Hiring a marketing agency after the solar tax credit ended

The third week of January is when residential solar installers find out what selling without the homeowner tax credit feels like. December was a scramble to finish installs before the deadline, the January calendar is thin, and agencies have noticed. Expect pitches that promise to replace the credit with something just as easy to sell. Nothing replaces it, and an agency that says otherwise is about to write ads that get you in trouble.

These are the questions we would want an installer to put to any agency, including us, before signing anything this winter.

Why a solar ad can be wrong in ways most ads are not

Most local advertising is judged on whether it works. Solar advertising is also judged on whether it is true, by the IRS, state contractor boards and lending regulators, and the biggest rule changed on January 1.

• The homeowner credit is over. The IRS guidance issued in August 2025 on the July tax law says that if installation is completed after December 31, 2025, the expenditure is treated as made after that date, which prevents the homeowner from claiming the Residential Clean Energy Credit under section 25D. A deposit paid in December does not rescue a January install.
• Credit pitches were already under scrutiny. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s August 2024 report on solar financing criticized sales pitches that promoted the 30 percent federal credit with a presumption of universality, and pointed out that the credit was never a guarantee.
• Monthly payments can hide money. The same CFPB report found lender markups and fees, usually called dealer fees, that can raise a loan’s principal by 30 percent or more above the cash price. Minnesota’s attorney general had already sued four solar lenders in March 2024, alleging that most customers never learned they were paying up to 36% more by financing instead of paying cash.
• Complaints are on the public record. California’s Contractors State License Board (CSLB) received 2,263 solar complaints between July 2022 and June 2023. Of the 1,625 it investigated, 1,232 concerned workmanship or abandonment and 323 concerned misrepresentation or fraud.

An agency that has not read any of this is likely to repeat the sales habits behind those numbers.

Questions to put to an agency before you sign

• “What will my ads say about tax credits?” For a homeowner buying a system installed this year, the federal answer is nothing. Ask to see solar ads the agency wrote in the last month. A “30% back” headline dated after New Year’s Day tells you how closely it follows the trade.
• “Where will the cash price sit next to the monthly payment?” The right answer is side by side, on the ad and on the landing page. An agency that wants to lead with “no money down” and leave the price for the kitchen table is building the framing the CFPB and Minnesota described.
• “Where will my license number appear?” California’s Business and Professions Code section 7030.5 requires it in all forms of advertising, and Florida’s statute 489.119 in each advertisement regardless of medium. In California the license that covers this work is a C-46 Solar or a C-10 Electrical.
• “Will you buy leads for me, and from whom?” In April 2023 the FTC finalized an order against HomeAdvisor over deceptive claims about the quality and source of the leads it sold to contractors. An agency that resells leads should name every source and show you which ones install.
• “Will you run Local Services Ads?” Google has a Solar energy contractor category, and since October 2025 those ads carry a single Google Verified badge. Google asks for general and professional liability insurance, a state license where one is required and a verified Business Profile, and puts screening at three to four weeks on average. An agency promising ads live next week has not done it.
• “What happens to my Spanish-language marketing?” In California, a solar contract has to be written in the language principally used in the sales presentation or the marketing material, with the CSLB disclosure document on its front page. An agency running Spanish ads for you needs to know your paperwork follows.

A first ninety days we would sign off on

The order matters, because spending money to send homeowners to a page that still promises a credit they cannot claim is worse than spending nothing.

• Weeks 1 to 2: a compliance pass. Every page, ad, profile, mailer and sales sheet read for tax credit wording, monthly payments without a cash price, missing license numbers and, in California, paperwork in the wrong language.
• Weeks 3 to 6: tracking and trust. Call tracking by source, a report that follows each lead to an installed system, the Local Services Ads application and a review request to every customer installed last year.
• Weeks 7 to 12: the new pitch. Pages for batteries and for each way to pay (cash, loan, lease and PPA), written for the utility territories you actually serve, plus a program for past customers covering monitoring check-ins, service reminders and referral asks.

What a monthly report should show an installer

A report worth paying for is split the way a solar business makes money.

• Leads by source, carried through to installs. A lead seller that fills the calendar and installs nothing should be obvious by the second month.
• Cash, loan, lease and PPA side by side. They close at different rates and earn different amounts.
• Calls answered and missed. CallRail’s January 2025 report put the missed call rate for home services at 14%, and solar leads cost too much to let ring out.
• Cancellations. The FTC’s Cooling-Off Rule gives a buyer until midnight of the third business day to cancel many sales made at home. If cancellations cluster around one rep or one lead source, the report should make that visible.
• New reviews each month. A steady trickle of fresh reviews is the early sign that the service side of the business is holding up.

What we are telling installers this month

• Search your own site, Business Profile, ads and sales sheets for “30%”, “tax credit” and “ITC”, and rewrite every hit before February.
• Remind customers whose systems were installed in 2025 that, according to the IRS, the credit is claimed for the tax year the property is installed, on Form 5695, and send them to their tax preparer with the paperwork.
• Put the cash price beside every monthly payment you advertise.
• Add your license number to ads, the site footer and your Business Profile.
• Start the Local Services Ads application now, so screening is finished before spring bills start climbing.
• Ask each agency you meet for a sample report that ends in installed systems, not leads.

An agency that answers these questions without flinching, and treats compliance as part of the marketing rather than a delay to it, deserves a second meeting. Our page for residential solar installers lays out the year as we would run it, and our Google Ads and Local Services Ads work shows how paid search fits beside the review requests that a smaller market will reward.