Solved: Agency Advice for Health & Wellness (Actionable Steps)

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out! It's a common spot to be in when you're starting an agency. You hear all this conflicting advice, and it's easy to get paralysed by it. Happy to give you some initial thoughts and guidance on how to cut through the noise. The problem isn't that ads or cold outreach are inherently bad, it's that most people use them terribly.

Your ICP is a Nightmare, Not a Demographic

Right, let's get this sorted first because it's the root of the problem. You say your niche is 'health and wellness'. That's not a niche; it's an entire universe. It's like saying your niche is 'buildings'. Are you talking about sheds or skyscrapers? The approach is completely different.

Forget the sterile profiles. 'Chiropractors in London with 1-5 employees' tells you absolutely nothing useful. It leads to generic ads with messages like "Get More Patients!" that get ignored because every other agency is shouting the same thing. To stop burning cash and actually get clients, you have to define your customer by their pain.

You need to become an absolute expert in their specific, urgent, and expensive nightmare. Your ideal client isn't just a job title; they're a person staring at a problem that's keeping them up at night. It's a career-threatening, financially draining, soul-crushing nightmare.

• -> A gym owner's nightmare isn't just 'needing more members'. It's watching the new PureGym down the road fill up with their old clients, while their own classes are half-empty and they're three months away from telling their staff they can't make payroll.
• -> A private therapist's nightmare isn't 'wanting more bookings'. It's a diary full of gaps, crippling self-doubt about whether they can make a living from their passion, and the constant anxiety of unstable income.
• -> A supplement eCom owner's nightmare isn't 'low sales'. It's spending thousands on stock that's now sitting in a warehouse approaching its expiry date, while their Facebook ads get zero traction and their cash flow dries up.

See the difference? One is a bland business goal. The other is a visceral, emotional problem. Your ICP isn't a person; it's a problem state. Once you've truly isolated that nightmare for one specific sub-niche, your entire marketing strategy becomes clear. You know what to say, where to say it, and who to say it to. This is the work you have to do first, or you have no business spending a single pound on ads for yourself or anyone else.

I'd say you need to ditch the "Request a Quote" button

Now that we've talked about the nightmare, let's look at your offer. This is probably the second biggest reason agencies get stuck. The "Request a Quote" or "Book a Discovery Call" button is one of the most arrogant Calls to Action in business. It assumes your prospect, a busy clinic owner or gym manager, has nothing better to do than book a meeting to be sold to. It's high-friction, low-value, and immediately positions you as just another commodity vendor they have to waste time vetting.

Your offer’s only job is to deliver a moment of undeniable value—an "aha!" moment that makes the prospect sell themselves on your solution. You must solve a small, real problem for free to earn the right to solve their whole problem for money.

So what does that look like for a health and wellness agency? You need to bottle your expertise into a tool, some content, or an asset that provides instant value. Instead of asking for their time, you give them something valuable in exchange for their contact details.

• -> Instead of "Get a Free Quote", offer a "Free Local SEO Health Check for Your Clinic" that shows them how they rank on Google Maps vs their top 3 competitors for terms like "sports massage near me".
• -> Instead of "Book a Call", offer a "Personalised Competitor Ad Report" where you find 2-3 of their competitors' Facebook ads and break down what they're doing right and wrong.
• -> Instead of "Learn More", offer a free guide on "The 5 Biggest Mistakes Gyms Make With Their Facebook Ads (And How to Fix Them)".

These are 'lead magnets'. They work because they are low-friction and high-value. The prospect gets immediate, tangible value, and you get a qualified lead who has already seen a demonstration of your expertise. You're not asking them to trust you; you're proving you're trustworthy from the very first interaction. This completely changes the dynamic of the sales process. You're no longer a salesperson chasing a prospect; you're an expert they're coming to for more advice.

This approach also forces you to productise your service. Don't sell "social media management". Sell "The 90-Day Patient Surge System". Give it a name, clear deliverables, and a defined timeline. This makes a complex service feel simple, tangible, and much less risky for a buyer to invest in. You're not selling a process; you're selling a predictable outcome that solves their nightmare.

We'll need to look at the right ad platform for your clients

Once you have a specific ICP and a compelling, low-friction offer, then you can start thinking about ad platforms. The platform choice depends entirely on how your ICP's customers look for solutions.

1. Google Search Ads: The High-Intent Channel

This is for businesses whose customers are actively searching for a solution to an urgent problem. They know what they want, and they want it now. This is bottom-of-the-funnel traffic, and it's incredibly valuable.

• -> Who it's for: Local service-based businesses like chiropractors, physiotherapists, dentists, private GPs, therapists.
• -> Why it works: You're capturing demand that already exists. Someone typing "emergency dental appointment london" or "sports injury clinic manchester" isn't browsing; they're in pain and ready to book. Your ad shows up at the exact moment of need.
• -> Your strategy for them: Focus on keywords that show clear buying intent. Think "service + location" (e.g., "acupuncture in Bristol") or "problem + solution" (e.g., "back pain treatment near me"). Pair this with call extensions so they can ring you directly from the ad, and lead them to a simple landing page focused purely on booking an appointment. I remember one campaign we worked on for a childcare service where we got signups for about $10 each just by targeting parents searching for local options. The intent is everything.

2. Meta (Facebook & Instagram) Ads: The Demand Generation Channel

This is for businesses whose customers are not actively searching for them, but who fit a specific profile or have certain interests. Here, you're not capturing existing demand; you're creating it by interrupting their scroll with a compelling message.

• -> Who it's for: Gyms, yoga studios, wellness retreats, supplement brands, meal prep services, online fitness coaches.
• -> Why it works: The targeting capabilities are immense. You can target people based on their interests (e.g., 'CrossFit', 'vegan recipes', 'mindfulness'), their location (e.g., within a 5-mile radius of a gym), and their behaviour. This allows you to put an offer in front of the perfect audience, even if they didn't know they were looking for it.
• -> Your strategy for them: The key here is the offer. You need something to stop the scroll. A free trial week at a gym, a 20% off discount on their first supplement order, a free taster session for a yoga class. You run a conversion campaign, optimising for leads or purchases, not 'brand awareness'. A massive mistake I see is people running 'Reach' campaigns. You're literally paying Facebook to find the people in your audience who are least likely to ever click or buy, just because their attention is cheap. Always, always optimise for the action you want someone to take.

3. LinkedIn Ads: The B2B/Corporate Channel

This is more niche for health and wellness, but it has its place. It's expensive, but the targeting for professional roles is unmatched.

• -> Who it's for: Businesses selling corporate wellness packages, private health insurance brokers, or high-end executive health screening services.
• -> Why it works: You can target people by their exact job title, company size, and industry. Want to sell a mental health support package to Heads of HR at finance companies with 100-500 employees? You can do that.
• -> Your strategy for them: Lead generation is the game here. Offer a valuable resource like a whitepaper on "Reducing Employee Burnout" or an invitation to a webinar on "Improving Workplace Wellbeing". You're not going for an immediate sale; you're starting a conversation with the right decision-maker. I remember one campaign we ran for a B2B software client targeting decision-makers, and we achieved a cost per lead of around $22, which was fantastic for their high-ticket offer.

You probably should focus on proving your value first

So, how does this apply to getting clients for your agency? You need to eat your own dog food. The best way to convince a potential client you can get them results with paid ads is to show them how you got results for yourself with paid ads. Your first and most important case study is your own agency.

Here’s a simple funnel I'd suggest you build to get your first few clients. This directly addresses your fear of 'burning cash' because you'll start small, test, and measure everything.

Step 1: Pick ONE Sub-Niche. Let's say you pick physiotherapists in Manchester.

Step 2: Create Your Low-Friction Offer. Your lead magnet will be a "Free Competitor Ad Analysis". You'll find 2-3 local competitors and show the physio what ads they're running and how they could be improved.

Step 3: Build a Simple Landing Page. A one-page site with a clear headline: "See the Exact Ads Your Manchester Competitors Are Using to Get New Patients". Have a simple form asking for their name, clinic name, and email. That's it.

Step 4: Run a Highly-Targeted Meta Ad Campaign.

• -> Campaign Objective: Leads or Conversions (optimising for the form submission on your landing page).
• -> Audience: This is the clever bit. You can't target "physiotherapists" directly. But you can target people who are 'Admins' of a Facebook Business Page, and then layer that with interests like 'Physiotherapy', 'Chartered Society of Physiotherapy', 'Sports Medicine', etc. You'll also set the location to Manchester. This gets you a highly relevant audience of business owners in your target niche.
• -> Ad Creative: A simple image or short video ad. Use the Problem-Agitate-Solve framework. "Is your clinic's diary looking a bit empty? Are you tired of relying on unpredictable GP referrals while other clinics seem to be fully booked? Download our free report to see the ads your competitors are using to attract a steady stream of private patients."
• -> Budget: Start small. £10-£15 a day is enough to test. Your goal isn't to get hundreds of leads. It's to get 5-10 high-quality leads that you can personally follow up with.

When a lead comes in, you actually do the work. Spend 30 minutes creating a simple PDF report for them and email it over. Then, follow up with an offer to have a quick 15-minute chat to walk them through it. This process demonstrates massive value upfront and positions you as an expert. Even if only one of those first ten leads becomes a client, you've now got a paying customer and a proven system you can scale. That's how you stop being stuck.

You'll need to understand the numbers to kill the fear

The real reason people are scared of 'burning cash' on ads is because they don't understand the underlying maths of their (or their client's) business. The question isn't "How low can my Cost Per Lead (CPL) go?" but "How high a CPL can I afford to acquire a truly great client?" The answer lies in its counterpart: Lifetime Value (LTV).

Let's run the numbers for a hypothetical client of yours, a chiropractor.

• -> Average Revenue Per Patient (ARPP): A new patient comes in for an initial consultation and 5 follow-up sessions at £50 each. That's £300. Let's say 1 in 4 become long-term maintenance clients, staying for another year at £40/month (£480). So the blended average revenue is, say, £420 per new patient.
• -> Gross Margin %: The clinic has overheads (rent, staff, insurance), so their profit margin on that revenue is maybe 60%.
• -> LTV Calculation: LTV = ARPP * Gross Margin %. So, £420 * 0.60 = £252.

Each new patient is worth £252 in gross margin to that chiropractor's business. A healthy LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) ratio is 3:1. This means they can afford to spend up to £252 / 3 = £84 to acquire a single new patient and still have a very profitable business. Suddenly, a £50 lead from Google Ads doesn't look expensive, does it? It looks like a bargain.

This is the math that unlocks aggressive, intelligent growth. You need to understand this for your clients, but more importantly, you need to understand it for yourself. How much is a new agency client worth to you over their lifetime? Once you know that number, you know exactly how much you can spend on ads to get another one. This removes the fear and turns advertising from a gamble into a predictable system for growth.

To help with this, I've built a small interactive calculator for you. Play around with the numbers to see how they impact the maximum you can afford to pay for a client.

And what should you expect to pay per lead? For B2C services, it varies hugely. We're running a campaign for an HVAC company currently and they're seeing costs around $60/lead in a competitive area. But we’ve also had a home cleaning company at £5/lead. For health and wellness, you're probably looking at somewhere in the £10-£50 range per qualified lead from Google or Meta, but that's a very rough ballpark. Your actual costs will depend on the competitiveness of your chosen sub-niche, your offer, and the quality of your ads and landing page.

Your actionable plan to get unstuck

I know this is a lot to take in. The main thing is to stop trying to do everything at once and stop listening to all the conflicting advice out there. Focus on a methodical process. I've detailed my main recommendations for you below as a clear, step-by-step plan.

This whole process is about moving from a place of uncertainty to a position of control. Instead of spraying and praying with cold DMs or blindly throwing money at ads, you're building a predictable system for attracting the exact clients you want to work with. It takes work upfront, but it's the only sustainable way to build a succesful agency.

Getting this right can be tricky, and there are lots of nuances in setting up the campaigns, writing the ad copy, and building the landing pages that convert. It's not just about setting up an ad and hoping for the best. It’s about deeply understanding the audience, optimising targeting, creating compelling creative, and fine-tuning every step of the funnel. This is where expert help can make a huge difference, saving you time and money by avoiding common mistakes.

If you'd like to go over your specific situation and get a second pair of expert eyes on your plan, we offer a free, no-obligation initial consultation. We could review your ideas and give you some direct feedback to help you get moving in the right direction.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh