Marketing Portfolio Optimization

Business Challenge

How can a mature local-service business expand customer acquisition while optimizing the efficiency of marketing investment?

The analysis compares the pre-management 2023 baseline with performance after becoming the marketing lead in 2024. Full-year results through 2025 show how acquisition efficiency changed beyond the first management year.

Market Context

Mosquito Squad of Wilmington operates in a mature local-service market. The 2023 pre-management baseline reflects a measured marketing program concentrated in Paid Google Ads and Direct Mail.

In 2024, my first management year, the objective was to expand customer acquisition while improving investment efficiency. The analysis follows this approach through 2025, the second full management year. Campaign targeting and seasonal investment timing were actively managed in 2024; broader channel diversification followed in 2025.

Approach & Methodology

Business Decisions & Implementation

2024: Refine Campaigns and Investment Timing

I adjusted the timing of marketing investment around seasonal demand and observed acquisition performance, reallocating within paid campaigns and across periods of the year. I evaluated where marketing dollars were most productive using acquisition outcomes and costs.

I refined negative keywords to reduce irrelevant paid-search traffic, improved geographic targeting toward stronger acquisition opportunities, and applied demographic targeting to improve audience relevance. I also aligned promotional messaging and coordinated campaign timing across paid search, direct mail, paid social where used, and related acquisition channels.

The annual mix remained approximately 60% Paid Google Ads and 40% Direct Mail in both 2023 and 2024. First-year improvements occurred alongside campaign-level optimization, geographic and audience refinement, and budget timing—not a major shift in annual channel mix. The comparison does not isolate the contribution of any individual action.

2025: Adapt Targeting and Broaden the Channel Strategy

I continued negative keyword management and adjusted Google Ads and other digital campaigns as advertising conditions and performance changed. I adapted targeting within Google’s evolving advertising ecosystem, refined demographic and geographic audience selection, and distinguished established territories from developing areas to evaluate emerging growth opportunities.

I broadened the channel strategy and used investment analysis to inform allocation across paid search, paid social, mobile display, and direct mail. These management decisions informed ongoing optimization; the evidence does not establish that they caused, or fully explain, annual performance changes.

Allocation considered market maturity, seasonal demand, audience fit, channel role, and observed efficiency. The chart documents how the mix evolved; it does not measure incremental channel lift.

Key Findings

Measurable Results

Using similar logic across the broader multi-brand home-services portfolio, the following results describe that wider scope.

Calculated growth rates are shown in place of underlying lead and customer totals.

Source: WWJW Marketing workbook, the four business performance sheets; annual totals reconciled to monthly records. Growth = (ending total ÷ starting total − 1) × 100. First-year growth compares 2023 with 2024; the longer-run comparison ends in 2025. These are portfolio totals, distinct from the Wilmington-only efficiency measures.

Portfolio new customers declined 11.5% from 2024 to 2025, while leads rose 2.6%. The first-year results do not imply uninterrupted growth. Even with that decline, 2025 results show a meaningful improvement over the 2023 pre-management baseline, with both new customers and leads above their starting levels.

Returning to Mosquito Squad of Wilmington, acquisition efficiency remained stronger than the 2023 baseline through the second full management year.

Wilmington new customer acquisitions declined 31.5% from 2024 to 2025. Cost per Lead and Cost per New Customer Acquisition remained below the 2023 baseline, and Acquisition Efficiency remained above it. New Customers and Leads were below their 2023 levels, so this is evidence of sustained efficiency rather than uninterrupted acquisition growth.

Data & Definitions

Acquisition Efficiency measures new customers generated per $1K of measured media spend. Efficiency calculations use total Wilmington Measured Media Spend rather than platform-reported attribution.

Full-year comparisons cover 2023–2025; the 2026 channel mix is YTD through August. Source: annual marketing and business-performance records, with channel-allocation and chart tables.

Limitations & Considerations

• This is an observational business-performance comparison rather than a controlled test. Changes cannot be attributed to marketing decisions alone.
• Cost per Lead, Cost per New Customer Acquisition, and Acquisition Efficiency use total Wilmington Measured Media Spend across the listed channels and all recorded outcomes, not only platform-attributed conversions.
• Channel roles differ, so allocation percentages should not be interpreted as direct measures of incremental effectiveness. The incremental investment analysis does not establish controlled channel lift.
• 2026 data is year-to-date through August where shown and is not directly comparable with a full year.

Tools / Methods

Excel as the source; Python for extracting and validating chart tables.