How a car wash brand grew memberships through local search and social
Service
Paid social, local SEO, web, CRO
Industry
Automotive
Timeframe
Ongoing
Locations
Single site, Northeast US
The business
An express car wash and lube centre on a major commuter route, selling unlimited monthly wash memberships alongside oil changes, detailing, ceramic coating and window tinting. Recurring revenue with real lifetime value, in a category most people treat as a commodity.
- Built the free first wash into a paid social funnel measured on cost per member acquired
- Modelled membership lifetime value across the tier ladder so budget is set on payback
- Geo targeted the commuter corridor rather than the town
- Ran oil change campaigns carrying the complimentary wash as the bridge into membership
- Extended the town by service page matrix beyond oil changes into wash and detailing
- Built vehicle specific service pages capturing make level intent competitors ignore
- Corrected pricing display, where single washes were rendering with a monthly suffix
- Unified three purchase systems into one tracked path from ad to payment
- Built a fleet and commercial page with its own pricing and enquiry form
The constraint
Single site. Every acquisition pound had to work inside one drive time radius, which rules out the volume plays that make paid social cheap and puts the entire model on conversion rate and retention instead.
What we would do differently
Fix the pricing display before spending anything on acquisition. Traffic was being driven to a page where the headline price contradicted the offer it was supposed to sell, and that cost conversions for the whole first flight.