A plateaued account — and the urge to just spend more
This moving company runs three Ontario markets — Burlington, St. Catharines, and Windsor. Their Google Ads had stalled: steady spend, flat leads, and a cost per lead creeping upward. Like most operators, the obvious fix looked like a bigger budget. We took a different view: before adding a single dollar, the budget already in the account had to work harder.
54% more leads — across all three markets at once
We took over the account in late April and rebuilt it — not the budget. Within about 60 days, full-month leads across the three locations climbed from 263 to 406 — a 54% increase. And it wasn't one lucky city carrying the rest: Burlington more than doubled at its June peak (46 → 102), Windsor rose 86 → 149, and St. Catharines strengthened into the mid-150s. Every market moved up together.
Those extra ~140 leads a month came from the same ad budget. Gains in all three markets at once — not a single spike — are the signature of a process that repeats, city to city.
The part most case studies skip: it held
A one-month spike is easy. Holding the gains is the hard part. Measured over the same first-14-days window each month — a fair, like-for-like read while the current month is still running — leads ran 54% to 75% above the April baseline for four consecutive months, peaking in July. Even the softer first half of August landed 54% above where the account started.
For a moving business, predictable lead flow is planning — trucks, crews, and a calendar you can actually staff, month after month, instead of guessing.
More leads — and a lower cost per lead
Because volume rose while the budget stayed flat, every lead cost less to win. Cost per lead fell in all three markets — down roughly 40–55% — with the biggest drop in Burlington. Same spend, more leads, lower cost each.
A lower cost per lead is margin. It means more booked moves from the same spend — and real room to grow profitably before you ever consider a bigger budget.
Leads are nice. Booked moves pay the bills.
Volume only counts if it turns into work. Over the comparable window, completed jobs rose from 66 to 82 — the extra leads became real, booked, completed moves, not just inbox clutter. This is the number that reaches the bottom line.
What we changed — and what we didn't
We didn't touch the budget. We rebuilt the account:
- Restructured by market so each city competes on its own terms, not an average of all three.
- Focused the spend on searches from people ready to book a move, and cut the broad terms quietly draining budget.
- Tightened audiences to the right neighbourhoods and customer profiles in each city.
- Cleaned the path from ad click to enquiry, so more of the same traffic became real, contactable leads.
- Reviewed weekly and adjusted fast — not "set live and left to run."
The lever wasn't more money. It was a better-run account.
The whole story, in numbers
| KEY METRICS | WHAT IT MEANS |
|---|---|
| 54% | More leads (first 60 days) |
| 54–75% | Above baseline for 4 months, with 0% increase in ad budget |
| 3 / 3 | Locations improved |
| 40–55% | Lower cost per lead |
| +24% | Completed (booked) jobs |
(Every figure on the same advertising budget the account had before we started.)
Run a moving company? Your budget might already be enough.
If your Google Ads have plateaued, the answer usually isn't more spend — it's a sharper, better-structured account. We'll review yours and show you exactly where leads are leaking, and what a rebuild could realistically add.
Book a free account review