Why Bark and Checkatrade leads are shared five ways (and what to do instead)

If you have ever rung a Bark lead and been told "you're the fourth one today", this is why, and it is not a bug.

The business model

A marketplace makes money per response, not per job. One homeowner enquiry sold to five installers at £40 each is £200. Sold to one installer it is £40. There is no version of that maths where they choose you. The homeowner is the product and you are the customer, five times over.

What it does to your close rate

Five installers ring within an hour. The homeowner picks the first, the cheapest, or gives up. Your close rate on shared leads is capped by arithmetic before your sales skill comes into it. Installers we speak to close one in five at best, often one in ten.

What it does to your reputation

Your reviews live on their site. Your profile is their page. Stop paying and it all disappears, along with the ranking that page had. You have spent years building an asset for someone else.

Two ways to get enquiries only you receive

Your own Facebook and Instagram ads. The enquiry lands in your account, from your ad, about your company. Nobody else sees it. It needs someone to make the ads, build the form and follow up fast, but the cost per lead is usually a fraction of a shared one.

A site in your name at the top of Google. When a homeowner searches "loft insulation" and your town and your company is the first result, the enquiry is yours by definition. It takes real work to rank in every town you cover, which is why most installers never do it.

What we do

Both of the above. One installer per town, pay per lead for the Google side, first three free. If you are paying for shared leads now, the maths is worth ten minutes on a call.