Board-and-train, day training, and puppy programs. Two very different buyers, and one of them is searching at 11pm.
A reactive dog is an emergency to the person living with it. A new puppy is a research project. We build separate paths for both instead of blending them into "we train dogs."
"Dog aggressive toward other dogs" converts far better than "dog trainer near me." We target the problem in the words the owner would actually type.
A reactive dog walking calmly past another dog outsells every certification on your wall. Video is this category's decisive asset and most sites bury it below the fold.
The desperate owner and the new puppy owner want opposite things. Separate landing pages, offers, and follow-up for each, routed from the first click.
Nobody buys a $5,000 board-and-train straight from an ad. The ad sells a free evaluation, and we optimize for evaluations that actually show up.
"Why does my dog lunge," "is board and train worth it." This content builds trust early and feeds the AI answers that increasingly decide this category.
Google Business Profile, steady reviews, and service-area pages so you own the map inside your driving radius.
Within 90 days, your blended ROAS improves, or we work for free: the next month's on us. No fine print.
Read the Guarantee↗They already do. Board-and-train routinely runs $3,000 to $8,000. The ad does not sell the program, it sells a free evaluation. The evaluation sells the program, which is why we optimize for booked and attended evaluations rather than raw form fills.
It is the highest-leverage asset in this category and we will push for it. If you do not have it yet we start with written case studies and reviews, and build the video library as we go. We will be honest that results improve once it exists.
It matters a lot. Balanced versus positive-only is a genuine values decision for owners, and hedging loses both camps. We state plainly what you do and let it filter. The leads get better, not worse.
Local SEO starts at $500/mo and paid ads start at $750/mo lean or $2,000/mo core. Most trainers start with local SEO plus a modest paid budget, because the organic problem-led searches are already there.
Yes. About 60% of our clients are outside Oregon, and this playbook is not geography-dependent.
Dog training is a high-ticket, high-emotion purchase that most marketing treats like a commodity service. We have worked across $50M+ in ad spend for 2000+ brands over twelve years, and in this category the winning approach is narrower and more specific than almost anywhere else: name the problem, show the proof, and sell an evaluation rather than a program.
1) Target the problem, not the service. Owners do not search for a trainer, they search for what their dog is doing to them. Reactivity, leash pulling, separation anxiety, aggression toward guests. We build the campaigns and pages around those specific problems, which costs less per lead and converts far better than bidding on generic trainer terms against every shop in the county.
2) Lead with video. A short clip of a formerly reactive dog walking calmly past another dog does more work than every certification, testimonial, and paragraph of philosophy on the site combined. We put that proof at the top of the page instead of the bottom, and we build the library over time if it does not exist yet.
3) Sell the evaluation. Nobody commits $5,000 to a stranger from a single ad. The offer is a free evaluation or consult, and the whole funnel optimizes for evaluations that are booked and actually attended, because a no-show costs you the same as a bad lead.
The mix depends heavily on whether you are chasing desperate owners or new puppy owners, since they behave nothing alike. Here is where we typically start:
| Channel | Why it earns its place |
|---|---|
| Google Search Ads | The desperate owner is searching, often late at night, in very specific language. This is the fastest path to booked evaluations and usually the first channel we turn on. |
| Google Business Profile and local SEO | Problem-led local searches convert extremely well and cost nothing per click. Reviews matter more here than in most categories because trust is the whole purchase. |
| Meta and Instagram | Where the video proof works hardest, and the best channel for reaching puppy owners who are not searching yet but will be within weeks. |
| Content and organic search | "Why does my dog lunge," "is board and train worth it." Enormous search volume, low competition, and it increasingly feeds the AI answers that mediate this category. |
| Email follow-up | Puppy owners research for weeks before committing. Without follow-up you lose them to whoever stayed in touch. |
We do not publish invented benchmarks. These are the inputs that decide what a lead can cost you, and we set concrete targets from your actual numbers on the first call.
| Input | Why it drives the plan |
|---|---|
| Program price | Board-and-train commonly runs $3,000 to $8,000, day training and private lessons far less. A program at the top of that range can support a much higher cost per lead than most owners assume. |
| Evaluation show rate | The single most overlooked number in this category. If half your booked evaluations do not show, your true cost per opportunity is double what your ad account reports. |
| Evaluation to sale rate | How often an attended evaluation becomes a paying client. This is a sales process problem, not a marketing one, and we will tell you if that is where the leak is. |
| Capacity | How many dogs you can take per month. Marketing that outruns capacity produces angry owners and bad reviews, so we pace spend to what you can actually deliver. |
| Our fees | Local SEO from $500/mo, paid ads from $750/mo lean or $2,000/mo core. Most trainers start with one of these, not both. |
Where we would start depends on capacity and proof. If you can take more dogs next month and you have video, we lead with paid search for speed. If you are near capacity or the proof library is thin, we lead with local SEO, reviews, and content while building the video that makes everything else work harder. Either way you get weekly reporting and the 90-day ROAS guarantee behind the work.
Free 15-minute strategy call. No pitch. Just a real plan you can use either way.
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