Case Study: AmeriVet
32% increase in New Clients, 21% decrease in NC CPB
Challenge
AmeriVet, a network of 200+ veterinary clinics nationwide, operates in a competitive market dominated by a few behemoths. Its paid media program was historically optimized toward NC ROAS (New Client Return on Ad Spend), which created several operational and strategic limitations as the program scaled across hundreds of veterinary practices.
While ROAS provided directional insight into revenue generation, it was less effective as a day-to-day optimization KPI because it was:
- Heavily reliant on downstream revenue attribution, which could be delayed
- Inconsistent across practices
- Influenced by factors outside media performance (clinic pricing, treatment mix, patient lifetime value variance)
Additionally, the business’s primary growth objective was increasing new client acquisition volume efficiently, but ROAS optimization often favored higher-value bookings rather than the most scalable and cost-efficient acquisition opportunities.
This made it difficult to:
- Accurately compare clinic efficiency across markets
- Scale budgets confidently
- Prioritize media investments based on operational efficiency
- Align paid media reporting with leadership’s acquisition goals
The account structure and conversion ecosystem also introduced attribution complexity, particularly across phone calls, online bookings, and returning-client traffic.
Goal
The objective was to transition AmeriVet’s paid media program to a more operationally actionable KPI centered on NC CPB (New Client Cost Per Booking).
Specific objectives:
- Improve visibility into true new client acquisition efficiency
- Create a more scalable optimization framework across all clinics
- Align media strategy with business growth goals focused on new client volume
- Improve budget allocation decisions across practices
- Reduce inefficiencies caused by returning-client and branded traffic
- Establish a KPI that could be monitored and acted on in near real time
Strategy & Approach
Intrepid partnered closely with AmeriVet leadership, analytics teams, and platform partners to redesign the optimization framework across the Google Ads program. Together, we:
- Transitioned reporting, optimization, and budget allocation frameworks from NC ROAS to NC CPB
- Rebuilt campaign evaluation models around acquisition efficiency thresholds
- Developed clinic cohorting and prioritization systems based on CPB performance
- Implemented broader use of first-party conversion signals through Patient Prism and Vetstoria integrations
- Began weighting conversion actions toward new client outcomes rather than total conversion volume
- Introduced brand exclusions and search query refinement to reduce returning-client bias
- Expanded use of broad match, Performance Max, and AI-driven bidding strategies while closely monitoring acquisition efficiency
- Built forward-looking reporting structures focused on CPB trends, spend pacing, impression share loss, and demand indicators
One of the largest obstacles was attribution consistency.
Because the program relied on multiple booking sources and call tracking systems, ensuring clean conversion classification between new and returning clients required extensive auditing and collaboration between media, analytics, and operational teams.
Another challenge was organizational change management.
The shift required realigning stakeholders around a new success metric and reframing how performance was discussed internally, particularly during periods where ROAS and CPB trends did not move in the same direction.
Results
The shift from ROAS- to CPB-focused paid media strategies continues to drive more efficient new client acquisition.
- New Client Volume: scaled by +182.28% YoY (raw number of new patients)
- New Client Mix: surged by +162% YoY, with new acquisitions expanding from 9.17% to 23.97% of the total customer base
- Short-Term Scaling Efficiency (Q3 ’25 – Q1 ’26): scaled new client volume by +32% while simultaneously slashing acquisition costs (NC CPB) by -21%
- Long-Term Cost Reduction (YoY Q1 ’25 – Q1 ’26): decreased the cost to acquire a new client (NC CPB) by -20% year-over-year
This strategy became foundational to several later strategic initiatives within the AmeriVet paid media program. The shift also enabled clearer communication between executive leadership, operations, and paid media teams by creating a KPI that more directly reflected the cost to acquire a new veterinary client.
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