HVAC & Refrigeration: from £6k/month on Yell → 10x ROI & predictable enquiries

“We Were Paying Thousands and Still Guessing”: How an HVAC & Refrigeration Business Escaped the Yell Trap and Built a 10x ROI Lead System

Complete Cooling Services is a commercial cooling and refrigeration business.

For years, they paid significant money to Yell to “handle” their marketing, expecting steady enquiries in return.

That spend was £6,000 a month - for 3–4 years.

What they actually experienced was inconsistency, constant changes, and no clear explanation for why the phone wasn’t ringing.

The issue wasn’t effort or spend. It was that their marketing lived inside a system they didn’t own, couldn’t adjust, and couldn’t learn from.

Alongside Yell, they’d also tried SEO that didn’t get them found, Google Ads that didn’t deliver ROI, and Facebook ads that repeated the same low-quality creative for nearly a year.

Once that setup was replaced with a conversion-focused website the business actually owned and controlled, enquiries began coming through consistently and the business stopped standing still.

The All Their Marketing Sat Inside Yell - So They Couldn’t See or Control Anything

In commercial cooling and refrigeration, work is won when businesses compare providers - which means where you appear and what sits next to you directly affects whether the phone rings.

For years, all of Complete Cooling Services’ marketing sat inside Yell.

That didn’t just mean outsourcing activity - it meant the business was placed into a directory where it appeared side-by-side with competitors.

On those pages, customers weren’t choosing a supplier.

They were comparing options.

Yell controlled:

• how Complete Cooling Services appeared next to competitors
• what information customers saw first
• how enquiries were generated
• what changes could be made, and how long they took

From the outside, it felt “looked after.”

From the inside, it meant the business had no control over how it was positioned or why it was being chosen - or not chosen.

When enquiries slowed, there was no way to see whether it was:

• price comparison
• competitor placement
• messaging
• or something else entirely

When changes were suggested, they couldn’t be tested quickly.

When money was spent, it wasn’t clear whether enquiries came from genuine demand or from being compared against cheaper or faster options.

That’s the problem most business owners don’t spot early enough.

They aren’t choosing badly.

They’re agreeing to operate inside platforms that control how customers find them - instead of owning how they appear in search.

At that point, the only options are to keep paying and accept the trade-offs - or step back and build a setup where the business controls how it’s presented and why customers enquire.

Every Change Took Weeks and Every Answer Was “Spend More”

On paper, activity was happening.

SEO was supposedly running.

Ads were being managed.

Content was being produced.

But none of it translated into steady enquiries the business could rely on.

Account managers changed.

Approaches shifted.

Promises reset.

And each time, the explanation was that something new was being tried.

The problem wasn’t effort.

It was that the business couldn’t see what was actually driving results - or lack of them.

Yell operates as a closed comparison platform - meaning the business couldn’t build long-term search visibility it actually owned.

That means:

• you can’t see the mechanics
• you can’t test changes yourself
• you can’t improve things gradually
• you can’t carry learning forward

So every month feels like a fresh gamble instead of progress building over time.

For Complete Cooling Services, this showed up very clearly:

Inconsistent enquiries, which made planning difficult and cash flow unpredictable

Weeks to make simple changes, meaning missed opportunities and growing frustration

No clarity on what worked, so decisions were always reactive

More money going out, without more confidence coming back

Even outside of Yell, the same pattern existed: the website wasn’t structured to convert, and search visibility wasn’t driving high-intent commercial enquiries.

This is what “marketing that looks busy but doesn’t move the business forward” actually feels like.

The business wasn’t doing fine.

It was stuck - and had been for years.

Before Spending Another Pound, They Needed a Setup That Showed What Generated Enquiries

For things to improve, the setup had to meet a very practical standard.

It had to:

• Bring enquiries in through a high-performance website designed to generate commercial cooling enquiries directly
• Make it clear where enquiries were coming from and why
• Allow changes to be made quickly, without waiting on account managers
• Improve month by month, instead of resetting every time something changed
• Reduce risk, not add more uncertainty

Not because that sounds nice - but because anything less had already failed.

This wasn’t about “more activity”.

It was about having one accountable direction the business could rely on.

Engineering a Clear Picture of What Training Is Actually Like

The first step was stepping away from Yell entirely.

Instead of another bundled service, the focus was on building a clear, simple system the business could understand.

That meant:

• A conversion-focused commercial website structured around how facilities managers actually search and decide
• Clear pages that explain what Complete Cooling Services does, who it’s for, and when to get in touch
• Video and content that show credibility and experience before the first call
• A setup where changes can be made quickly and results can be seen

Nothing complicated. Nothing hidden.

Just a system where if something isn’t working, you can see it and fix it.



From there, we rebuilt search visibility so the business could rank for high-intent refrigeration and cooling searches - not just appear inside directories.

10x ROI, While Cutting Spend and Making Leads Predictable

Once the new setup went live, enquiries started coming through the website again.

Not in bursts. Not unpredictably.

But consistently enough that the business could trust where work was coming from.

Customers referenced the site when they called.

Jobs came in through search.

The phone started ringing without constant chasing or follow-ups.

The difference wasn’t “more leads at any cost”.

It was knowing where enquiries were coming from and being able to rely on that week to week.

Over the first 18 months, that looked like:

• 1,038 total leads generated
  
• £55.49 average cost per lead
  
• ~£1,800 average lead value
  
• CPC reduced by 50%
  
• Conversions increased by 233%
  
• Marketing spend reduced by 25%, while performance improved
  
• 0 → 50,000 organic visitors
  
• 750,000 local reach
  
  

For the first time, marketing produced measurable ROI through visibility the business owned - delivering ~10x return on spend.

The Business Stopped Second-Guessing Spend and Started Planning Forward

The biggest change wasn’t just enquiries.

It was what the owners no longer had to deal with.

They weren’t:

• wondering why things dropped off
• waiting weeks for updates
• guessing whether money was being wasted
• relying on explanations they couldn’t verify

Instead, they could see what the website was doing, adjust quickly, and trust the marketing direction instead of guessing.

That reduces pressure.

That improves decision-making.

That’s what control actually looks like day to day.

It also enabled the business to grow properly, hiring more staff and moving into a top-class office, because lead flow stopped feeling fragile.

If You’re Paying for Marketing You Can’t Explain, That’s the Real Risk

If your enquiries depend on a platform you don’t control - instead of your own website and search visibility - that’s the real risk.

Before increasing spend or signing another long agreement, the sensible first step is to step back and assess whether your current setup is helping the business move forward - or keeping it stuck.

That assessment should come before anything else.