Using a Unified Looker Studio Dashboard to Reduce Churn and Improve Client ROI | Cosmo Californie Media

Case Study

Using a Unified Looker Studio Dashboard to Reduce Churn and Improve Client ROI

From a churn-prone offering into a credible, scalable growth channel

Tracking & Reporting · 8 months

In short

A marketing agency for home restoration businesses was losing PPC clients because it could not show them a return, even though the paid search Cosmo Californie Media ran for it as a white-label partner was producing leads. We built a Looker Studio dashboard that connected website conversions, CallRail call data and Google Ads spend without Zapier or Make, and put the Google Ads cost per lead next to the cost per qualified lead. Churn fell, clients improved their call response rates, and the agency was acquired by private equity in late 2025.

Client: Marketing agency for home restoration businesses (not named)
Industry: Marketing agency, home services and restoration
Services: White-label PPC, Looker Studio reporting dashboard, account manager training
Period: 8 months
Tools: Google Looker Studio, CallRail, Google Ads

Challenges/Opportunities

A marketing agency specializing in home restoration businesses was struggling with a recurring problem: high client churn in their PPC services.

While paid search was generating their clients’ leads, the agency had difficulty clearly demonstrating return on investment to their clients. Because the agency historically led with SEO and Local Services Ads, PPC was never positioned as a core growth channel. As a result, both the agency and their clients lacked visibility into what actually made paid traffic profitable.

This challenge surfaces across many industries, but it is especially common in home service lead generation. I highlighted the two most persistent issues during a webinar for restoration business owners delivered in partnership with Learn to Restore, a national training and accreditation center for building restoration technicians. Across businesses, the same operational gaps consistently appeared:

Poor response rates to inbound phone calls and form submissions (with each missed call representing paid demand)
A lack of clarity around what a profitable cost per lead actually looks like

The opportunity wasn’t simply to prove that PPC was “working,” but to create a shared, visual understanding of how paid lead generation, internal operations, and revenue outcomes were connected —both for the agency and for their clients.

The Work We Did / Lessons We Learned

At the time, Cosmo Californie was the team delivering PPC services for the agency through our white-label offering. Internally, we could see performance indicators that suggested paid search was viable. However, the agency’s account managers lacked a clear, defensible way to guide client conversations and prevent churn.

We addressed this by building a dynamic Looker Studio dashboard using a structured, decision-driven process.

Step 1: Define What We Were Genuinely Curious About

We started with questions that directly affected business outcomes:

What is the qualified cost per lead?
What percentage of inbound calls are missed?
Where is paid spend breaking down between lead quality and operational follow-up?

Step 2: Create Sub-Questions That Add Context

To make the data actionable, we layered in comparisons:

What percentage of total leads come from phone calls versus form submissions?
How do qualified leads compare to raw lead volume?
Where are costs diverging from outcomes?

These sub-questions made it possible to isolate whether performance issues were being driven by marketing inputs or operational execution.

Step 3: Audit Whether the Right Data Was Being Collected

We identified that all required data already existed but was siloed across systems:

Website conversion data
Call tracking data from CallRail (critical for inbound-call-driven businesses)
Spend and lead data from Google Ads

Most growing businesses already have what they need. This step was about identifying the inputs that actually mattered and ensuring they could be evaluated together.

Step 4: Centralize the Information

In this case, we were able to connect these sources directly within Google Looker Studio, without relying on third-party automation tools such as Zapier or Make.

This allowed us to maintain data freshness while keeping the system simple and scalable across multiple client accounts.

Step 5: Visualize the Data So Decisions Become Obvious

The dashboard surfaced two critical metrics side by side:

Cost per lead as reported by Google Ads
Cost per qualified lead (MQL), based on call quality and purchase intent

When these two numbers diverged significantly, it immediately indicated one of two issues:

Lead quality problems at the acquisition level
High missed-call volume or poor follow-up internally

This distinction allowed both the agency and its clients to move away from subjective performance debates and toward concrete operational decisions.

Results & Lasting Benefits

The dashboard became a central tool for the agency’s account management team. We provided training on how to use it during client calls, reframing PPC discussions around visibility and shared accountability rather than defensive reporting.

As a result:

Client churn decreased as PPC performance became easier to explain and defend
Clients’ improved internal response rates, directly increasing ROI from the same ad spend
Lead quality issues such as spam were identified more quickly, leading to joint mitigation efforts between the agency and Cosmo Californie

More importantly, the agency gained the ability to view all client accounts side by side, establishing clear baselines and KPIs for what “good” performance actually looked like across their portfolio. This allowed them to quickly identify weak links and allocate attention and effort where it mattered most.

By late 2025, the agency was acquired by private equity. While no single system drives an acquisition, this work removed a major weakness in their service mix by transforming PPC from a churn-prone offering into a credible, scalable growth channel.

None of this would have been possible without a clear, shared, and easy-to-digest visual representation of how marketing inputs translated into business outcomes.

See video recording of the initial dashboard →

FAQ

Questions about this case study

What did the dashboard show that the agency's reports did not?

Two numbers side by side: cost per lead as Google Ads reported it, and cost per qualified lead based on call quality and purchase intent. When the two diverged, it pointed to one of two problems, lead quality at the acquisition level or missed calls and poor follow-up inside the client's business. That moved client conversations from debating performance to deciding what to fix.

Which data sources were connected?

Website conversion data, call tracking data from CallRail, and spend and lead data from Google Ads. All of it already existed but sat in separate systems. We connected the sources directly in Looker Studio, with no Zapier or Make in between, which kept the data fresh and the setup simple enough to repeat across many client accounts.

What were the results for the agency?

PPC churn decreased as performance became easier to explain, clients improved their internal response rates and got more from the same ad spend, and lead quality issues such as spam were caught faster. The agency could also see every client account side by side with clear baselines for what good looked like. By late 2025 it was acquired by private equity, with PPC having moved from a churn-prone offering to a credible growth channel.

What is the five-step process used to build the dashboard?

Define the questions that affect business outcomes, such as the qualified cost per lead and the share of inbound calls missed. Add sub-questions for context, such as calls versus forms. Audit whether the data is being collected and where it lives. Centralise it. Then visualise it so the decision becomes obvious. The same structure is described in our article on understanding what is actually working in your business.