Connect childcare advertising enquiries with tours, accepted places and actual starts. Learn what to track and how to make better marketing decisions.
Your advertising report says you received 30 enquiries last month.
That sounds encouraging. But if you’re an approved provider looking at vacancies, the next question is obvious:
How many of those enquiries turned into children attending your centre?
And if they haven’t started, where are they up to?
Some families may have booked a tour. Others may be waiting for a place in the right room. A few may want to start next year. Some may have chosen another service.
Those are very different outcomes, but a report that stops at enquiries puts them all in the same basket.
To understand what your advertising is delivering, you need to follow what happens next.
Cost per enquiry is a useful starting point
Cost per enquiry tells you how much advertising spend it took to generate each enquiry.
If you spend $900 and receive 30 enquiries, your advertising cost per enquiry is $30.
That is useful. It helps you monitor whether campaigns are attracting interest efficiently and spot changes that need attention.
But it leaves several questions unanswered.
Were those families looking for care in your area? Did they need days you could offer? Did anyone speak with them? Did they attend a tour? Did their child eventually start?
A campaign’s value becomes clearer when you connect those answers.
Consider this simplified example:
| Outcome | Campaign A | Campaign B |
|---|---|---|
| Advertising spend | $900 | $900 |
| Enquiries | 30 | 15 |
| Advertising cost per enquiry | $30 | $60 |
| Children who started | 3 | 5 |
| Advertising cost per child started | $300 | $180 |
Campaign A generated more enquiries at a lower cost. Campaign B produced more starts from the same advertising spend.
That makes Campaign B worth investigating further. It doesn’t automatically mean you should switch off Campaign A.
Perhaps Campaign A attracted families with later start dates. Perhaps those families needed a room that was already full. Perhaps enquiries from one campaign received faster follow-up.
The numbers tell you where to look. Understanding the circumstances helps you decide what to change.
Follow the enquiry through to the first day
A useful report follows a consistent set of stages:
| Stage | What to record |
|---|---|
| Enquiry received | Date, source, child’s age, requested days and preferred start date |
| Contact made | Whether a two-way conversation happened |
| Tour booked | Whether a tour was scheduled |
| Tour attended | Whether the family actually visited |
| Place accepted | Whether the family accepted an offer |
| Child started | Actual commencement date and booked days |
Keep booked tours and attended tours separate. Likewise, accepting a place and starting care are different milestones.
Where a family enquires for siblings, record each child’s outcome without counting the original enquiry twice.
You also need a next step for families still considering your service. “Pending” becomes much more useful when it includes a reason, a person responsible and a follow-up date.
Give families time to make their decision
One reporting mistake is dividing this month’s advertising spend by this month’s starts and assuming the result tells you how those ads performed.
The children starting in October may have first enquired in July. Families responding to October’s ads may be looking for care in January.
Those numbers describe different groups.
Instead, follow enquiries according to when they first arrived.
For example:
Of the 25 enquiries received in August, how many had attended a tour, accepted a place or started by the end of September?
Review that same group again the following month.
You can still track total monthly starts for operational planning. Just keep that separate from the question of what happened to the enquiries generated by a particular advertising period.
When comparing campaigns, give each group a similar amount of time to progress. A campaign that launched last week cannot fairly be judged against one whose families have had three months to decide.
Find the stage that needs attention
Once the stages are visible, your next action becomes more specific.
Plenty of enquiries, but few conversations? Review enquiry quality, contact details, response times and follow-up attempts. Check that families can recognise who is calling or emailing them.
Conversations happening, but few tours booked? Look at whether the service can meet the family’s needs, how clearly the team explains its value and how easy it is to arrange a visit.
Tours booked, but families aren’t attending? Review confirmations, reminders, directions and options to reschedule.
Families attend, but don’t accept a place? Ask what influenced their decision. Availability, affordability, the tour experience and confidence in the service may all deserve attention.
Places accepted, but children haven’t started? Check agreed start dates, paperwork, orientation and any questions still holding the family back.
These are starting points for investigation. A low conversion rate alone does not prove that a staff member, campaign or process is at fault.
Check whether the enrolments fit your vacancies
Even the number of children starting does not tell the whole occupancy story.
A child attending one day a week contributes differently from a child attending four. A new enrolment in a room with limited availability may do little to address vacancies elsewhere.
Alongside starts, review:
- Which rooms the children are joining.
- Which days they have booked.
- When those bookings commence.
- Whether they fill the vacancies you set out to address.
This helps connect your advertising brief to the places your centre actually needs to fill.
It also explains why growing enrolments and growing overall occupancy are not always the same thing. Departures and reductions in booked days affect the result too.
Connect your advertising reports with your centre’s records
Your advertising platform and your CRM each hold part of the picture.
The advertising platform records campaign activity and tracked enquiries. Your centre’s records show conversations, tours, offers and starts.
Google Ads supports importing later outcomes through qualified and converted lead tracking, allowing businesses to connect events in their CRM with advertising activity. That requires appropriate setup; it does not happen simply because a family completes a website form.
Start by consistently recording enquiry sources and updating outcomes. If you use a CRM, agree on what each stage means and who keeps it current.
Where the source is unknown, record it as unknown. Families may encounter your centre through several channels before enquiring, so attribution will not always be complete.
Keep cost labels clear as well. Advertising spend divided by starts gives you advertising cost per start. If you want to understand the broader acquisition cost, include the relevant management and other marketing costs separately.
How we approach this at Enrolment Boost
Generating relevant enquiries is a core part of our work. We also help centres understand what happens after those enquiries arrive.
We review the follow-up process and work through the available numbers with your team, including CRM conversion data where it is available. That helps identify where families are dropping out and what could improve their experience.
Where conversion needs support, our service includes training delivered by former centre managers with more than 10 years of experience.
Your team continues to manage family conversations, tours and enrolments. Our role is to support them with better visibility, practical recommendations and training.
That gives us a stronger basis for improving the advertising too: which families to reach, which vacancies to focus on and where additional budget could be useful.
Start with one question at your next marketing review
Take the enquiries from one completed month and ask:
“Where are these families now, and what needs to happen next?”
Work through the answers with the person managing your advertising and the person responsible for enrolments.
You may find a campaign worth expanding, a follow-up process worth improving or families still waiting for the right place.
Each finding gives you something concrete to act on.
Want a clearer picture of how your marketing supports enrolments? Talk to Enrolment Boost about reviewing your advertising, enquiry journey and conversion process.
