CASE STUDY · SERVPRO OF CHULA VISTA
from impressions to qualified jobs
we took over the Google Ads account for a family-owned restoration franchise and rebuilt it on the same monthly budget they were already spending.
01 / THE NUMBERS
two months either side of the rebuild
the budget, service area, and phone setup all stayed the same. what changed was how the account was managed.
173247
INBOUND CALLS, UP 43%
two months before against two months after, on the budget the franchise was already spending.
$14.73$9.45
COST PER CLICK
cutting the wasted clicks pulled the average cost down by more than a third.
2035
QUALIFIED LEADS, UP 75%
calls the team could actually dispatch on, counted across every source rather than assigned to a channel. which lever did it is not separable, and nobody who tells you otherwise has measured it.
3.09%8.69%
CLICK THROUGH RATE
tighter targeting meant most people seeing the ads were actually looking for emergency restoration.
02 / THE MOMENT
the account was being run for volume
the previous agency optimized for the numbers that look good in a monthly report: a high call count, a low cost per click, lots of impressions. on paper it looked like the account was doing fine.
unfortunately, very little of it turned into actual work. one campaign, over a four-week stretch, produced 1,355 impressions and 154 clicks, and two qualified leads came out the other end.
the account-wide version of that is worse. across the two months before we took it over, a single performance max campaign named for the local visits goal bought 26,153 clicks at three cents each and booked 281 conversions at $2.43. that was ninety-one percent of every conversion the account reported. it is paused now, and pausing it is why the reported conversion count fell through the floor while the phone rang more.
the real problem was what the account was being told to chase. the budget was set up to generate impressions when it should have been generating qualified jobs. that's the part we rebuilt.
03 / WHAT WAS HAPPENING
the report and the account described two different businesses
on their own none of these would sink an account. stacked together, they're why the spend wasn't producing work.
SCROLL SIDEWAYS TO COMPARE
| measure | WHAT THE MONTHLY REPORT SHOWED | WHAT WAS ACTUALLY HAPPENING |
|---|---|---|
| targeting | clicks, inside budget | a share of them from across the border in Mexico, logged as conversions, for a company that only works in San Diego County |
| keywords | a low cost per click | the budget sitting on branded and broad terms while water damage, fire and flood barely ran |
| conversions | 154 calls from Google | button taps and clicks for directions. two of them were qualified |
| channel | Performance Max, optimized | optimizing for local visits, which counts foot traffic to a storefront, at a business that drives to the customer |
| visibility | a report every month | no way to see whether the account had been touched in between |
04 / WHAT WE BUILT
the three things we rebuilt
-
01
targeting and keywords
we rebuilt the keyword set around the searches people actually run during an emergency, and reset the geographic targeting to match the real service territory. the branded filler and the out-of-area traffic that had been padding the old numbers came out.
-
02
conversion tracking
we set up real call tracking with a 60-second minimum, so a call only counts once someone stays on the line long enough to be a genuine inquiry. once Google was learning from real calls instead of stray taps, the automated bidding started chasing the right thing.
-
03
ongoing management
someone works the account every week now, pruning negative keywords, adjusting bids, and keeping a live reporting view the owner can open whenever they want, instead of waiting on a monthly PDF after the fact.
05 / THE TAKEAWAY
a call is only worth paying for if it can turn into a job.
call volume looks good on a report and is simple to inflate, which is exactly why so many accounts end up chasing it. we'd rather track the number that shows up in revenue: qualified leads.
nothing here is specific to restoration. any account that counts taps instead of conversations is being optimized toward taps, and the platform will keep getting better at delivering them.
not sure your ad budget is producing actual jobs?
- whether the calls you are paying for are the calls you can dispatch
- the one setting most accounts are counting the wrong thing on
- the same read whether we work together or not
30 MINUTES WITH PATRICK