Therapy practices often ask one budget question too early: "How much should we spend?" The better first question is: "Which services can reliably turn paid search into qualified demand?"
This anonymized snapshot comes from a multi-location mental wellness practice running Google Ads across several service lines. Once tracking stabilized, we reviewed a three-week period and separated non-brand service performance from brand capture.
The Numbers Upfront
The account spent $3,607.62 on non-brand service campaigns during the measurement window. Those campaigns generated 423 clicks, 63 tracked inquiry conversions, and a blended cost per inquiry of $57.26.
Why We Split Performance by Service
A single account-level cost per inquiry can hide the decision that actually matters. In this account, the practice was advertising psychiatry, adult therapy, and psychological testing. Each service had different search demand, different urgency, and different economics.
If those services were reviewed as one campaign, the account looked solid. Once we separated the service lines, the growth plan became much clearer.
| Service line | Spend | Clicks | Tracked inquiries | Conversion rate | Cost per inquiry |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Psychiatry | $2,020 | 236 | 31 | 13.1% | $65 |
| Adult therapy | $1,172 | 138 | 21 | 15.2% | $56 |
| Psychological testing | $416 | 49 | 11 | 22.4% | $38 |
Brand search was tracked separately and excluded from the core non-brand proof. Brand capture performed well, but it answers a different question than whether paid search can create service-line demand from people who were not already searching for the practice by name.
What the Account-Level Average Missed
Psychological testing had the smallest spend but the strongest efficiency, with an estimated $38 cost per inquiry and a 22.4% conversion rate.
Adult therapy produced a healthy 15.2% conversion rate and stayed close to the blended average, making it a steady expansion candidate.
Psychiatry delivered the highest inquiry volume, but at a higher cost per inquiry. That made search-term quality and location focus more important before raising spend.
The takeaway was not to spend everywhere. It was to protect the efficient testing traffic, keep therapy funded, and tighten psychiatry around the ad groups and terms that were already converting.
How This Changes the Next Budget Decision
When service lines are measured separately, budget decisions become practical. The practice can answer questions like:
- Which service can take more budget without losing efficiency?
- Which service needs search-term pruning before more spend is added?
- Which campaigns are creating non-brand demand rather than only capturing existing brand searches?
- Where should landing page and intake improvements be tested first?
That is the difference between reporting clicks and managing pipeline. The numbers are useful because they show where the next dollar should go and where it should not go yet.
The Practical Lesson
For a growing therapy or mental wellness practice, Google Ads performance should not be judged only at the account level. Service-line reporting shows whether the account is creating the right kind of demand, whether a campaign deserves more budget, and where inquiry quality work should happen before raising spend.
In this case, the account produced 63 tracked non-brand inquiries at a $57 blended cost per inquiry. More importantly, it showed the practice which services were ready for more spend and which needed tighter targeting first.