Gym Marketing: Reduce Cost per Qualified Lead by 47%

The client came to us with a common challenge in the fitness industry: paid media campaigns were generating volume, but the vast majority of leads never converted into memberships.

The funnel was broken between acquisition and conversion, and the solution they had relied on until then was offering discounts, reducing margins without addressing the underlying issue.

The root cause was clear: leads were not being qualified based on intent. They were attracting anyone willing to click, rather than the people most likely to become members.

The paid media investment was already in place, but both clubs were being treated as if they were a single location.

Meta Ads campaigns were running with broad geographic targeting, without a defined radius for each club, without audience segmentation by location, and without creatives tailored to the reality of each facility, including different schedules, classes, and teams. The result was that leads from one area of the city were receiving communications for a club on the opposite side, causing many to drop out before even attending their first visit.

The contact form was generic and shared across both clubs, with no option to select a preferred location or fitness goal. Leads were sent to a shared inbox, with no automatic distribution, no prioritisation, and no structured follow-up process. The average response time exceeded 24 hours in an industry where the decision to try a gym is often made within minutes.

On Google, visibility was minimal. There were no Search campaigns targeting local intent queries such as “gym in [area]” or “fitness classes near me”, and the Google Business Profiles were outdated, lacking recent photos, responses to reviews, and, in one case, displaying incorrect opening hours.

The strategy was built around a simple principle: two clubs, two separate acquisition operations, supported by a single lead management funnel from the first click through to membership sign-up.

We separated the entire paid media structure by club. Google Search campaigns were created around local search intent, segmented by geographic radius around each location and by service category, including gym training, group classes, and personal training. Each ad group was built with a comprehensive list of negative keywords to eliminate searches with no genuine intent, such as job opportunities, gym equipment, or free workout content, ensuring that the budget was directed only towards people actively looking for a place to train.

Meta Ads was restructured into three layers for each club. At the top of the funnel, cold audiences were targeted based on geographic radius and behavioural signals, including demonstrated interest in fitness, recent relocation, and back-to-school periods. In the middle of the funnel, remarketing audiences were segmented by page visited. Users who viewed class schedules received different creatives from those who viewed membership pricing. At the bottom of the funnel, 1% lookalike audiences were built from active members of each club, replicating the profile of people who had already converted.

We created dedicated landing pages for each club, featuring updated class schedules, team introductions, and a single conversion objective: booking a trial class with the ability to select a preferred date and time. The form was integrated directly with the CRM, automatically assigning each lead to the correct club and generating an immediate alert for the reception team. Response times fell from more than 24 hours to under 15 minutes during opening hours.

We implemented email and SMS automation throughout the decision-making journey, including trial class confirmations and reminders to reduce no-shows, post-visit welcome sequences with time-limited membership offers, and recovery flows for leads who booked a trial but did not attend. The CRM was also configured to score leads automatically based on engagement levels, helping the sales team prioritise prospects with the highest likelihood of conversion.

Finally, we optimised local organic visibility by fully updating and differentiating each Google Business Profile, adding recent photography, responding consistently to reviews, and publishing weekly updates for each club.

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Gyms and health clubs

The client came to us with a common challenge in the fitness industry: paid media campaigns were generating volume, but the vast majority of leads never converted into memberships.

The paid media investment was already in place, but both clubs were being treated as if they were a single location.

The strategy was built around a simple principle: two clubs, two separate acquisition operations, supported by a single lead management funnel from the first click through to membership sign-up.