A four-branch gym chain with swimming, padel and an in-house spa sells memberships through conversations: a message, a call, a visit, a sign-up. Over five campaign cycles we ran the habit that matters most in this kind of account: cut what does not earn its place, at every review.
The situation
Four branches, one budget, and a channel war
Each branch had its own crowd, and the cheapest channel kept changing: Instagram one month, Facebook the next. One branch inside a mall cost almost twice as much per conversation as the rest and was pulling the averages down.
What we did
One rule, every review
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Messages campaigns by branch and platform
Every cycle ran conversation campaigns on Instagram and Facebook, aimed at the neighbourhoods around each branch.
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Cut anything above the line
At every review, any ad costing more than the cycle’s average per conversation was switched off and its budget redistributed.
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Followed the cheaper channel, every time
In spring, Instagram conversations cost about $0.70 against $1.36 on Facebook. By summer Facebook had become cheaper, so budget followed it there.
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Isolated the weak branch
The mall branch got its own ad set and budget, so its higher cost stopped dragging the rest of the chain with it.
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Ran stages inside each cycle
A main stage, then a shorter, leaner second stage with only the best ads. The second stage of the late-summer cycle ran at about $0.67 per conversation.
Results
Steady volume, cost under a dollar
Conversations per cycle
What made the difference
No single campaign made this account. A boring, repeated rule did: at every review, cut what costs more than average and give the money to what costs less.
