The challenge
Brightwheel — a $300M ARR childcare SaaS — was hitting a wall in non-brand search. CPL was climbing, qualified-lead volume was flat, and the CRM had no visibility into which clicks ever became closed-won customers. The non-brand account had been built up over years and accumulated structural waste: too many tightly-themed campaigns, fragmented bidding, no offline conversion signal feeding back to Google.
The mandate from Demand Generation was clear: re-establish profitability and grow MQL volume without inflating CPL.
The approach
Rebuild the conversion layer first
Step one was wiring offline conversions back into Google Ads. Closed-won deals from the CRM became a value-based signal that the ad platform could optimize against — not just lead form submissions. Smart bidding can only optimize for what it can measure, and "any conversion" is the wrong target when prospect quality varies by 5–10×.
Restructure non-brand from the ground up
We collapsed campaign sprawl into a tighter architecture aligned to ICP cohorts — by segment, by intent stage, by device. Broad match was reintroduced deliberately, paired with smart bidding informed by the new offline-conversion feedback loop.
Optimize for the device that actually converts
Device analytics revealed that a meaningful share of high-quality leads came through mobile — and the existing mobile experience was leaking. A focused mobile optimization pass lifted CVR across both brand and non-brand campaigns.
Test the landing experience continuously
Continuous A/B tests on landing page elements — headlines, hero imagery, CTA placement — fed the small-but-compounding wins that show up months later as sustained CVR gains.
The result
CPL dropped 55%. MQL volume grew 4×. SQL volume grew over 3×. Closed-won sales were up 215% over the engagement window — and the cost per closed-won contracted at the same time.
The structural changes — offline conversion tracking, ICP-aligned campaign architecture, smart bidding fed by clean signal — compounded over the year. Same playbook, applied the same way, by the same operator.