VMP 301: The Pet Economy Slowdown: How Smart Clinics Still Win

Brandon Breshears 00:00:01  Welcome to the podcast, everybody. Today's episode is a little bit different. We have trace, the marketing guru. We have some clients who've called in that. But trace is our customer success manager over here. And I thought it would be really fun to do a different kind of episode where we talk about the state of veterinary marketing in general, and between me and trace. Trace. How many people do you think we talk to each week between the both of us?

Trace  00:00:25  Both of us quite a bit, honestly. I would say on busy weeks, probably around the 50 around 50 client mark.

Brandon Breshears 00:00:33  Honestly, I think so too. I think that's pretty pretty good estimates. I would say between 50 to 60 practice owners per week that we're talking to. And we're right now we're managing probably pretty close to 600,000 a month in ad spend just for veterinary practices on Google. a little bit more, not more than that, but also someone on meta and things. And so I thought it would be interesting if we can talk about current trends, dive into some of the things that you're seeing.

Brandon Breshears 00:01:03  Some things I'm seeing. I think people it's really interesting when we talk to clients, they talk to me a lot differently than they talk to you when you're just doing meetings. So I think you'd be good to get, some, some good feedback. And I my goal for today's episode was talk about things that are working, things that we see that aren't working. general trends and things that we're on the lookout for. and kind of dive into that. So for everybody who doesn't know you, trace, give us a two minute. Who you are and what you do.

Trace  00:01:35  Totally. So, I just a little short, sweet about me specifically. I was born and raised in Lewiston, Idaho. Been here my whole life, been in and out of customer service jobs. And I actually found this amazing opportunity with Brandon. And I've been so, so pleased and so happy to be working with him and all of our clients. Our clients are amazing people, and I'm truly thankful to be where I'm at today.

Trace  00:02:00  but yeah, I've been been in Lewiston, Idaho, about 40,000 population. And actually we're making a big step here in the near future of actually moving all the way down to Arizona, which is really, really huge. we're excited about it, a little nervous, but I mean, that's that's my, you know, life in the last six months in a nutshell for you.

Brandon Breshears 00:02:17  That's awesome. Well, it's been everybody. Everybody loves you. This works with you. So I'm thankful to have you. And, you bring a lot to the company. So I appreciate you, man. totally. You're definitely in play of the month, for sure. So, let's talk about a few things. First off, most of our clients are running Google Ads right now. when I'm talking to people, overall, summer and spring of this year was pretty rough for most practices. What what do you think about that? And I'll dive a little bit deeper into it. But what What are your thoughts about kind of the current state of an average general practice right now?

Trace  00:03:01  Right now, and as of.

Trace  00:03:02  Like the last, I would say two months, it's really been in and out of flows. It's really, really weird because there will be some weeks where specifically there's some practices that are crazy busy, and it's so weird just because of the, you know, the flows of how it goes. And then there's other weeks where I'll get a ton, a ton of messages, basically saying, hey, we need more urgent cases, we need more same day cases. And it's really weird. But I think it's also, you know, seasonality. It's going to come and go as, as time goes on, as well as just economy as well. I think economy plays a huge, huge role in kind of, you know, if people want to spend money on their pets or not. It's it's kind of weird to think because no matter what the economy is, if you're, you know, for yourself, you're going to go to, you know, the hospital if you need to go to the hospital.

Trace  00:03:45  But it doesn't almost seem like that case for pets. It's like people almost put pets on the backburner if, you know, like the economy's going bad. And I find that very strange just because I'm not necessarily in that boat, like I'm going to take my dog to the, to the vet to go get his annual, his, his checkups, his, you know, dentistry work and all that kind of stuff. But, I think it's, you know, economy just plays a huge role in that.

Brandon Breshears 00:04:11  I would agree for sure. And trace started back in February of 2025. So he kind of jumped in. He didn't see the craziness that happened with Covid. and so it's definitely feels like it's back to the 2019 levels where we have slow seasons. and it's interesting to, vacations back to schools. like, all of those things are definitely coming into play again. So I would expect that, like we'll see. Similar to 2018, 2019, where fall and especially winter is probably going to be more, significantly slower and especially with weather events too.

Brandon Breshears 00:04:52  We saw that starting back in 2024, where the crazy weather events are just snow or changes in cold. made it so that there was definitely slowdowns in practices too. So I think that's a really, really good insight. when it comes and I think that it's cool because we have you have you have the shorter term, like maybe not as biased, view on things and like, I have longer term because I've been working with practices for like 11 years. but where do you think right now, the most underperforming platform is for vendor practices based on what you're seeing. So maybe give me your thoughts. What do you think is kind of like a hidden gem that people aren't catching that you think would be a benefit for them? I'll give you my favorite. And then what do you think is something that people are kind of need to steer away from?

Trace  00:05:47  So I'm thinking more organically rather than paid when you ask this question, and I'm thinking of capturing all of all of the clientele or potential clientele on socials like Instagram and TikTok.

Trace  00:06:00  They are huge, huge, huge nowadays. You know, all of the younger generation are on Instagram and on Facebook and on TikTok especially. And if you I would love for practice practices specifically to make more content in practice. I really think that's huge. And not a lot of practices do it. And I would love. I mean, if you put yourself in, you know, your your clients shoes, right? You would love to see the, you know, surrounding area of the vet practice just the total environment of the vet practice. You know, what goes into play there. Apollo Vet actually just made a really, really good video that just comes into mind. And, they did it. It's actually. What do you mean?

Brandon Breshears 00:06:42  Which which video was it that you just saw from Apollo?

Trace  00:06:45  She was, just showing, you know, giving. She was showing the practice through the doors, and then she was going through just how open it was and how transparent they were, and just went over basics.

Trace  00:06:56  And that's what I enjoyed about it.

Brandon Breshears 00:06:58  I like Doctor Walker's Instagram a ton. So good job, Doctor Walker. You're killing it for sure, I think. I think that's a good one. and trace is 21, by the way. So he is. Are you Gen Z or is that what. Yep. Okay.

Trace  00:07:13  Yep.

Brandon Breshears 00:07:13  Gen Z I don't I don't know the date range is there, for for you and your friends when you're thinking about, choosing, like, any type of brand, how what what platforms are you going to first for, searching for that stuff? Just out of curiosity.

Trace  00:07:30  Instagram 100%.

Brandon Breshears 00:07:32  Interesting. I would have not guessed that for sure. Why do you think Instagram also.

Trace  00:07:37  So I when I'm thinking like, professional professional like photo shoots or like, some people really like to get pictures taken with their car and things like that, and those are really good to show. Work on Instagram specifically. And so like you can get a lot of information from visiting an Instagram profile.

Trace  00:07:56  And so I would say honestly, Instagram would be where I'd go specifically.

Brandon Breshears 00:08:02  Got it. When you have questions about anything, just out of curiosity, what platform are you using most often? So like let's say you need to let's say your dog didn't eat breakfast this morning. How are you going to figure out what to do?

Trace  00:08:15  ChatGPT.

Brandon Breshears 00:08:16  Okay, cool. And is there a secondary or anything like that?

Trace 00:08:21  I mean, yeah, I just ChatGPT and Google.

Trace  00:08:23  I mean, of course using cross-referencing the two, I think that's always a good way to kind of, you know, check all your boxes. It's hard with searching up like symptomatic searches though, on Google and ChatGPT just because it typically comes up with worst case scenarios, which you, you know, have to take with a grain of salt. but yeah, I would say ChatGPT and Google 100%.

Brandon Breshears 00:08:44  Do you find yourself using any social platforms to search for solutions at all? Like are you just. And I think like this is a good type of questions to ask your staff all the time to see where you should be looking, but do you think you're using anything like with respect to like research, do you look and how much do you personally value, like social presence for a business before you go and visit it? Or is that not such a big deal?

Trace  00:09:17  I think I always like to like, scan out reviews.

Trace  00:09:19  I think reviews are a big thing, just because if I'm looking at a new spot that I want to go visit that could be vet related, that could be, you know, food related, even I like to look at reviews. Yeah, but I don't see myself going out of the way. Like, let's say there's this new burger shop down the road that opened six months ago. I wouldn't necessarily go to their Facebook page or Instagram page to learn more about them. If you know, if if I search it up on Google, it's either Google Business Profile, see where they're located. See a couple pictures on their Google business profile, then I'm more than likely, you know, wanting to go over there to check them out.

Brandon Breshears 00:09:51  Very interesting. Very cool. so then I would say the thing, the most underrated thing that I see right now is just probably outbound marketing. And that's just from, from my perspective. So like actually calling texting and emailing client databases, that's one thing that I don't see a lot of practices doing.

Brandon Breshears 00:10:14  And so I think that that would be huge from the organic side too. I totally agree with Tracy that the review ecosystem on like specifically Google my business is probably not going to be going anywhere. Especially with respect to, AI and things. And I know that AI goes through and looks at reviews, when it's doing research. So I think that that is definitely a really good strategy. and overall, I haven't been seeing any decrease in search volume, but I think that, specifically around the transactional search people, you might be losing some transactional search to organic, but like as a second step. So if somebody would go on ChatGPT and it's really interesting to see to you what, what I'm seeing personally using it, I'm interested if this happens for you. But like it seems based on how much I'm using ChatGPT, it'll either prompt me with like a next step or it'll just be like, there's the info. Good luck. And it won't ask me another question. And so like for example, if I searched, why what like why is my cat limping right.

Brandon Breshears 00:11:28  Or something like that. It would be like, here's the possible causes. Would you like me to find a vet in your area or something? Right. So it's going to prompt that next step versus it'll be like here's the possible outcomes. And so have you noticed that at all or is that not something you're noticing?

Trace  00:11:43  No, I definitely noticed that, especially just because I'm using ChatGPT on the daily basis. It's starting to recognize what I like most of the time. And so, what what I switch between on a daily basis is slack versus email, and slack is just basically a way to text on computer. and so, when I asked ChatGPT to come up with some different, you know, emails and things like that, it will ask me specifically do what I like to tailor it towards slack, or would I like to tailor it towards email? And it definitely goes in with like, would you like me to find a vet practice or, you know, it definitely does ask questions. More of trying to find what I'm actually trying to find after or trying to go after.

Trace  00:12:21  Sorry.

Brandon Breshears 00:12:22  Gotcha. And, what's what's your impression? And I'll tell you what I'm seeing, but, I mean, between the both of us were probably in Google ads, like at least six hours a day between each in there looking at client activity on a pretty large amount of ad spend. So, what is your impression of trends in terms of cost per click, cost per impressions and things like that across all of our clients accounts?

Trace  00:12:48  Overall, I'm I'm very pleased with kind of our cost per conversions as well as CPCs and things like that. I think that there's definitely some volatility, you know, throughout day to day of just Google trying to you know, it goes into flows, right. So some days Google will spend more just because they're seeing more searches and they're trying to capture more conversions in other days where Google won't spend nearly as much just because search volume super low. And so it definitely comes in flows. But I think that we are always actively working on trying to lower CPCs and, you know, costs to acquire a client itself.

Trace  00:13:26  So I think overall, kind of, you know, things are always in the upwards direction of trying to make everything as affordable as possible for our clients.

Brandon Breshears 00:13:35  Definitely. Definitely agree. I think that our I'm surprised actually at how much our cost per click is, is pretty darn consistent. yeah, I think over time, ad costs are just going to continue to go up. I mean, that's just there's more and more competition. you know, fighting for that. But we're not seeing tremendous amounts of increase in ad spend. Google put out a report which was really interesting that, the ad cost per click, on average, from 2023 to 2024 went up 25%. for average cost per click. But I don't I don't think we're seeing that, specifically in the veterinary market. I also think that there's probably a little bit of, you know, there's there's definitely major competitors that are nationwide and VC backed and corporate groups, but I don't think it's the same amount of competition like as far as this industry versus like attorneys or real estate or other things like that.

Brandon Breshears 00:14:36  And so, I think that really helps. It's, I mean, most practices are, you know, not not spending a tremendous amount of money on, on ads. And so that helps to keep costs down, too. so I still think it's really undervalued in that it you can acquire customers for, for really cheap. What is your favorite targeting option within Google Ads right now that you think people should jump on?

Trace  00:15:05  honestly, I think that. That's a hard question, to be honest with you. I know like campaigns like which campaign that.

Brandon Breshears 00:15:18  Let's go with.

Trace  00:15:19  Campaigns from.

Brandon Breshears 00:15:20  I'll tell you. Yeah, I'll tell you my favorite targeting option and then, but you, you tell me your favorite campaign type, and then I'll tell you my favorite campaign type right now.

Trace  00:15:28  Okay. I think that we have been seeing a lot of success with performance Max in their additional placements that they have for performance Max, especially for veterinary hospitals specifically, just because of all the different display placements. And typically we've seen, you know, Max more as like an awareness type campaign rather than a converting campaign, but that, you know, the work that we do with optimizing the campaign structure and going through it and fine tuning it on almost a daily basis, we're able to make it.

Trace  00:15:56  So that way it's it's performing to even better than what people are seeing, which is super sweet. And I really, really like the placements on, like YouTube on, you know, emails on Google Maps because that's a really, really big placement that we want our clients to be on. We want, you know, Google Maps, just because we want your client to know exactly where you're located and be able to get to your place as easy as possible.

Brandon Breshears 00:16:17  Yeah, totally. I think Max is my favorite placement, too, and I'm I'm glad that it's working so well for us. the cool thing that, that we're working on is that we can see where the conversions are happening, using different scripting tools. And so a lot of times, and for those who don't know, performance Max, that Google calls performance Max their omnichannel campaign. And so it serves across basically all of the websites that Google works with. And so the that's especially when that I think that launched in 2021, I can't remember either 2021 or 2022.

Brandon Breshears 00:16:53  And it was December, and when it launched it, it was very similar to what's called a smart campaign. And so smart campaigns used to be that you just put your website in, it would create ads for you, create the targets, and what you'd end up getting is a lot of calls around things like decline and like low cost spay, low cost neuter. And so any time that, platform releases, releases a like more broad ad product, that'll typically make it so that you just kind of get junk traffic. back in. I want to say I think it was January or February of 2024. So a little bit about a year and a half ago, they let us start adjusting keywords, but there wasn't any way for us to get really detailed targeting data on what we were actually showing for. And so Google has been consistently and slowly releasing new updates and features and things. And so it took an ad that was typically more like awareness focused, kind of just like a billboard, and it made it more direct response.

Brandon Breshears 00:17:57  And so the action, the the conversion action that we're going for and that we use our phone calls and that is really, really helpful to generate more high quality phone calls. And we can use that. I mean, we're using it for euthanasia and surgeries and like very specific niches within, vet med. So it's I that's my favorite placement too. And I think it gets a bad rap for sure. but it it works really well. And the cool thing too, that we're doing now that I think is really smart is pulling conversion data, matching it against PIMs data, and then pulling return on investment, which is really smart. You can see which one made more money. And our campaigns are consistently outperforming our search campaigns. So I think that's.

Trace  00:18:48  A game.

Brandon Breshears 00:18:49  Changer for sure. I think that's super cool. My my favorite targeting option, by the way, is using demographic income targets because I think that one actually makes the biggest change. It's amazing to see how much of a difference it makes when you start to adjust that.

Brandon Breshears 00:19:05  and previously, it's been difficult to get income data from the like demographic targets. But with ChatGPT, we can go in and say give us the income demographic brackets for this zip code. And then because Google doesn't give us that data publicly, but they are basing your income demographics for targeting based on people in a zip code, so they'll target the top 50% of a zip code. But like we were talking to a client last week and they're in a rural part of Texas and the top 50% of incomes for that area, is anybody making 36 grand or more a year. And that was like not high enough to target, like the type of clients that we were looking for. So we had to bump that up significantly. But generally, I think, you know, you depends on your market and things. let me ask you about the types of messaging that you think is working really well right now. What, ad type messaging do you think is the highest converting that that we're seeing across our campaigns?

Trace  00:20:12  honestly, I feel like direct, direct to consumer, like I've been doing a lot of just general awareness ads of, like, services and things of practices, and it seems like the ones that have a, you know, a phone number attached to it and a good call to action, like book your book an appointment now or trying to get in like urgent same day.

Trace  00:20:31  I feel like those seem to be performing really, really well right now.

Brandon Breshears 00:20:34  Yeah, I agree, I think the more direct response that you can be, the better it is. So calls to action rather than just like we care, compassionate care. I do think it is good to have that additional kind of features in there, but especially with the type of campaigns that you're doing, if you're doing more, you know, branding and awareness type plays, it's not so much about like book now, like it's always good to have a call to action. But if we're targeting people on Google who are searching for something, they want the next step there. So I think that's definitely good. between text image and video, which which ones do you think are the highest performers based on clients? We don't have too many clients making video, which I think is a big opportunity.

Trace  00:21:19  But yeah, that's exactly what I was going to say. And that kind of goes back to my organic thing that I was saying about, you know, using socials more often.

Trace  00:21:27  I really, really want more practices to capitalize on video, like in this generation. Now, now it's, you know, attention spans are so, so short. But everybody loves watching content. That's what people love to do nowadays. You know, Twitch is huge. YouTube's huge. Everybody loves watching content. And that's one recommendation that I'd have is push as much video content possible.

Brandon Breshears 00:21:50  You can I agree, I'm Gary Vaynerchuk said just recently I was watching a video. But video, video is the language of the internet. Like that's now what the language of the internet is. And so I totally agree. And I think testing on social and seeing what gets engagement, that is a free and easy way to see what you should use for ad creative, because the same algorithms that go with. you know, pushing out content. It's basically the same same thing on on paid in that if it gets high engagement and it's attracting the right kinds of people, it will do better than something that you're just testing as an ad.

Brandon Breshears 00:22:32  So if you can test it on social for free, pull your winners like once a month and use those. You don't have to keep reinventing things too. When something works, just remix it. and I think that's a trap people fall into often, is that they think they have to always make something new rather than like, if something works, keep, keep doing it. And I see that with especially on like TikTok where some type of video will work. And so then it like becomes a series and then it like becomes the content that person's known for basically. So actually I think there's like the guy that's like, listen, did you know he like, interrupts a video? Like, I think he just tried that as something funny and it worked really well. So that's like his whole brand now. Like he has a formula for his content, it's, you know, you don't have to always reinvent the wheel. Do you know that guy I'm talking about? I can't remember his name. Just a name or something like that.

Trace  00:23:24  I think something like that. Yeah, I know who you're talking about. I find his videos funny. Actually, I like him.

Brandon Breshears 00:23:28  Yeah, but, that's I, I totally agree. and we've also been doing a bunch with display too, because that placement is, is giving us good returns. So I think that that's another place that is kind of undervalued too. Definitely. I don't think many people are actually creating like actual display ads for their Max campaigns. because again, performance Max shows on all of the different placements. And so if you have that, I think you're going to get a much better result. Definitely.

Trace  00:24:03  Totally.

Brandon Breshears 00:24:05  is there any messaging right now that you think is really high value? I mean, we talked about same day appointments book. Now is there any offers that you see? We don't run offers very often for clients just because nobody likes discounting. but one thing you can find.

Trace  00:24:22  Yeah, yeah. One thing that comes to mind specifically was, a vaccines for life giveaway that we did for one of our clients, and it seemed to pull a really, really good traction.

Trace  00:24:32  We actually did on Facebook and we got really, really good return. I think the whole motto was, they come in for a full price exam and they get entered in for a vaccine for life giveaway, and their pet is able to get vaccines for the rest of their life. if they win that giveaway and that that seemed to work really, really well with getting people in the door and, you know, getting their email to, you know, be able to market towards them as well. And so it seemed like doing some type of, of, you know, offer that nobody else does is really appealing to certain clients for sure.

Brandon Breshears 00:25:02  I think that's right on. And if you're doing any type of marketing on placements that are not behavior based, so it's demographics only like Facebook and Instagram. People aren't on there looking for answers. Like, I definitely don't go to Facebook or Instagram looking for referrals. Trying to think, I mean, maybe I would have gone to a Facebook group a few years ago, but probably not anymore.

Brandon Breshears 00:25:31  I'm trying to think here. I know that ChatGPT pulls heavily from Reddit. as far as communities and referrals and things like that. But yeah, I think so. If if it's on Facebook or Instagram, you have to have a strong offer that's going to be compelling enough to get people in the door. So you have to have some type of a strong offer or some call to action that's going to drive people into the funnel and then have a funnel in place to kind of nurture them, to become a client. Definitely. I'm super interested to get your take on budgets in general. What do you think a realistic budget is, let's say per doctor at a practice. I think that's an easy metric to go for. Most people ask us what they should do for budgets, and I'm like, how much you got? I'm just kidding. But no. How much do you think people should do for a budget?

Trace  00:26:21  No, honestly, I feel like that 20 to $40 rule that you kind of have, you know, found out.

Trace  00:26:26  I think that's a really good starting point, just because we're able to kind of help fill the schedule, right. Just because typically the clients that we're getting, they're just super, super slow, but they're still, you know, trickling in clients and things. And I think that 20 to $40 per doctor is really a good starting point and kind of scaling from there. Right. So in a few weeks, if we're still not filling up the schedule and, you know, after the learning phase and after all of that, I think that's something to look at into, you know, even upping even more because it really depends on geographic location as well. Because if you're in the heart of New York City, of course it's going to be a lot more expensive than if you're in a rural part.

Brandon Breshears 00:27:03  Yeah, definitely. I think that I think that's a good budget. I will give a caveat to you. I've been thinking about this a lot, and we're going to have an episode soon about for different practice stages.

Brandon Breshears 00:27:12  So for new practices, de novo practices, launching new locations, or adding a doctor like if your capacity is greatly increased, I think you need to have a bigger budget for sure, obviously, because you don't have that established client base. and so de novo practices is higher than that, obviously. And that's one thing too. If we have like we have a couple clients that have like a four doctor practice, right. And they're spending maybe $25 a day on ads that they're not going to see, like we're not going to be able to fill 40 appointments a week at that price. You know, it generally and from pulling data. And this is very general, but, kind of like a count wide from that, right around $600,000 in ad spend, it's probably pretty close to between, I would say 18 to $24 per client in the door. That would be my guess. And that's assuming that like you have good CSR phone skills, because that makes a huge difference. If you can even do like a 5% increase in conversion rates, you're going to have it's going to reduce our cost per lead tremendously.

Brandon Breshears 00:28:24  So it depends a lot on on the client skills that you have and making sure everybody's asking would they like to set an appointment and, you know, like the basics like that. But I think that that's a good kind of rule for a general practice that's been open. And they're looking for just more stability in the schedule. obviously if you're slower, you might want to add more, but obviously the goal is to generate ROI on that first visit. So theoretically, if you can prove ROI, you'd want to scale up to as much as possible to keep your your practice as busy as possible. what is some data point that you wish clients were We're better at telling you or giving you that that you wish you could get more insights on. In practice, since you've not worked in practice, I've not worked in practice. So we're we're flying based on what people tell us, so to speak. But what's some of the things you wish people would tell us more in our in our meetings?

Trace  00:29:22  Honestly, I wish that they would be it's hit or miss because we have some clients who are really, really involved.

Trace  00:29:28  Right. So they they let us know every little detail. And that's truly, truly helpful with fine tuning. And then we have some other clients that kind of just roll with the punches. Right. And they're like, oh, this is kind of the clients that we're getting right now. Not too happy with them, but this is what I'm getting from Google Ads. And so I, I wish that there was just more of back and forth with, you know, client demographics. That's huge. One like you mentioned before. you know, just the usual swing of phone calls. Of course, you know, practices are going to get price shopping calls. That's just the nature of the business. But if you're giving, you know, getting a ton of price shopping calls or a ton of calls, you know, out of, you know, two hours from practice or anything like that, I wish that we were just a little bit more involved with kind of their clients that they're seeing.

Brandon Breshears 00:30:15  Yeah, I would say that the times where we're talking to the practice owners who haven't talked to their CSRs, I think that's the most difficult for us just because we can't.

Brandon Breshears 00:30:23  And so they'll be like, oh, you know, I didn't bring it up with them yet. I'll talk to them about it. But I think really being involved in like how are calls going? Is there anything you're noticing either good or bad? is there anything that's been weird that you've been noticing? Are we getting calls for different practices that they're calling the wrong number? All those types of things are really, really helpful. And they, like, you can fine tune all those things. But if we don't know if that's going on, like we can't make those changes. And so I think just having a really good sense of what's going on with the phones is really, really helpful for sure. in your opinion, do you think it's better to run 24 over seven ads, or do you think it's better to run just during business hours?

Trace  00:31:12  I think it's it's hit or miss just because I think overall it would be better to run ads 24 over seven if you would have like an after hours campaign, right? So that way the primary conversion would be online bookings rather than phone calls or I mean, texting might work even.

Trace  00:31:29  but if you I would, I would say having your call conversion being the main conversion for your daytime, you know, during business hours and then having an after hours campaign trying to capture those people that get off work at ten, 11:00 at night, trying to do an online booking for, you know, the next week for their dog. I think those are beneficial and especially in bigger areas, because that seems to be more prominent in, you know, higher population areas.

Brandon Breshears 00:31:52  Yeah, I, I agree with that. I think it depends on budgets too. Like if you're spending $20 a day. There's plenty in most markets. There's plenty of searches during daytime that you don't have to be 24 over seven. I definitely think there is high value clients that are looking after hours for sure. But if we're just trying to get the highest possibility for conversion, then I think during the day makes sense. Especially if you need same day appointments and your schedules aren't as full. I think that's that's working really well right now.

Brandon Breshears 00:32:23  But I do think, that there is a lot of potential for just online booking in general. but it's really important to measure conversions accurately. So for for those who don't know, you can optimize your campaigns and you can tell Google ads or meta Meta's call tracking is not great, though. They actually have a call conversion action that you can optimize for. so maybe we'll talk about what what you can optimize for in meta. But the the campaign's. You can tell them, like, we just want to optimize for for this conversion event, or you can optimize for multiple. And the types of conversions you can do are like people who are targeting for store visits. So people physically entering the location you can target for people, completing an action on the website, you can target for phone calls that happen through call extensions and other things like that. So making sure that the conversion action matches the data of the time of day, that that people are actually running the campaigns and then also their primary goal. But I think one thing that people should be looking at, especially if if you're running Google ads and you want more online bookings, go through whatever software you're using for that booking and make sure you see what the show up rate is for the different segments of traffic, so you can see existing clients versus new clients, and then look at the show up rate.

Brandon Breshears 00:33:51  And then if you're getting a lot of online bookings, but they're just ghosting you. Make sure that you have solid reminders in place and that you're actually calling them confirming like probably multiple times before the appointment. Explaining. Set expectations and give like a great experience throughout the whole thing. I know people don't like to call who are booking online, so maybe like texting them too. I think that's maybe less intrusive. Some people really avoid phone calls for sure, so they just want to do it online or text or things like that. So not everybody's a phone person for sure. What is your opinion on the biggest mistake that you think practices are making when it comes to marketing especially? I'm interested to see because you're relatively new to this, but you're talking to people all the time. So what's your opinion on the biggest mistake that they're making?

Trace  00:34:40  Not wanting to spend money on paid ads have a ton, a ton of clients who like they. I wish they would spend more just because it seems like they're unwilling, which it makes sense to me, but it seems like they're unwilling to try to scale budgets up to try to attract more clientele.

Trace  00:35:01  And I wish that people would be more willing to, you know, do even do like a trial and error process. Right? So like even try it for a week. That's what I've been trying to do with some of our current clients, because everybody's been seeing a slowdown, a really, really big slowdown recently. So I've been trying to, you know, ask them and be like, hey, would you be okay with, you know, a quick little just budget increase meant to kind of see how these next few weeks roll out. And I'm excited to see how those play out, just because I really think by, just trying to add more budget to add to the search volume that that is going on and try to capture those additional searches, I really think that would be beneficial for sure.

Brandon Breshears 00:35:38  I totally I totally agree with that one. I have a few other ideas too that I think are big mistakes, but I think there's a lot of wisdom in that, especially with respect to practices where we know how much a conversion is costing.

Brandon Breshears 00:35:49  And so they see that they're slow. And I get. I think to it's probably a big opportunity for practices too, because I think that's what a lot of people feel in terms of like, I don't want to spend more money and it's costing me. But if you know, it's attracting high quality clients and we see the cost per conversion and we know that we need more phone calls, and we have all of these fixed costs around running a practice. And so if you can, you know, spend another $20 and get another client like that makes sense from the first visit. Value your positive ROI, your annual visit, value your positive ROI and lifetime value is crazy. So I, I think that's definitely a big, big one. That is is there I think people and I, I totally understand where business owners are coming from trying to manage cash flow and stuff. And so it's not just as simple as like throw money at the problem, but being sure to be business minded when it comes to Number one setting expectations.

Brandon Breshears 00:36:50  If you run 300 bucks a month in ads, you're not going to be, you know, crazy busy for sure. But also, yeah, being open to slowly scaling up ad spend and adjusting things. When you see what's working, you know, double down on it. that that definitely makes sense. And I think two other, other mistakes that I see a lot of times are just really the basics that it is the asking for an appointment every single time somebody calls, following up with clients too, especially so if if somebody says, you know, they're calling for a price or they're calling to know about when is the right time for euthanasia or their cat is sick, and so they're gonna, they're gonna wait and see type of a thing. If you were the practice that actually called somebody back and said, hey, you know, you mentioned your cat fluffy wasn't feeling good. I just wanted to check in and see how it was going. Like that would be huge. You would probably win that client and nobody's doing that little extra bit that doesn't cost.

Brandon Breshears 00:37:54  I mean, it costs the time of your CSR, but it's that little extra step that makes people feel like you've gone the extra the extra mile. and the other mistake too, that I think, is that feeling like doing some type of a tactic or a strategy is going to fix your practice in general, right? So if you have a problem where your CSRs are grumpy and they don't want to take phone calls, you know, like adding more budget isn't going to be the magic wand to fix it. if you have and I'd say that, success from like, what makes an okay campaign versus an exceptional campaign is going to be the team that you have in your practice. We can get the phone ringing, like, without a doubt, but if you can't convert them, like, we can't do anything about that. we can try our best and try to target the, you know, best potential people. But I think making sure it's really interesting, like, we have clients that just are upbeat and positive and excited and, like, the campaigns seem to perform way better.

Brandon Breshears 00:39:08  You can tell that their team is dialed in and they're having fun doing it. I know that everybody has bad days and things, but we'll have clients come along sometimes and they just are down in the dumps and things aren't going good, and they're in a terrible market. And like they don't enjoy seeing clients. You can kind of tell and it definitely makes a difference. And I understand there's a lot of burnout and lots of problems, but I think it's crazy to make it sound like. But attitude has a huge impact on just how successful your marketing endeavors are going to be, which is really weird, but I think that's true. we'll be wrapping up here in just a second, but how often do you think the average practice should be looking into ad performance for reviewing and optimizing things? Let's let's assume that they are working with an agency or an Ads partner. How often do you think they should be?

Trace  00:40:06  I think that you should at least meet every other month. And the reason I say that is just because we have some clients that, we're making ongoing adjustments, but they're just constantly so, so busy.

Trace  00:40:20  Right? And so, I think that a monthly is, is perfect of meeting once a month. and just kind of going over what they're seeing in the practice. If we, you know, the schedule has been filling up. things like that specifically. I think that would be great to go over monthly, but we also have some clients that are just, like, too crazy busy to even meet monthly, which is great news for us because, you know, that means we're we're doing a good job. but I think they would value, you know, like at every other month meeting just to kind of go over previous month what they've been seeing this month and then new plans to, you know, go through this next slow season or, or kind of just look at next steps for the next remaining months and things like that. I think that's probably a good a good starting point.

Brandon Breshears 00:41:02  I think if you're super busy, you should be proactively planning, versus if you're not as busy as you like, be proactively planning and being reactive to your schedule.

Brandon Breshears 00:41:13  I think that's a big one. And then also make sure that you're working with somebody that you really feel like a collaborative relationship rather than adversarial to. And that's I think the hardest thing sometimes will have clients that aren't great fits because it's like we're adversaries. They don't believe that. What we say, I'm sure like people that are listening have the same feeling with pet owners in the practice where they feel like they have their guard up like, oh, this person's trying to scam me to get me to do this blood lab. They just want the extra money type of a thing. When in reality, like, you should be partnered with somebody that you trust and that you're being collaborative with. And so same, same thing goes for, I think, finding people that are going to be vendors that help you inside of your practice for sure. So transparency and trust are huge. But yeah, I think optimizing as often as you need to to make sure things are dialed in and then just really checking on the major KPIs that you need to be making sure that the business is growing in the way that you want to.

Brandon Breshears 00:42:15  let's see here. Is there any last thoughts or big opportunities or anything that you see here in the next little bit, especially through winter time? it's going to be your first winter. I think it's probably going to be pretty slow, but anything that you see coming out that you think people should be on their radars.

Trace  00:42:38  Nothing's jumping out to me right away, I know that. I mean, it's already crazy. We're starting to kind of see that slow down across the, you know, nation, to be honest with you. And I think that, one, one key takeaway that I really, really enjoy is your CSR training workbook. And I really think that's that's going to play a big role with helping to teach CSRs on how to get get the best conversion rate possible. And I really think that is something that all of our clients if, if not everybody, should use. Just because I see how valuable CSRs are, you know, for the practice specifically, they play the main role to getting a client in the door and to making, you know, your clinic have profit ultimately comes down to your CSR.

Trace  00:43:27  And it's ultimately a sales role in, in a lot of CSRs. Don't know that specifically either. Yeah. Is, you know, you're trying to convert a client or you're trying to make a sale, basically. And I really think that's huge.

Brandon Breshears 00:43:38  That's that's a good point. And, I if I owned a practice, I would for sure have Callrail installed or some way to measure calls or listen to them at least. And so I know like we even mango do that and a lot of practices use that. But actually go through and listen. We listen to calls a lot. And so we can see the opportunity of being like the the CSR is waiting for the customer, the customer to close them. Basically they'll like answer the question and then just be quiet. And it's like a weird negotiation standoff. And then it's always going, all right, I'll call you back later. That's how it. Okay. Thanks. I'll call you back. And they don't call back. That's the surprise. They definitely don't.

Brandon Breshears 00:44:18  So, yeah, I think that the the basics are incredibly valuable. and so until there's, there's AI phone receptionists that are just as good as people, which probably is not too far out, but, and then you know what? What do people need to hear and see and feel to actually feel like your practice cares about them? Right. So all of those, those basic things. But CSR is the front line for all of that. And that makes everything work better. And then my thought is, especially as we go into fall season and winter time, it's time to be proactive in getting things set up. So like if you want to send an email broadcast, if you're slow one day, like make up some offers, have those kind of in the quiver ready to go rather than being like, crap. It's been two weeks. We have not been growing. Let's we got to figure it out, right? If you're scrambling versus being proactive, I think that's a big deal. So try to get things figured out before it gets bad and it'll be better for you.

Trace  00:45:28  Totally agree with that.

Brandon Breshears 00:45:29  So cool. Well, we'll jump on another podcast here in December and hopefully all of our clients double in revenue. But we'll we'll see what what happens here through the fall and things, and especially with all of the recent interest rate adjustments that are coming out, I will see if that makes consumer spending significantly different. I bet it's going to have a little bit of an impact, but it seems like the economy is poised for a little bit of a slowdown here. So if you are listening and you need help with anything, don't hesitate to reach out to us. And that CSR training, I'll put that in the show notes link as well. So thanks, trace.

Trace  00:46:07  Yeah, thank you for having me, Brandon.

Brandon Breshears 00:46:09  All right.