Cut Ad Spend by 33% While Tripling Leads

When Marcus called us, the first thing he said was "I tried Google Ads. It didn't work." He'd been spending $1,200 a month with a marketing agency in Nashville for six months. He couldn't point to a single new client that came from ads.

We hear this a lot. It's almost never that Google Ads doesn't work for grooming — it's that the campaigns were set up wrong.

What We Found

We audited his Google Ads account and found four problems that explained everything:

Geo-targeting was set to "Presence or Interest." This is Google's default, and it's a trap. It means your ads show to people who are "interested in" your location — not just people who are physically there. Marcus was getting clicks from Nashville (130 miles away), Knoxville, and even Atlanta. People who would never drive to Chattanooga for a dog grooming appointment.

Keywords were all broad match. His campaigns were bidding on "dog grooming" in broad match, which means Google showed his ads for searches like "dog grooming school near me," "grooming supplies wholesale," "how to groom a poodle at home," and "dog grooming salary." None of these people want to book an appointment.

Zero negative keywords. There was no negative keyword list at all. Every irrelevant search term that triggered an ad was money wasted.

No conversion tracking. The agency hadn't set up conversion tracking, which means Google had no data on which clicks actually led to phone calls or form fills. The algorithm was optimizing for clicks, not customers.

What We Did

We rebuilt his campaigns from scratch. Set geo-targeting to PRESENCE only — a 12-mile radius around his salon. Switched keywords to exact match and phrase match with groomer-specific terms ("dog groomer Chattanooga," "pet grooming near me," "dog haircut Chattanooga"). Built a negative keyword list with 200+ terms covering DIY grooming, grooming schools, supplies, jobs, and every variation we've seen waste money across dozens of accounts.

We set up conversion tracking for phone calls (including call duration filtering — only calls over 60 seconds count) and form submissions. Then we added a call-only campaign for mobile users, since most people searching "dog groomer near me" on their phone just want to tap and call.

What Changed

We dropped his monthly spend from $1,200 to $800. His cost per lead went from $89 to $23. The percentage of clicks from outside his service area dropped from 41% to 3%.

But the number that mattered most to Marcus: he went from zero trackable leads to 34 calls and form submissions in the first full month. Not all of those booked — some were price shoppers, some were asking about services he doesn't offer — but he was finally getting real local people calling his salon from his ads.

"I thought Google Ads was a scam," he told us after the first month. "Turns out my old agency was."