Yoy Lead Growth Project
Situation:
At Affordable Care, I expanded the portfolio scope 2x under my ownership, from $3M across 100 practices to $6M across 200 practices, driven by consistent performance in implant and denture patient acquisition.
Prior to bringing our marketing team in-house, we experienced consecutive year-over-year declines in search leads over the past two years, despite similar budgets.
A “lead” in our case was a patient who raised their hand in interest in our services (via calls or appointment forms).
Task:
Recognizing this downward trend, our goal upon bringing the team in-house was to reverse the lead decline and improve campaign efficiency.
One key observation was that our cost per conversion had been rising sharply in Google Ads and Bing Ads, indicating diminishing return on ad spend (ROAS) and signaling a need to restructure our paid media strategy.
Action:
We focused on multiple strategies to reduce CPC and improve ROAS.
National vs. Local Spend: We shifted budget to newly built national-level campaigns, which proved significantly more efficient. National campaigns delivered a 5:1 ROAS compared to just 3:1 for local campaigns.
Keyword reallocation: Optimized acquisition strategy by testing keyword performance, identifying general dentist terms with higher CPAs($70 vs. $34 avg.), and reallocating $26K annually to more efficient denture and implant keywords, which aligned with our core business.
Microsoft Advertising Optimization: Bing campaigns were previously underfunded and fragmented. We consolidated them into DMAs (Designated Market Areas) for major metros and reallocated more budget to Microsoft. As a result, Microsoft’s cost per acquisition (CPA) decreased by 75%, from an average of $108 to $27 in Q3 and Q4 FY24. This outperformed Google’s $35 CPA for the same period.
New Search Products: Introduced new ad products and placements, including Performance Max and the Microsoft Advertising Network, which expanded reach to previously untapped audiences and improved efficiency, with Performance Max delivering a 5:1 ROAS and Microsoft network placements delivering a 6:1 ROAS, compared to 3:1 ROAS for local search campaigns.
Result:
These optimizations reversed the negative trajectory of our campaigns, shifting performance from consistent year-over-year lead declines to six consecutive months of YoY lead increases, all while maintaining a similar budget and without compromising lead quality.
As a result of this turnaround, our paid search channel received a more than 25% increase in budget for January 2025.
