482 Airport Shuttle Quote Requests in 25 Days at $2.57 Each
How one Performance Max campaign brought an airport shuttle and private transfer operator 482 website quote requests at $2.57 each in its first 25 days.
- Industry
- Transport
- Services
- Google Ads, Performance Max, Lead Generation, Conversion Tracking
- Client
- Kept confidential
- Published
- September 2026
01
The Challenge
Our client runs shared and private airport transfers to and from Auckland Airport, including longer regional routes. Its website asks travellers for a few trip details and replies with a fixed quote, so a completed quote request is the lead that matters.
When the business came to us, its previous agency had left the Google Ads account in poor shape. Seven different Performance Max campaigns had run over the previous three months, several of them running side by side for the same airport transfer services. About six weeks into that period, the main quote-request event those campaigns were meant to optimise towards stopped recording after a website change and was never reconnected, yet new campaigns kept being launched. More than half of the ad spend in those three months went out after that point, without that quote-request signal behind it. In the final week before we relaunched, the ads had stopped running altogether.
Even when tracking was working, it had drifted. At different points the account counted phone taps and several overlapping copies of the same quote form submission as “conversions”. That made the reported numbers look busy and told the business very little about how many real quote requests the ads were bringing in.
The goals were simple:
- Count one thing only: a completed quote request
- Bring in a steady flow of those requests from the routes that matter
- Keep the cost of each request low enough that the maths works on a single transfer
02
Our Approach
We rebuilt the account rather than patching it: fix the measurement, run a single campaign, and raise the budget in steps while watching the cost of each quote request.
-
Step 1
One Clean Conversion
Measurement came first. We rebuilt the website’s quote form and its tracking, and kept the campaigns paused until a real quote request had been recorded end to end. For the period reported here, the only action counted as a conversion is a completed quote request, recorded once per quote when the traveller reaches the confirmation page after the two-step quote form. Phone taps, page views and engagement events are excluded from the numbers on this page.
-
Step 2
One Performance Max Campaign
We paused or removed the overlapping campaigns and consolidated into one Performance Max campaign for airport and private transfers, which was the only campaign spending in the account for the period reported here. Keeping everything in one campaign gave Google’s bidding a single, clean signal to optimise towards: a quote request.
-
Step 3
Budget Raised in Steps
Daily spend held at its starting level across the first two weeks and was then lifted in steps, so that in the final week it ran between about 22% and 72% above the first two weeks’ average, while we watched cost per quote week by week.
03
The Results
In its first 25 days, the campaign brought in 482 quote requests at an average of $2.57 each. Across that window:
- 482 quote requests from website visitors
- $2.57 per quote request on average
- 30.8% of ad clicks ended in a quote request
An account whose ads had stopped running recorded quote requests on every one of its first 25 days back.
Week by week, volume roughly doubled while the cost per request fell after the first week and then stayed in a narrow band:
- The second week’s cost per request was 31% lower than the first week’s
- The most recent seven days brought in about 2.1 times the first week’s quote requests, at a cost per request 25% lower than week one
- After week one, the weekly cost per request stayed within a band of about 12% from the cheapest week to the dearest
The busiest search theme, as grouped by Google, named a single regional route into Auckland Airport. It accounted for about a quarter (24%) of all quote requests and turned about 34% of its clicks into quote requests, against 30.8% for the campaign as a whole. Two more regional route themes and general Auckland airport shuttle searches followed. Google leaves about a quarter of quote requests in an unlabelled group, so these shares understate every theme a little.
04
What These Numbers Do and Do Not Show
These are quote requests, not bookings. The business confirms prices and takes bookings after the request, and bookings are not tracked back to the ads, so we cannot say how many of the 482 became paid trips. The result also covers a short window of 25 days.
As a cross-check, the website’s own analytics recorded quote form submissions from paid clicks at about 95% of the ad platform’s count over the same days, and the two tracked each other closely day by day.
For a before-and-after, the closest measure recorded in both periods is a quote-form event in the website’s analytics. In the seven weeks before the rebuild, about one paid visit in seven produced that event. In the first 25 days after it, more than one in four did, and the ad cost behind each one was about 70% lower. The old and new websites used different quote forms, so this compares the whole setup, site included, rather than the campaign alone.
05
Key Takeaways
-
01
Fix the measurement first
This account had spent more than half its recent budget while its main quote tracking was not recording, and had counted phone taps and duplicate form events as conversions before that. Rebuilding the tracking and counting one clean conversion gave the campaign a signal worth bidding on.
-
02
Route-level demand is where the volume is
For a regional airport transfer business, the search themes that named a specific route between two places accounted for just under half (48%) of the quote requests in Google’s search-theme report.
-
03
Scale in steps and watch the weekly cost
Weekly volume roughly doubled as budget rose, while the weekly cost per request stayed within a band of about 12% after week one.
-
04
A low-cost lead still needs a fast reply
A quote request is only worth something if it is answered quickly with a clear price.
Rebuilt tracking, one campaign and a budget raised in steps took this business from ads that had gone dark to 482 quote requests at $2.57 each in 25 days, with the step from quote request to paid booking still to be measured.
Ready to Get Results Like These?
Book a free strategy call and we'll show you exactly how we'd generate leads for your business.
Book Your Free Strategy CallMore Results
View All
641 Online Taxi and Shuttle Bookings in 90 Days at $12 Each
How brand-by-brand Google Search campaigns in a single account brought an Auckland taxi and airport shuttle group 641 completed online bookings at $12 each over 90 days.
134 Booking Enquiries in Six Months for a Hamilton Auto Workshop
How a rebuilt Google Search campaign brought a Hamilton auto workshop 134 WOF, service and repair booking-form enquiries at an average of $63 each in its first six months, plus phone enquiries on top.