Fill the timetable, not the traffic report.

Enough to gather real data in your catchment rather than a trickle that proves nothing. We scope it from your membership value, your target number of joins and how contested your area is. For context, industry spend runs around 8-12% of revenue for smaller gyms and 4-7% for larger operators, and we will tell you if your target needs more budget than you planned.

Most gyms should run both, because they solve different problems. Search harvests existing intent at a higher cost per lead. Paid social generates demand from people who were not searching yet, usually cheaper but needing better follow-up. We start with whichever is closest to producing members for you and add the other once it is working.

Enquiries typically start within the first two weeks of launch. A fair judgement of the campaign takes eight to twelve weeks, because the real measure is how many enquiries became members who stayed past the first month. We report both the early signals and the slower truth so nothing looks better than it is.

Almost always because the account was told to optimise for form fills. Platforms are extremely good at finding more of whatever you count, so counting the cheapest possible action produces the cheapest possible prospects. Fixing the conversion definition is normally the single biggest improvement available in an inherited account.

Yes. Copy, static and video creative are produced as part of the programme, ideally shot inside your gym with your coaches and members rather than stock footage. Volume matters as much as polish, because the only reliable way to find a winning ad is to test several honest ones.

It depends entirely on channel and membership value. Pilotium's benchmarks put gym Facebook and Instagram leads at $12.80 on average and Google Search Ads at $27.66, with wide ranges either side. The more useful question is cost per member: a $40 lead that joins on a $90 monthly membership beats a $9 lead that never visits.

Where it allows it, yes, and it makes a real difference. Feeding actual joins back to the ad platforms lets them optimise towards members instead of enquiries. Where a system will not integrate, we build the closest reliable proxy and say clearly that it is one.

No. The ad accounts, pixels, creative and landing pages are yours from the start, so you can take the whole programme elsewhere. We ask for a fair window — usually a quarter — because paid campaigns need learning time to be judged honestly.

It is often the fastest channel available to a new site, precisely because it does not depend on the authority a new business has not built yet. Ads can be live before opening day and fill a founding-member intake. We usually pair it with local search groundwork so the free channel starts compounding at the same time.

Paid buys immediate volume and lets you test which offers and messages actually convert; those learnings then shape the organic content. Over time gym SEO lowers what you need to spend to hit the same number of joins. Most of our fitness clients run the two together for that reason.

Use the industry spread as a target rather than a hope. Gym landing pages average 11.2%, with 18.5% in the top quartile and 26.0% in the top decile. If yours sits in single digits, the page is where your next improvement is, not the bidding strategy.

Ask who manages the account day to day, how often search terms get reviewed, and what they report on. An agency that reports cost per click and impressions is measuring its own activity; one that reports cost per member is measuring your business. Also confirm the ad accounts will be in your name before you sign anything.

January is the obvious peak and the most expensive auction of the year. September is often the better value intake, and summer is when boutique and outdoor-adjacent offers do well. We plan budget across the year so you are not paying peak prices for every member you sign.

Healthy, which is why the auctions are competitive. 81 million Americans held a fitness facility membership in 2025, with penetration at 26.1%, and churn fell to a decade low of 7.1% with average tenure at five years. Members are worth more than they were, which justifies paying more to acquire the right ones.

When the numbers justify it. Microsoft Ads carries less volume but often a lower cost per click and an older, higher-income audience that suits premium and rehabilitation-adjacent offers. We test it once Google is working rather than splitting a small budget across platforms on day one.

Look for a data-driven agency that can explain its keyword and targeting logic in plain language, shows you real clients in comparable local businesses, and reports on business outcomes rather than platform vanity metrics. Strong communication matters more than most brands expect: weekly visibility of what changed and why is what separates good digital marketing agencies from invoice generators.

Three levers. Keyword and negative keyword work so the targeting only reaches high intent demand in your location. Offer design that attracts people who want a membership rather than a freebie. And optimization against real joins, so the platform learns what a good prospect looks like. Quality growth is slower than volume growth and worth far more.

Yes — studios, franchises, personal training businesses, physio and recovery clinics and multi-location operators. The advertising principles hold across them; what changes is membership value, local competition and how joins are recorded. We adapt the performance targets to each business rather than reusing one template.

Audit, tracking rebuild, offer and page build, then launch. You get the wasted-spend findings, a campaign and budget plan with targets, new landing pages and a follow-up playbook for the desk. Spend stays deliberately modest until the measurement is proven.

A named senior paid media strategist, who is also in the monthly session. You will know who writes your ads and who touches the budget. Nothing gets handed to an anonymous queue once the pitch is over.