88 booked calls in 20 days from $850 in ad spend
A full breakdown of one campaign: where the firm started, what we built, the two adverts that worked, the four that did not, and the numbers from the ad account, from the first impression to the booked call.
All figures are from the firm's Meta Ads Manager for 12 October to 3 November 2026 unless stated. A booked call is an appointment on the firm's calendar, tracked as a website schedule event.
The starting point
The firm is an owner-led tax resolution practice. Almost all of its new clients came from referrals. Referrals close easily, but they arrive when they arrive, so the calendar was full one month and empty the next.
The owner had run ads before and they had not worked. The previous approach was the common one in this industry: lead forms that collect a name and number, then a team chasing people who barely remember filling them in. It produced volume, not consultations, and she was close to giving up on paid advertising altogether.
The decision that changed the outcome: appointments, not leads
We did not try to make leads cheaper. We changed what the campaign was built to produce. Instead of lead forms, every advert sent people to a landing page where they answered qualifying questions and booked a time directly on the firm's calendar. Meta was told to optimise for that booking, so it went looking for people likely to book, not people likely to type a phone number.
What she had tried before
- Generic tax help advert
- Instant lead form
- Team calls and chases
- Few answer, fewer book
Optimised for the cheapest form fill.
What we built
- One advert per IRS problem
- Landing page that explains and qualifies
- Taxpayer books their own call
- Appointment lands on the calendar
Optimised for a booked call.
The trade-off is deliberate. A booking asks more of the person than a form fill, so there are fewer of them. But each one is a taxpayer who has read what the firm does, confirmed they have the problem and picked a time. As we put it to her: better to sit in front of five real people than be handed a hundred names.
The audience: only people already facing the IRS
The firm wanted resolution clients only. Not people looking to reduce next year's tax, and not planning enquiries. So the brief was narrow: reach taxpayers who are dealing with the IRS right now. Getting this wrong at the start would attract the wrong people however good the rest of the campaign was.
Rather than one general "tax problems" advert, we split the audience by the problem they actually have, so a person would recognise their own situation before they even clicked:
These four were paired into two adverts that share a natural audience: liens and levies in one, wage garnishment and notices in the other.
The adverts: feed-native, problem first, no guarantees
The adverts that worked are not polished. They look like a normal video in someone's feed, a person talking to camera, rather than a produced commercial. People scroll past anything that looks like an ad, and there are far more ads in the feed than there were a few years ago.
Each one follows the same structure:
There is no "pennies on the dollar", no guaranteed outcome and no claim that the firm is connected to the IRS. That is partly about compliance. It is also commercial: people who book because they trust the explanation are more likely to turn up to the call, and more likely to sign when they do.
From a view in the feed to a call on the calendar
Each stage with the rate it converted at. Bars use a log scale so the later stages stay visible next to tens of thousands of impressions.
Video #2 · Liens and levies
$756.46 spend · $10.09 per booked call
Video #5 · Garnishment and notices
$332.56 spend · $9.78 per booked call
What $10 bought, per booked call (Video #2)
Roughly one in five people who reached the page booked a call. That page conversion rate, more than the ad itself, is what keeps the cost per call near $10. Industry figures for tax resolution put a Google Ads lead, not a booked call, at $80 to $120 (TaxProMarketer).
Six adverts launched, two kept, four cut
Not everything worked. Four adverts never produced a booked call. Meta gave them almost no delivery and put the budget behind the two that converted. Together they cost $8.22.
Where the $1,097.24 went
How the calls built up
Cost per booked call held at roughly $10 as spend went up. The day 20 figure is from our campaign report; day 23 is the Ads Manager total.
What worked, and why
- Booked calls as the goal. Meta optimised for the event that mattered, so it found people who book, not people who fill in forms.
- One problem per advert. People recognised their own situation before clicking, which is why 1.84% of impressions became link clicks.
- Feed-native video. CPM held around $32 and the adverts did not wear out at 1.7 views per person.
- A landing page that qualifies. One in five visitors booked, and those who did had already confirmed they had the problem.
- Trust over promises. No guarantees, so the people who booked turned up expecting a real conversation.
What did not work
- The firm's earlier lead-form campaigns produced names, not consultations. That is the approach this campaign replaced.
- Four of the six adverts (Videos #1, #3, #4 and #6) barely delivered: between them they reached 165 people, spent $8.22 and produced one link click. The budget went to the two that converted.
What this means for your firm
None of this depends on a big budget. It depends on four things working together: a clear offer for a specific IRS problem, adverts that explain rather than promise, a page that qualifies and books, and someone at the firm ready to take the call. On a strategy call we look at your sources, fees and intake and tell you plainly whether we can build something similar for you.
Let's look at your numbers together
Thirty minutes with a founder. We review your lead sources, fees and intake, then tell you plainly whether we can help and what it would take.