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Google Ads Case Studies

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Results are taken from each client’s Google Ads account for 22 April to 21 October 2026 and compared with the prior six months, unless a figure says year on year. Enquiries are the calls and form submissions tracked in each account.

Sydney CBD Medical Centre

+105% enquiries in 6 months

Sydney Tree Removal Specialists

200+ enquiries every month

Sydney Veterinary Hospital

41.7% conversion rate at $14.52 a lead

Melbourne Employment Law Firm

1 in 5 clicks becomes an enquiry

Sydney Boat Hire Company

+55% enquiries at 24% lower cost

Sydney Physiotherapy Clinic

52.5% of clicks become enquiries

01 · Sydney CBD Medical Centre

Patient Enquiries More Than Doubled for a Sydney CBD Medical Centre

+105%

enquiries vs prior 6 months

1,661

enquiries in 6 months

$28.51

cost per enquiry, down 12%

12.9%

conversion rate, up 40%

The Client and the Challenge

A multi service medical centre in the heart of the Sydney CBD, offering everything from general practice and travel medicine to skin checks and specialist clinics. The centre competes in one of the most expensive health advertising markets in the country, up against hospital groups, corporate clinics and booking platforms, where a single click can cost more than many suburban practices pay for a whole lead.

The account was generating steady traffic, but patient enquiries had plateaued and the practice could not see which services the money was actually winning. They wanted significantly more bookings and calls without letting the cost per enquiry blow out, and each service line needed to pull its own weight rather than relying on generic GP searches to carry the account.

Strategy and Execution

Restructured the account into tightly themed ad groups for each service line, travel medicine, skin clinic, general practice and more, each with its own ad copy and its own landing page, so a person searching for a skin check never lands on a generic homepage.
Ran exact and phrase match keywords only, with no broad match anywhere in the account, so every dollar is spent on searches we have deliberately chosen rather than searches Google guesses might be related.
Rebuilt the responsive search ads with dynamic keyword insertion locked into the lead headline, so the ad mirrors exactly what the patient typed and earns the click ahead of bigger competitors.
Cleaned up conversion tracking so that only genuine patient actions, phone calls and bookings, count as conversions. Page views and other soft actions were demoted, giving Smart Bidding honest signals to optimise against.
Mined the search terms report on a regular cycle, promoting the terms that produce patients into keywords of their own and cutting off irrelevant searches with negative keywords before they could waste budget.

The Results

Over the six months to October 2026 the campaign turned 12,920 clicks into 1,661 patient enquiries, a 12.9 percent conversion rate. Compared with the previous six months, enquiries grew 105 percent, slightly more than doubling, while the cost per enquiry fell 12 percent to $28.51. Clicks rose 47 percent in the same window, so the growth came from both more traffic and a conversion rate that climbed 40 percent.

The campaign now converts so consistently that it is limited by budget rather than by demand. For the practice, that is the best possible constraint: the flow of new patients is now a dial they control, not a number they hope for.

Clicks (blue) and enquiries (red) for the six months to 21 October 2026, with the prior period dotted.

02 · Sydney Tree Removal Specialists

A 200 Enquiry a Month Lead Engine for a Sydney Tree Services Company

1,212

enquiries in 6 months

17.6%

conversion rate

200+

enquiries per month

50%

top of page impression share

The Client and the Challenge

A tree removal and arborist business servicing the whole of metro Sydney, from the Northern Beaches to Macarthur. Tree work is urgent, high value and weather driven: when a storm comes through, the phones need to ring, and the client needed a constant, predictable flow of calls to keep multiple crews booked week in, week out.

The catch with tree services on Google is wasted spend. Searches for lawn mowing, gardening, hedge trimming and DIY advice sit one click away from genuine removal jobs worth thousands of dollars, and an untended account bleeds budget into all of them. The account needed volume, but only the right kind of volume.

Strategy and Execution

Mined every converting search term from the account history and promoted the winners to exact and phrase match keywords, building the campaign out to 265 hand picked keywords across themed ad groups covering tree removal, palm pruning, stump grinding and council application work.
Built layered negative keyword lists at campaign level to block mowing, lawn care, DIY and the other job types the client does not do, and kept extending them from the live search terms reports.
Set target CPA bidding at ad group level, with different targets for high value work such as council application removals and lower value jobs such as palm pruning, so the budget flows to the jobs worth winning.
Broke location targeting down to 215 individual metro Sydney postcodes, replacing four broad regions, which enables postcode level reporting and bid adjustments in the areas that produce the best jobs.
Added a dynamic search ads safety net over the whole website, so any service page the ads do not explicitly cover is still caught automatically.

The Results

In the six months to October 2026 the Search campaign delivered 1,212 enquiries from 6,875 clicks, a 17.6 percent conversion rate, or better than one enquiry from every six clicks. That is more than 200 enquiries every month from a single campaign, enough to keep multiple crews fully booked across Sydney.

The ads now appear at the top of the page for around half of all eligible searches across metro Sydney, which keeps the client in front of homeowners at the exact moment a tree becomes a problem, and ahead of competitors who only show up after the storm has passed.

Clicks (blue) and enquiries (red) for the six months to 21 October 2026, with the prior period dotted.

03 · Sydney Veterinary Hospital

From a Broken Account to a 41.7% Conversion Rate for a Sydney Vet

41.7%

conversion rate, up 65%

$14.52

cost per enquiry

1,076

enquiries in 6 months

+27%

enquiries vs prior 6 months

The Client and the Challenge

A full service veterinary hospital in inner Sydney offering general care, emergency treatment, desexing, grooming and boarding. Local demand was strong and the hospital had an excellent reputation, but the Google Ads account we inherited was quietly working against itself.

Everything ran on broad match, so the ads showed for whatever Google thought was close enough. Most ad groups had default bids of one cent, which meant entire services were invisible. Worst of all, a previous manager had added negative keywords that blocked the account’s own keywords, so the exact searches the client most wanted, including their own name, could never trigger their ads. Around all of this sat thousands of leftover junk negatives in paused campaigns.

Strategy and Execution

Repaired the account in place rather than starting over, preserving the performance history and conversion data that Smart Bidding depends on, and making each change in a controlled step so the client could see the effect.
Paused every broad match keyword in the account and replaced the keyword set with 65 hand picked exact and phrase match terms, including new keywords pulled from the search terms report for desexing, grooming, boarding and emergency care.
Removed the self blocking negative keywords one by one, so the ads could finally serve on the searches that matter most, including the hospital’s own brand name.
Replaced the one cent default bids with realistic cost per click bids for each service ad group, weighted by the value of each service, from emergency care at the top to routine services below.
Added a tightly controlled Performance Max campaign alongside Search, with its own negative lists, which now delivers additional enquiries at under $9 each.

The Results

In the six months to October 2026 the Search campaign converted 41.7 percent of its clicks into enquiries, up 65 percent on the prior period, and delivered 1,076 enquiries at $14.52 each. Enquiry volume rose 27 percent over the same comparison, on a budget of just $90 a day.

The supporting Performance Max campaign added a further 965 enquiries at $8.97 each. Between the two campaigns, the hospital now has two dependable lead sources, both landing well under $15 a lead, from an account that six months earlier was blocking its own keywords.

Clicks (blue) and enquiries (red) for the six months to 21 October 2026, with the prior period dotted.

04 · Melbourne Employment Law Firm

One Click in Five Becomes an Enquiry for a Melbourne Employment Law Firm

21.6%

conversion rate

923

enquiries in 6 months

$32.93

cost per enquiry

+27%

click through rate vs prior period

The Client and the Challenge

An employment law firm acting exclusively for employees, with its main office in Melbourne and a second in Brisbane. Legal keywords are among the most expensive on Google, and employment law has a trap built into it: roughly half the people searching are employers, who the firm cannot act for, so every employer click is pure waste.

The account also had a data problem that nobody had noticed. Phone clicks were being counted as leads, and a duplicate call conversion was double counting real calls, which meant the reported numbers were inflated and, worse, Smart Bidding had been optimising toward the wrong signals rather than genuine client enquiries.

Strategy and Execution

Fixed the conversion tracking before touching anything else: demoted phone clicks to a secondary action and removed the duplicate call conversion, so the bidding now optimises purely to real calls and completed enquiry forms.
Structured the account around practice areas, with a dedicated campaign for unfair dismissal, the firm’s highest volume and highest value work, so its budget and bids can be managed on their own.
Tightened match types and layered negative keywords to filter out employer side searches, free advice seekers and searches from outside the firm’s service areas.
Added a brand campaign to protect the firm’s name from competitors, capturing its own searches for a few cents a click instead of letting rivals sit above it.
Refreshed the responsive search ads so that every headline and description speaks directly to employees and their situations, not to employers.

The Results

In the six months to October 2026 the firm received 923 enquiries from 4,268 clicks, a 21.6 percent conversion rate. More than one click in every five becomes a phone call or an enquiry form from a potential client, a remarkable hit rate for a legal category.

Cost per enquiry held at $32.93 in a market where a single click routinely costs more than $9, and click through rate rose 27 percent against the prior period, the direct result of ads that speak only to the people the firm actually represents. With tracking now clean, every one of those 923 enquiries is a real person asking for help, and the firm can plan its intake around a lead flow it can finally trust.

Clicks (blue) and enquiries (red) for the six months to 21 October 2026, with the prior period dotted.

05 · Sydney Boat Hire Company

55% More Enquiries at 24% Lower Cost for a Sydney Boat Hire Company

+55%

search enquiries year on year

-24%

cost per enquiry year on year

+97%

click through rate year on year

26%

top of page share, up from 14%

The Client and the Challenge

A boat hire company operating on Sydney Harbour, with strong seasonal demand for weddings, parties, corporate events and summer cruises. The account had years of history behind it, but it was buying reach rather than intent: hundreds of thousands of cheap impressions that looked impressive on a report and rarely turned into bookings.

Meanwhile, on the searches that actually produce charters, competitors held the top of the page. The business needed the account flipped from volume to quality: fewer, better clicks, won in the contested top positions on genuine boat hire searches, without the cost per booking getting away.

Strategy and Execution

Rebuilt the Search campaign from the ground up over two days in July: 16 responsive search ads rewritten and 16 new ones built, covering all 16 ad groups, so every ad in the account was fresh and relevant on the same day.
Added 186 phrase match negative keywords across both Search and Performance Max in a single pass, cutting off the wasted spend at its source.
Removed four overly restrictive negatives that had been quietly blocking qualified boat hire traffic for months.
Deliberately traded cheap, low intent reach for the more expensive top of page positions on high intent searches, accepting a higher cost per click in exchange for a far higher conversion rate.
Reviewed and rebalanced the daily budgets between Search and Performance Max, so the budget follows the campaign that converts best rather than the one that spends easiest.

The Results

Comparing like for like periods year on year, search enquiries rose 55 percent while the cost per enquiry fell 24 percent. Click through rate nearly doubled, up 97 percent, and top of page impression share grew from 14 percent to 26 percent, won directly from competitors.

The shape of the account tells the story: impressions halved, clicks held steady, and enquiries grew strongly. The account now buys intent instead of noise. In the six months to October 2026 the Search campaign alone delivered 603 enquiries, and it now converts so reliably that the clearest path to further growth is simply giving it more budget, a decision the client controls rather than a problem the agency has to solve.

Clicks (blue) and enquiries (red) for the six months to 21 October 2026, with the prior period dotted.

06 · Sydney Physiotherapy Clinic

From Two Competing Accounts to a 52.5% Conversion Rate for a Sydney Physio

52.5%

conversion rate

$18.22

cost per enquiry

387

enquiries in first 3 months

2 into 1

competing accounts rebuilt as one

The Client and the Challenge

A physiotherapy clinic with two locations in inner Sydney, treating everything from sports injuries to dry needling and WorkCover rehabilitation. Paid search was already running, but through two separate Google Ads accounts, one per clinic, both driving traffic to the same website and overlapping in the suburbs between them, which meant the business could end up paying twice for the same search.

The split also worked against both clinics at once: one account had more demand than budget and was capped, while the other had more budget than demand. Conversion data was divided between them, so Smart Bidding had half the information to learn from in each, and the tracking counted soft proxy clicks as conversions, inflating every number the accounts reported. A full audit of both accounts in July confirmed it: solid campaigns, held back by the structure around them.

Strategy and Execution

Audited both accounts end to end, then merged them into the stronger one, keeping seven years of account history, so the business is no longer bidding against itself in overlapping suburbs.
Rebuilt each clinic as its own campaign inside the one account, so ads, budgets and results are still managed per clinic, while spend can flow to whichever clinic can win the next patient cheapest.
Structured the ad groups by service: core physiotherapy, dry needling, WorkCover and work injury, and brand, each with ad copy written for that treatment and the people searching for it.
Launched on exact and phrase match keywords only, every keyword hand picked, and extended the strongest negative keyword list, more than 100 terms, across both campaigns with tightened location settings.
Upgraded conversion tracking away from soft proxy clicks toward verified call tracking and genuine booking actions, so the bidding optimises to real patients and the combined conversion data makes it smarter, not just busier.

The Results

Within three months of the rebuild going live, the flagship campaign had turned 736 clicks into 387 patient enquiries at $18.22 each, a 52.5 percent conversion rate. More than one click in every two becomes a booking or a phone call, which is the kind of number most advertisers assume is a typo.

One account now does what two could not. The clinics no longer compete with each other in the auction, budget moves to whichever clinic has demand on the day, every enquiry is tracked back to its clinic and service, and the practice has a single picture of what a new patient costs. The structure is in place to scale as treatment capacity grows.

The rebuilt flagship campaign from launch to 21 October 2026: clicks (blue) and enquiries (red).

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