How We Helped a Summer Camp Go from 10 to 83 Leads YoY
Those 83 leads? Worth up to $370,000 in potential tuition. When CampAds took over this account, we transformed their Google Ads performance. Here's a full-season, year-over-year comparison demonstrating exactly what that looks like.
The Results Speak for Themselves
Oct 1, 2025 – Jun 30, 2026 (with CampAds)
vs.
Oct 1, 2024 – Jun 30, 2025 (before CampAds)
83 conversions, 8x the year before
$46,164.96 vs $1,819
3,062 vs 812 clicks
35,769 vs 10,810 impressions
more than doubled, up from 1.23%
up from 7.51%, at 3.3x the impression volume
What a Full Season Could Mean for Enrollment
The 83 tracked conversions (phone calls and form fills) across the season project to an estimated 9 to 23 enrolled campers, or roughly $140,000 to $370,000 in potential tuition revenue at a typical full-summer rate. All while paying $0.00 in ad spend.
Enrollment estimates assume ~70% of tracked conversions are genuine inquiries and a 15–40% inquiry-to-enrollment rate. Actual attribution depends on the camp's lead follow-up and tracking.
One Month, One Year Apart
Zooming in on a single month makes the turnaround even starker. In April 2025, this camp's grant account spent just $325 of the $10,000 available that month. One year later, with CampAds managing it, that same month deployed nearly the entire grant.
$9,943 vs $325
7,419 vs 1,112
603 vs 95
up from zero
up from 0%
What That Could Mean for Enrollment
Those 17 tracked conversions in a single month project to an estimated 2 to 5 enrolled campers, or roughly $32,000 to $80,000 in potential tuition revenue at a typical full-summer rate.
Enrollment estimates assume ~70% of tracked conversions are genuine inquiries and a 15–40% inquiry-to-enrollment rate. Actual attribution depends on the camp's lead follow-up and tracking.
What This Camp Did, Month by Month
We pulled this camp's account from September 2025, the month before we started, through June 2026. Three months proves the system works. Four to seven months is where it compounds.
Bars show monthly clicks from camp families, scaled to the April peak of 603.
| Month | Clicks | Impressions | Grant Spend | Conversions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 2025 (baseline) | 59 | 771 | $348 | 1.00 |
| Oct 2025 | 141 | 2,661 | $1,369 | 6.00 |
| Nov 2025 | 151 | 2,352 | $2,114 | 3.00 |
| Dec 2025 | 151 | 1,650 | $1,724 | 2.00 |
| Jan 2026 | 355 | 3,213 | $5,089 | 7.00 |
| Feb 2026 | 200 | 1,553 | $2,324 | 6.54 |
| Mar 2026 | 523 | 5,612 | $8,257 | 16.33 |
| Apr 2026 | 603 | 7,419 | $9,943 | 17.33 |
| May 2026 | 479 | 6,146 | $7,990 | 8.00 |
| Jun 2026 | 459 | 5,163 | $7,354 | 17.07 |
Every one of those clicks is a family who typed something camp-related into Google, saw an ad, and chose to click. That is the highest-intent traffic in digital marketing. By April, ten times as many families were finding this camp as had been the month before we started. And the account kept converting through the end of the season: June posted 17 conversions at a 3.72% conversion rate, the highest rate of any month in 2026.
This camp is a nonprofit running on the Google Ad Grant, so the dollar figures map most directly to other grant-funded nonprofit camps. The click and conversion takeaways apply to paid campaigns too, just on a paid-spend curve rather than free grant spend.
Seasonality cuts both ways. Spring is peak research, fall is quieter, and a real plan accounts for both. The point: three months proves the system works. Four to six months is where the value really compounds.
What Changed?
Strategic Campaign Restructuring
We rebuilt the campaign architecture from the ground up, implementing Performance Max (PMax) campaigns with proper audience targeting. Classic Search campaigns under Google Ad Grants are capped at a $2 max CPC bid. That's a hard rule that severely limits reach and competitiveness. PMax is not subject to this restriction, which is why we prioritize it to unlock the full potential of the grant.
Conversion-Focused Bidding
We shifted from Manual CPC and basic Maximize Clicks strategies to Maximize Conversions with Target CPA. This allowed Google's AI to optimize for actual registrations, not just traffic.
Expanded Reach with Precision
Performance Max campaigns delivered 35,769 impressions across the season compared to 10,810 the year before. That's more than triple the reach, at a higher click-through rate than the old campaigns managed at a third of the volume. These impressions led to an increase in clicks, an increase in conversions, and finally an increase in the number of leads captured.
Dedicated Landing Pages Built for Conversions
We designed and launched custom landing pages specifically built to convert ad traffic into leads. These CRO-optimized pages are tailored to match each ad's message, reduce friction, and guide parents toward taking action. A great ad campaign deserves a great landing page, and we build both.
Grant-Compliant Account Management
The Google Ad Grant comes with strict, ongoing requirements, and accounts that fall out of compliance can be paused or deactivated entirely. It's one of the most common reasons camp grant accounts sit dormant. We manage those requirements month in and month out, so the account stays active, the grant keeps flowing, and the camp never has to think about it.
Ready for Results Like These?
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