How I measure results
Last updated . If anything here changes, the date changes with it.
Most marketing reports measure what's easy to count: impressions, clicks, leads. Those numbers can all go up while your schedule stays the same. I measure the work in paying patients, and I report every step on the way there separately, so you can see where cases are won and where they're lost.
This page is the rulebook. It's the same one I use in every report and the same definition the guarantee is counted on.
The seven stages, from first search to started case
| # | Stage | What counts | Who controls it |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Seen | What countsYour practice appears for a search, an ad or an AI answer about the procedure you want more of. | Who controls itMostly me |
| 2 | Inquiry | What countsA real person contacts the practice: a form, a call longer than thirty seconds, a chat, a message or a booking request. Spam, vendors and existing patients calling about appointments are removed. | Who controls itMostly me |
| 3 | First reply | What countsThe time from the inquiry to the first real reply, whether that's a text, an email or a call back. | Who controls itShared: the systems are mine, the people are yours |
| 4 | Booked consult | What countsA consultation is on the calendar with a date and time. | Who controls itShared |
| 5 | Attended consult | What countsThe patient came to the consultation, in person or by video. | Who controls itMostly yours |
| 6 | Accepted treatment | What countsThe patient accepted a treatment plan for a named service. | Who controls itYours |
| 7 | Started case: a paying patient | What countsThe patient made a payment or signed financing. | Who controls itYours |
I report all seven, every time. If inquiries are up and consults are flat, the problem is between stages 2 and 4, and I'll say so. If consults are steady and case acceptance drops, that's stage 6, and it's usually not a marketing problem. The front desk and the treatment coordinator decide more cases than the ads do, so I measure them too. I don't measure them to blame anyone. I measure them because otherwise nobody can find the leak.
What counts as a paying patient
A paying patient is all four of these:
- New to the practice, or not seen in the last eighteen months.
- Came through the work. The inquiry is tracked to a channel I run, and your records confirm it.
- Attended a consultation and accepted treatment on a named service.
- Made a payment or signed financing.
What doesn't count:
- A lead
- A form fill
- A phone call
- A booked consult
- An attended consult that didn't accept treatment
- A patient you would have seen anyway through a referral that has nothing to do with the work
How a patient gets tied to the work
- Calls come through tracking numbers that belong to your practice and forward to your front desk.
- Forms, chats and bookings carry the page and the campaign they came from.
- The paying step comes from your records, not mine. Once a month we match tracked inquiries against your practice management system: consult attended, treatment accepted, payment or financing.
If an inquiry can't be tied to a channel I run, it doesn't count toward my number, even when it probably came from the work. This undercounts, and it's meant to.
Patient privacy. Matching uses the minimum information needed, under a business associate agreement where patient health information is involved. No patient details go into ads, retargeting audiences or reports.
How often you see the numbers
- The whole system (the New-Patient Engine): every week, all seven stages, with paying patients against the ninety-day target.
- A single service: once a month, with the stages that service touches. SEO reports rankings for your procedures and the inquiries from search. Google Ads reports cost per inquiry and booked consults. Reviews reports new reviews, rating and reply rate.
Every report shows the same stages in the same order, so you can compare one month with the next.
What these numbers can't tell you
- Small numbers swing. Fifteen patients in ninety days is a real target, but in any single week a few cancellations move the rate a lot. Judge the trend, not the week.
- Big cases arrive late. A full arch or bariatric patient can take weeks from inquiry to consult, and longer to clear financing. Some of this month's inquiries will show up as next month's paying patients.
- Tracking misses people. A patient who sees an ad, asks a friend and then calls your main number may not be tied to the work. The count runs low, never high.
- Rankings and AI answers move. Google results shift day to day, and AI assistants answer the same question differently each time they're asked. I report the pattern over a month, not one screenshot.
- Correlation isn't proof. If paying patients go up while something else changes, like a new doctor, a price change or a competitor closing, I'll say so instead of taking the credit.
What I never claim
- I don't have a completed healthcare case study yet. When I have one, it will be on /case-studies with the practice's written permission and real numbers. Until then, that page stays empty on purpose.
- The reviews on this site are from real clients, but they aren't healthcare practices. Every one is labelled that way.
- I never count a lead, a call or a booked consult as a patient.
- I never guarantee a ranking, a first-page position or that an AI assistant will name you. Nobody controls those.
- I never borrow industry benchmarks to make a report look good. I compare you with your own starting point.
- I never publish a client's results without their written permission.
Questions
Want to see your own numbers?
On the call I'll ask what you know today about each of these seven stages. If you don't know some of them yet, that's where we start.