3 Weeks: Enquiries Up 75%, Google Ads Cost Per Enquiry Down From A$196 to A$65
A long-established Australian pest control business - hundreds of Google reviews, a strong local reputation - was paying a web provider for a site and a Google Ads account that were both underperforming. The week their new site went live, their Google Ads account was producing enquiries at A$196 each.
Three weeks later, total enquiries across all channels were up 75% against a day-of-week-matched baseline, and the rebuilt ads account had cut cost per enquiry to A$65.
The client’s identifying details have been anonymised. All metrics are verified from Google Analytics 4, the Google Ads UI, and Google Search Console.
Before: Paying For Ads That Could Not Prove Their Value
The business had been with its previous provider for years. The site was slow and template-built; the Google Ads account had accumulated the classic problems of an unmanaged account:
| Problem | State at handover |
|---|---|
| Cost per enquiry | ~A$196/week at go-live week |
| Paid enquiries per day | 0.45 |
| Paid share of total enquiries | 17% |
| Search-term hygiene | broad matching, no maintained negative catalogue |
| Conversion tracking | unverified - enquiries not reliably counted |
At 0.45 paid enquiries a day, the ads budget was mostly funding clicks that never became customers - and because conversion tracking was unverified, nobody could say which clicks were working.
The Two Rebuilds
Rebuild one: the website (day 0). We replaced the provider-built site with a code-first rebuild - same visual design, so returning customers noticed nothing, with every invisible improvement banked underneath: clean markup, full schema coverage, fast mobile loads, AI-crawler readiness, and verified end-to-end conversion tracking.
Rebuild two: the Google Ads account (day 8). Rather than patching the old account, we rebuilt it: a money-earner campaign structure with per-service campaigns, intent-only search targeting, a shared negative keyword catalogue, and daily search-term review through the ramp period. Every enquiry - form and phone - now lands in the conversion data.
After: Three Weeks of Verified Data
The clean go-live measurement window ran just over two weeks, compared against the prior provider’s day-of-week-matched baseline:
| Metric | Baseline (prior provider) | Post-rebuild | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total enquiries per day | 2.61 | 4.56 | +75% |
| Paid enquiries per day | 0.45 | 2.50 | ~5.5x |
| Cost per enquiry (Google Ads) | ~A$196 | A$65 | -67% |
| Phone enquiries | - | - | +63% |
| Form enquiries | - | - | +23% |
| Daily Google impressions | 3,427 | 6,910 | +102% |
And the rate was still climbing at last measurement: 3.14 enquiries/day in week 2 accelerated to 6.14/day in week 3. Daily impressions peaked at 9,678.
On the organic side, the primary category keyword for the city moved from #7 to #4 on the live SERP in three weeks, and a commercial-intent variant reached #3 organic.
The Honest Note: This Gain Is Paid-Led
Most agencies would present the +75% as an SEO result. It is not - yet. The paid channel drove the bulk of the early lift (paid share of enquiries went from 17% to 55%), because a rebuilt ads account responds in days while organic rankings respond in months.
That is the point of running both channels under one operator: the ads rebuild pays for the engagement immediately, while the SEO layer - which only began shipping content in week 3 - compounds behind it. The organic lead curve from this rebuild is still ahead of us.
What Cost Per Enquiry Means In Dollars
At the handover rate of A$196 per enquiry, a A$1,200 weekly budget buys about 6 enquiries. At A$65, the same budget buys about 19. Same spend, three times the enquiries - the difference is entirely account structure, search-term hygiene, and verified tracking. The best-performing campaigns in the rebuilt account were producing enquiries at A$24 to A$34.
This is the same discipline documented in our inherited Google Ads account rescue case study, applied at higher stakes: this time the site rebuild and the ads rebuild happened together.
Could Your Numbers Do This?
If you are paying for Google Ads without verified conversion tracking, you cannot know your cost per enquiry - and if you cannot know it, it is usually bad. The combination that moved these numbers is replicable: a fast code-first site that converts the clicks, and a clean ads account that stops paying for the wrong ones.
See our Google Ads management service, read how we rebuild websites, or compare the organic-side equivalent in our Melbourne cleaning business case study.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Why is the +75% measured against a “day-of-week-matched baseline”?
Because enquiry volume swings by day of week in local services. Comparing a window with more weekdays against one with fewer would flatter the result. Matching the day-of-week mix keeps the comparison honest - the +75% is like-for-like.
Q: Is the improvement from the website or the ads account?
Both, but paid led the early result: paid enquiries went from 0.45 to 2.50 per day after the account rebuild, while organic conversion is still ramping as the SEO content program ships. The site rebuild contributes the conversion rate on every click, paid included - a fast page that converts is what makes A$65 per enquiry possible.
Q: Was extra ad budget behind the enquiry lift?
No - the improvement is efficiency, not spend. The account produced roughly three times the enquiries per dollar after the rebuild (A$196 down to A$65 per enquiry), with the best campaigns at A$24 to A$34.
Q: What happens to cost per enquiry as the SEO side matures?
It falls further in blended terms. As organic rankings claim more of the searches the account currently pays for, the same enquiry volume costs less. That paid-to-organic handover is documented in our paid-vs-organic overlap audit case study.
Q: Why is the client anonymised?
The client requested anonymisation while we build out a portfolio of named case studies. All metrics remain verifiable through GA4, the Google Ads UI, and Google Search Console.
Want to know your real cost per enquiry? Get in touch - we will review your account and show you where the waste is. No obligation, no sales calls.
All metrics independently measured, go-live 8 June 2026, measured through 29 June 2026 against a day-of-week-matched May baseline.
Could your site do this? Get a free competitor analysis.
Send us your URL. We'll analyse your current site against your top 3 competitors and email you the gaps. No phone calls, no sales reps.