THE SHORT ANSWER
Buy where travel time is under thirty minutes and you already have completed work to point to. Density beats reach: a tight postcode set converts better, costs less to service, and produces the local proof that lifts conversion on every future lead. Wide areas look like more volume and mostly deliver more travel.
Why density outperforms reach
A tight area gives you three compounding advantages. Travel time falls, so you can quote more jobs per week. Local proof accumulates, and photographs of work two streets away persuade in a way that regional case studies do not. And word of mouth concentrates, producing free enquiries alongside the paid ones.
A wide area gives you the appearance of a larger market and the reality of a van in traffic.
How to select the postcodes
Map your last fifty jobs. The postcodes where you already won work are where you convert best.
Draw a thirty-minute drive time around your base and depot, in traffic rather than in theory.
Remove postcodes where the housing stock does not match your service, since a solar installer has no use for an area of rented flats.
Rank what remains by average property value if your service scales with job size.
Start with the densest eight to twelve postcodes and add adjacent ones only when you can service them.
The trade-off between price and precision
Narrow postcode targeting raises the price per lead, because you are bidding into a smaller pool. It raises close rate by more, because travel is shorter, proof is local, and quoting is faster. On balance, precision almost always wins on cost per acquired customer even though it loses on cost per lead.
This is one of the clearest cases where optimising cost per lead makes you poorer.
When to expand, and how
Expand when your current postcodes are saturated, meaning you are seeing the same competitors repeatedly and volume has plateaued at your price, and when your median response time is comfortably under thirty minutes.
Then add adjacent postcodes rather than a new city. Adjacency preserves travel time and lets existing local proof carry over. A new city is a new market with its own auction and needs its own test.
Related answers
Frequently asked questions
Is it cheaper to target a whole region?
Per lead, yes. Per customer, usually not, once travel time and lower local relevance are counted.
How many postcodes is a sensible starting point?
Eight to twelve dense ones near your base. Enough for volume, tight enough to service well.
Should I buy leads in a city I have never worked in?
Only as a deliberate test with its own twenty to thirty lead sample. Do not fold it into an existing campaign.
Can I change my Flock postcodes?
Yes, the postcodes and job types you select are what leads are matched against, and they can be adjusted.
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