A cost per lead of $239 is not a campaign failure. It's a starting point with a lot of room to improve. This case study shows what three months of focused optimization can do to that number, and what the process actually looks like month by month.

The client

A spa and wellness studio specializing in medical weight loss and hair care treatments, operating in the Houston, Texas area.

The problem

Like most wellness businesses, they had strong services and a clear target market. The challenge was generating a consistent flow of qualified leads without spending more per lead than the economics of the business could support. Their Google Ads campaigns were running, but the cost per conversion was too high to scale.

The goal

Bring in more qualified leads for their services at a lower cost per conversion over a three-month period.

The strategy

The campaign ran on a $500 per month budget targeting specific cities around Houston. The work happened in three distinct phases, each building on what the previous month revealed.

Phase one: Launch and baseline. The first month focused on getting the campaign live with precise keyword and audience targeting, then running basic optimizations once data started coming in. The goal at this stage was not to achieve the best possible result immediately. It was to get enough data to understand what was working and what wasn't. Month one produced 2 leads at a cost per lead of $239.

Phase two: Bidding and audience expansion. With real performance data from month one, the second month involved adjusting bidding strategies and broadening audience targeting in the right directions. This is where most of the improvement happened. Better bidding signals, refined audience segments, and cleaner targeting produced a dramatic shift. Month two generated 10 leads at a cost per lead of $49. That's a cost reduction of nearly 80% in a single month.

Phase three: Keyword and search term refinement. Month three used Search Term Reports to identify exactly which search queries were triggering the ads and which ones were wasting budget. Keyword bids were fine-tuned based on that data. Continuous monitoring kept the campaign performing efficiently as conditions shifted. Month three maintained the gains from month two, closing out the campaign with 16 total leads at a final cost per lead of $54.42.

The best-performing ads featured clear, direct calls to action. In wellness advertising, especially for higher-consideration services like medical weight loss, a straightforward "call now" prompt consistently outperforms passive messaging.

The results

Over three months on a total spend of $995:

Month 1: 2 leads at $239 per lead
Month 2: 10 leads at $49 per lead
Month 3: 16 leads at $54.42 per lead

Final cost per lead: $54.42. That's a 76% reduction from where the campaign started.

The click-through rate across the campaign was 6.77% with a cost per click of $6.64, both strong numbers for a local wellness campaign in a competitive market.

What drove the performance

Phase-based optimization. The campaign didn't try to do everything at once. Each phase had a specific focus: launch and learn, then adjust bidding and audiences, then refine at the keyword level. That sequential approach prevents the mistake of changing too many variables at once, which makes it impossible to know what actually moved the needle.

Search Term Report analysis. This is one of the most underused tools in Google Ads management. Your ads don't just show up for the exact keywords you bid on. They show up for related searches that Google determines are similar. Some of those related searches are relevant and convert well. Others are irrelevant and burn budget. Reviewing the actual search terms that triggered your ads, then excluding the bad ones and doubling down on the good ones, is one of the highest-leverage optimizations available. Month three's improvement came directly from this work.

Patience in phase one. The most common mistake in Google Ads is pulling the plug or making major changes before there's enough data to work with. Month one's $239 CPL would have looked like a failure to anyone expecting immediate results. It was actually useful data that made month two possible.

Budget discipline. $500 per month is a modest budget for Google Ads. Keeping campaigns tightly targeted to specific cities and specific service keywords prevented that budget from spreading too thin. Concentration beats coverage at lower budget levels.

Why wellness and med spa businesses are a natural fit for Google Ads

People searching for medical weight loss treatments, aesthetic services, or hair restoration are often doing research with real intent. They're not casually browsing. They've identified a problem they want to solve and they're actively looking for providers.

That intent-driven search behavior is exactly what Google Ads is designed to capture. A prospect who types "medical weight loss Houston" into Google is much closer to booking an appointment than someone who sees an ad while scrolling social media. Getting in front of them with a relevant, well-structured ad and a clear path to contact is a reliable way to generate new clients.

The challenge in this space is that treatments are often high-consideration purchases. People want to feel confident before they commit. Ad copy, landing pages, and the ease of making initial contact all matter more than they do for lower-stakes purchases.

What this looks like for GTA wellness businesses

Med spas, wellness clinics, hair restoration centers, and similar businesses in the Greater Toronto Area are operating in a market with high demand and high average service values. A well-run Google Ads campaign in this space can produce a strong return, but only if the campaign is actually being managed and optimized on an ongoing basis.

A campaign set up once and left to run is almost always underperforming. The month-over-month refinement documented in this case study is what separates a campaign that gradually improves from one that plateaus at a mediocre cost per lead.

At Kaaname Digital, ongoing optimization is built into every campaign we manage. You're not paying a setup fee and then getting ignored. Every month there's active work happening to improve performance and reduce cost per lead over time.

If you want to see what this looks like for your specific business, book a free consultation. We'll look at your services, your market, and what a realistic campaign could produce.