In short
In a single month, we spent $28,958 on Meta ads to open a brand-new chiropractic clinic in a very competitive market. With a $100-off first-visit voucher (normally $300, now $200), we booked 430 new patients.
Their first visits alone brought in $86,000 in the opening month: $2.97 back for every $1 spent on ads.
This was a deliberate plan to break into the market. The goal was to get people through the door fast and build awareness, not to squeeze out the highest profit in month one.
What the clinic collected on day one
The voucher lowers what the clinic collects at the first appointment. Each new patient cost $67.34 in ads, and the discounted first visit brings in $200.
430 patients × $200 = $86,000 collected in the opening month, from $28,958 in ads.
That's a 3.0× return on the ad spend, before counting a single follow-up visit.
Why we used a voucher (and why it was an exception)
We usually don't recommend discounts or vouchers, because they can attract patients who don't stick around. This clinic was the exception. It was:
- Brand new
- Opening in a crowded, very competitive area
- Up against established clinics that people already knew
The voucher helped the clinic break in. It got people through the door fast, built a patient base, and gave the whole team practice at handling high volume. Crucially, the voucher required an appointment, which stopped walk-ins and kept lead quality high.
How we did it
Getting in front of the right people. Frequent ads to people close to the clinic, first-time ads and reminder ads shown in a planned order, ads to people similar to the first patients who booked, and existing patients left out so no money was wasted on them.
Tracking every booking. Messages, forms and calls were tracked separately, and Meta's numbers were checked against the clinic's own booking records.
Turning voucher patients into regular patients. The discounted visit was treated as the start of care rather than a one-off, with patients moved onto proper care plans and brought back for second and third visits at $85 each.
What this case study doesn't count
This is a 30-day report. In one month there hasn't been time to see what these patients spend after their first visit, so every number above is money the clinic collected in the opening month.
Follow-up visits at this clinic are $85 each. Based on the other clinics we work with, we'd expect each of these patients to bring in at least $350 to $500 over time. None of that is counted here.
What 430 new patients in 30 days actually looks like
This is the number owners underestimate. 430 new patients in a month is about 14 a day, every day, on top of whatever else the clinic is doing.
That is a staffing decision before it's a marketing one: enough rooms, enough hours in the schedule, and enough hands to see 14 new patients a day properly. A campaign this size fails far more often from a clinic being unable to absorb the volume than from the ads not working.
It also explains the shape of the month. The goal was to establish the clinic in a competitive market fast, get the team practised at volume, and build a patient base worth keeping. Maximum profit in month one was never the target.
What the numbers mean for your clinic
- $28,958 in ads produced 2,151 leads at $13.46 each.
- 430 of those leads became patients, so 1 in 5 booked, at $67.34 each.
- The first visits brought in $86,000, which is $2.97 for every $1 spent.
The planning lesson sits in the last line. Even at a discounted first visit, the campaign returned nearly three times the ad spend inside the same month it was spent. A clinic that can do that is never choosing between advertising and cash flow, because the advertising funds itself while the care plans build underneath.
If you're modelling an opening month, the two inputs that decide everything are what you charge at the first visit and the share of leads that turn into booked patients. Change either by a few points and the whole month moves.
Questions clinic owners ask
Could my clinic handle 430 new patients in a month?
Probably not without planning for it, and that's not a criticism. Volume like this needs rooms, staff and hours arranged in advance. The right question before a launch is how many new patients a week you can see properly, and then the budget is built backwards from that.
Doesn't a voucher attract people who only want a deal?
It can, which is why we normally advise against it and why this case study explains at length when it is an exception. The voucher required an appointment, which filtered out walk-ins, and patients were moved onto proper care plans from the first visit.
Why is the return 3.0× and not higher?
Two reasons. The first visit was discounted to $200, and this report covers 30 days only, so none of the revenue that follows a first visit is counted. This is a single month of collections, not a course of care.
What would this look like without the voucher?
Fewer patients, each paying $300 instead of $200 on day one. For an established clinic that's usually the better trade. For a brand-new clinic in a crowded market with no reputation yet, getting 430 people through the door quickly was worth more than the margin given up.
Is the $350 to $500 estimate just a guess?
It's what we see across the cash-pay clinics we work with, and it is deliberately kept out of the headline. We'd rather report $86,000 we can prove than a bigger number we can't.
What happens in month two?
The patient base built in month one starts paying for itself through continuing care, and the ad spend usually comes down because the clinic is no longer unknown. That's the point of a launch month: it buys a position, and the position is cheaper to hold than it was to take.
How we count revenue
Revenue counts what new patients spend over time, not just the first visit. Each study multiplies its new patients by that clinic’s own average revenue per patient. First visit revenue is shown separately.