battery on a garage wall in Kincumber. The installer explaining, on their phone camera, what the app shows at 9pm. A short clip from a real job, with the customer's OK and the house number out of shot. Stock photos of a family on a sunny roof tell people this is an ad. Real installs tell them it's local.

If the ad mentions the discount, give the figure the same treatment it gets everywhere else: a size, a date and the program's name. The battery rebate page has the wording, and the solar advertising rules page covers 'free' offers and payback claims. NSW ads for electrical work need the licensee's name and licence number, and social posts count: the rule covers all advertising.

Left alone, Meta finds more people like the ones who fill in your form. If half of them rent, you get more renters. The Conversions API for CRM lets you upload lead stages from your CRM and optimise for conversion leads, which Meta says may bring higher quality leads.

There are conditions. Meta asks for at least 200 leads a month, uploads at least daily, and a target stage that happens within 28 days of the lead. That last one matters for solar. A signed battery contract can take longer than four weeks, especially when buyers wait for three quotes. So optimise for an earlier stage that does happen inside the window, such as 'site visit booked', and keep tracking signed jobs alongside it.

Below 200 leads a month, don't force it. Run a normal lead campaign, record every lead's stage anyway, and switch when the volume is there.

A lead form is consent to be contacted about that enquiry. It isn't automatically consent to a monthly promotions list. The ACMA says commercial texts and emails need consent, your business details and a working unsubscribe. If you plan to send rebate updates later, add a separate, unticked opt-in to the form and say what people will get.

Then call fast. In the research most quoted on this, firms that contacted an online lead within an hour were nearly seven times as likely to qualify it as firms that called even an hour later. That study is old and American, but nothing about solar buyers in 2026 suggests they've become more patient.