Case study · 90-day engagement
A Jacksonville pest control company had been writing a $2,950 monthly check to an SEO agency for 17 months. The promise was page-one rankings on "pest control jacksonville." The reality was that they were ranking on page three in month one and page three in month seventeen. The owner was about to fire the agency when we ran our free audit and the bot scored him at 58.
The challenge
Pest control SEO in a humid Florida market is brutal. The category has high commercial intent, lots of competition, lots of money behind the bigger players (Orkin, Terminix, Truly Nolen, etc.), and the SEO playbooks the small operators get pitched on are usually generic content + a few directory submissions. None of it moves the needle in a competitive market like Jacksonville.
When we audited:
The plan
First call with the owner: "Cancel the SEO. The math has not worked for 17 months. Nothing in your account suggests month 18 will be different." He cancelled. That alone freed up $2,950/mo of cash flow.
Pest control LSA has a solid track record in Florida. The application took two weeks for license + insurance verification. He was approved on day 12 and started receiving leads day 14. Initial CPL was $19 and dropped to $11 once we tuned the bid and disputed the few unqualified leads that came through.
Built dedicated pages for the eight services he actually delivers: termite, rodent, ant, roach, bed bug, mosquito, lawn pest, and quarterly maintenance. Each page has the failure modes that bring people in (visible signs, common mistakes, when to call), the price range, and a recurring upsell.
Replaced the old "request a quote" form with a quoting flow that asks "is this a one-time issue or do you want to prevent it from coming back?" 68% of inquirers picked the recurring option. Average ticket on quarterly is $49 vs $189 on one-time, but quarterly LTV is $896 vs $189 on one-time. Different math.
Added the eight service categories. Added 14 product entries (termite inspection, mosquito quarterly, etc.) Added 12 Q&A pairs from his actual customer questions. Set up review-request SMS bot, which lifted his GBP review velocity from 2 to 9 per month.
AI tools we used
We do not pretend the work happens by hand. Three of our internal tools are the reason this engagement moved as fast as it did. Each of them replaces what used to be days of human time.
Pre-fills the LSA application from existing license + GBP data. Compresses the typical 4-hour application to under 30 minutes.
Three-question quote form that surfaces the recurring option naturally instead of forcing the customer to ask. About 68% of inquirers pick recurring on first contact.
Audits a Google Business Profile across 47 fields and ranks fixes by ranking impact. Caught the 8 missing service categories that competitors had filled out.
The execution
| Week | What we shipped | What moved |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | Old SEO retainer cancelled, LSA application submitted | Saved $2.9k/mo of dead spend |
| Week 2 | LSA approved, first leads start flowing | Initial CPL at $19, settles to $11 by week 6 |
| Week 3 | First 3 service-category pages live | Long-tail organic traffic +24% MoM |
| Week 4 | Recurring quote funnel live + GBP cleanup phase 1 | 68% of inquiries pick quarterly on first contact |
| Week 6 | All 8 service pages shipped + Q&A on GBP | Map pack appearance frequency +210% |
| Week 9 | Review-request SMS bot live | Review velocity 2 → 9 per month |
| Week 12 | Quarterly review, retainer continues | Run rate stable at 4.2× monthly bookings, $11 CPL |
The numbers
The 4.2× lift in monthly bookings came from:
The owner stopped paying for SEO that was never going to compete with Orkin and started using channels designed for small local operators. He kept the same monthly marketing spend but shifted it from a retainer to a performance channel. The math finally worked.
I knew the SEO was not working. I just did not have someone telling me what would work. Mark told me to cancel the retainer in the first call. Took me 90 minutes to feel like I had wasted 17 months. But the math worked from the second week.
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