What that looks like in three accounts

−38%cost per customer, at the same spend, after we tripled the creative cadence

+93%revenue year on year after rebuilding the whole funnel, ad to first email

250%+return on ad spend in accounts run for profit, not for the platform’s own ROAS number

Why paid accounts stop growing

It is rarely the platform. It is one of these three, and the scan shows which

The ads wear out before new ones arrive

Every ad has a half-life. Ship two or three new concepts a month and you pay rising CPMs for fatigue while you wait for the next batch.

The platform’s ROAS is not your profit

Meta and Google grade their own homework. Finance sees blended cost per customer. The gap widens as spend grows, and budget gets scaled on the wrong number.

Budget goes up before the funnel is ready

The ad is the visible line, so it gets the money. The page, the offer and the first reply decide whether the click becomes a customer.

Platforms

We run all four. Which two deserve your budget depends on where your customers already look

Short-form video and lead forms for consumer demand. New creative every week, because that is what keeps the cost down.

Search catches people already looking. Shopping and Performance Max only once the feed and the conversion signal are fixed.

For B2B and high-value buyers. Tight audiences, an offer worth a work email, lead forms that pre-fill.

Ads inside ChatGPT are new. We run them where the buyer’s question is already a shortlist, and report them like any other channel.

What we fixed. What changed

Ecommerce · Paid ads

Running footwear retailer, UK

2.5blended return on ad spend, up from 1.8, five months

Paid social campaigns were split across dozens of audiences while the same creative ran for months. We consolidated the account, shifted optimisation towards purchase value and introduced a regular creative testing cycle built around use case, fit and product comparison.

Blended ROAS increased from 1.8 to 2.5 over five months. Paid revenue increased 26% with spend up 2%.

Local services · Paid ads

Roofing company, Kent

£83cost per booked survey, down from £137

Search campaigns directed homeowners to the main website and counted every phone call or form submission as a lead, regardless of whether a survey was booked. We built service-specific landing pages, introduced online survey booking and moved optimisation towards completed appointments.

Cost per booked survey fell from £137 to £83 over four months. Survey volume increased 27%.

Clinics · Paid ads

Orthodontic clinic, Manchester

£74cost per booked consultation, down from £121

Campaigns were optimised towards lead forms, but more than half of those enquiries never progressed to an appointment. We connected campaign reporting to booked consultations, added online appointment selection and excluded locations producing high volumes of low-intent leads.

Cost per booked consultation fell from £121 to £74 over five months. Booked consultation volume increased 21%.

See all cases

Market changes

What is changing in the markets we work in, and what it means for your numbers

Two colleagues crossing a Clerkenwell street with coffees

Hotels

What a booking actually costs

Base commission is the smallest part of what a marketplace booking costs. The full stack, the cancellation gap, and where rate parity is now unenforceable.

News · 8 min read

Woman at a front desk answering the phone and writing in a diary

Clinics

A surgical patient costs about $610 to acquire, the highest in medicine

Patient acquisition cost by specialty in 2025–26, why it keeps rising, and the three places between enquiry and consultation where most of the money is lost.

News · 6 min read

Woman drawing a funnel on a whiteboard in a glass meeting room

AI

95% of enterprise AI pilots return nothing

MIT found 95% of generative AI pilots deliver no measurable P&L impact. McKinsey and BCG data show why, and what the successful minority do instead. The sequence an owner should run.

News · 7 min read

Turn ad spend into customers, not clicks