How refresh season became a recycler’s biggest quarter: 3 school district clear-outs from paid search

The challenge

Schools replace device fleets on a calendar — but most recyclers only hear about clear-outs after a competitor has already won the pickup. This electronics recycler had handled school work before through relationships, and wanted a repeatable way to be the phone call a district IT manager makes first.

What we did

We timed campaigns to refresh season and pointed them at education disposal demand — school technology recycling, device fleet disposal, district equipment pickup — routing calls live to their reps during school business hours. No agency retainer, no lead forms: they funded a call budget and paid per qualified inbound call, with every call tracked on a shared delivery sheet from delivered to connected to qualified to closed.

Because we’re also a volume equipment buyer, we took first offer on the equipment recovered from every clear-out we originated — and they stayed free to sell elsewhere any time we passed.

The result

Ninety-six qualified calls during the season produced 3 full district clear-outs — their biggest quarter to date — and we purchased $52K of recovered equipment at fair market. The districts are their customers forever; we earn nothing on repeat work.

The numbers behind it

The economics of this engagement, start to finish. Run the same math on your own budget, close rate and project values in the.

Monthly call budget	$3,900
Price per qualified call	$100
Campaign length	3 months (refresh season)
Close rate (calls → clear-outs)	3% — few, large district jobs
Avg recovered inventory we buy, per clear-out	~$18,100
Delivered	96 qualified calls · ~3 clear-outs · ~$52K bought back