How a Melbourne long day care centre turned around a shrinking enquiry pipeline: 28 enquiries, 20 tours, 12 families enrolling and occupancy up from 71% to 84% in four months, on roughly $600 a month in ad spend.
Childcare occupancy case study: 71% to 84% in four months
Centre details are withheld at the operator’s request and shared with her permission. Every figure on this page is drawn from Meta Ads Manager, Google Ads and the centre’s CRM records.
The challenge
The centre was sliding. Occupancy sat at 71% and tour bookings had slowed to a trickle. Like a lot of established services, it had relied on word of mouth and walk-past visibility for years, and that was no longer enough. Newer centres in surrounding suburbs were opening with bigger marketing budgets, and families researching care online simply were not finding this centre.
Every vacant place was costing the centre money week after week, while wages, rent and compliance costs stayed the same. The director did not need more brand awareness. She needed families walking through the door on tours.
What we did
We treated this as an occupancy problem, not an advertising problem.
A paid social campaign built around how families choose care. We launched a targeted Meta campaign around the worries that keep families researching late at night, what they look for in educators, and what finally makes them book a tour. The creative spoke directly to families in the centre’s catchment.
Enquiries captured where families already are. Rather than sending families to a website and hoping they filled in a form, enquiries were captured directly within the platform, removing friction at the moment a family decided to act.
Fast, systematic follow-up. Every enquiry triggered an immediate, consistent follow-up sequence rather than relying on whoever happened to be near the front desk. This is the main reason 7 in every 10 enquiries became a booked tour.
The centre team focused on what they do best. Educators concentrated on running great tours and showing families the care environment, not chasing leads.
The results
Over four months, the campaign generated 28 enquiries from families actively looking for care. Twenty of those booked tours, a 71% enquiry-to-tour rate, and 12 families moved to enrol. Occupancy climbed from 71% to 84%.
This came from approximately $2,400 in total ad spend, roughly $600 a month.
Off the back of this turnaround, the operator engaged us across her other two centres, where Google Ads now runs alongside Meta.
Why it worked
Every part of the system pointed at one number: occupancy. Enquiries only mattered if they became tours. Tours only mattered if they became enrolments. When the whole pipeline is built backwards from that outcome, a modest ad budget goes a long way.
