Enquiries up 79% and cost per enquiry down 40% in six months, with monthly spend moving from $1,200 to $1,300.
Windy City Smiles is a six-chair dental clinic in Chicago, US. I worked on the account from January to June 2025, across Google Search, the Google Business Profile, and call and WhatsApp tracking.
More enquiries a month, from 96 to 172 across calls, WhatsApp and forms.
Lower cost per enquiry, from $12.50 to $7.56.
Share of spend going on irrelevant searches, down from 31%.
Booked appointments a month, up from 41.
What wasn’t working.
Windy City Smiles spent about $1,200 a month on Google Search with broad keywords and one landing page for every treatment. Nearly a third of the budget went to searches from people who were never going to book, and the account had no idea which ads made the phone ring.
- Local competition. They were getting out-bid by corporate dental chains on high-value terms like “Invisalign”.
- No-shows draining budget. Leads were coming in, but 40% wouldn't show up for their appointment.
- Vague messaging. Ads just said “Best Dentist in Chicago” instead of speaking to specific patient needs like emergency care.
Five changes, in the order they mattered.
Hyper-local geo-fencing
Focused the budget strictly within a 3-mile radius of the clinic, bidding aggressively on patients who were most likely to travel.
Automated appointment reminders
Implemented an SMS workflow to confirm appointments 24 hours in advance, cutting no-shows by half.
Service-specific ad copy
Highlighted “painless root canals” and “same-day emergency dental” to attract immediate, high-intent patients.
One landing page per treatment
LLM-assisted drafts written to match each ad group, with price ranges, dentist credentials and a sticky call bar. The clinic approved every page.
Alerts and the Monday report
Budget pacing and zero-conversion alerts run by script. Every Monday a Looker Studio report joins ad data with the clinic’s booking sheet.
What changed, month by month.
Enquiries rose while cost per enquiry fell
Monthly enquiries from calls, WhatsApp and forms (bars) against cost per enquiry (line). December is the baseline month before the rebuild.
Where the budget went
Share of monthly spend by search intent, before and after search-term mining and the treatment-led rebuild.
How enquiries arrive
Monthly enquiries by channel. December figures were rebuilt from call logs and the clinic’s WhatsApp Business inbox, because they weren’t tracked at the time.
Still running today
- A script reviews new search terms every Monday.
- Zero-conversion and pacing alerts run every day.
- The Looker Studio report, joined with bookings, arrives every Monday.
Tell me what you’re working on.
What you want to achieve, and where you need help. We can talk it through and decide on a practical next step. I’m based in New Delhi and work with businesses across India.
