Axis for Autism leverages groundbreaking technology and a wide network of psychologists to slash autism evaluation wait times from years to weeks, ensuring Arizona families find much-needed diagnoses and answers sooner.

They came to us with the goal of attracting new patients seeking autism evaluations through a start-from-scratch Google Ad strategy — and a modest advertising budget. With numerous, more established competitors often quadrupling their ad spend within a single month, quality proved critical for success amid saturation. Year after year, our award-winning strategy worked — we cut through a crowded marketplace and delivered targeted leads better than any other initiative or channel.

Laying the Groundwork for a Dominant Lead Source

Our Google Ads/pay-per-click (PPC) strategy kicked off in January 2023 with a total budget of $17,500, stretched until June.

The Axis target audience comprised less than 3% of AZ families, so reaching millions wasn’t our goal. What really mattered was driving quality leads to form fills, then evaluations — and doing it better than the rest.

Focusing on medium-volume keywords to target bottom-of-funnel searches helped make it happen. And while competitors cast a wide net, we cast a narrow, more impactful one. E.g., one business spending $100,000+ on PPC had 497 paid keywords. Axis vied for 47 strong ones. As a result:

• We ranked among the top 3 ads on the page 88% of the time.
• We ranked as the No. 1 ad 30% of the time. Wordstream data reports most healthy search campaigns find an absolute max of 20%.
• We obtained a cost-per-conversion of just $37.83. The medical industry average was $52 (at time of campaign).

We spurred an evaluation influx at a significantly lower patient lead acquisition cost compared to medical industry averages, basing our success on the difficult PPC feat of outperforming enterprises with massive marketing spend.

As evidence of the campaign’s success, Aker Ink was the only agency to bring home a “Mastery” title — the highest honor at the 2023 AZIMA TIM Awards — in Search Marketing/PPC.

Continuing PPC Success

Throughout 2024 and 2025, the strategy remained relevant and intact, yet we made adjustments to the budget and paid keywords throughout the year. Competitors continued to cast a wide net, while strove for medium-volume keywords to reach bottom-of-funnel searches, focusing on roughly 60 strong keywords. As a result:

• We achieved a cost-per-action of $20.63; the medical industry average today is $62.80.
• A 13.25% click-through rate (industry average 6.0%) and 14.48% conversion rate (industry average 6.8%) show the effectiveness of both the ads and the cohesive landing page experience.
• We ranked among the top 3 ads on the page 62% of the time, and the No. 1 ad 23% of the time.

By prioritizing quality, Axis has supported thousands of new patients seeking autism evaluations.