From Untracked Clicks To Tracked Leads
Timberline Canadian Alpine Academy trains ski and snowboard instructors, mountain guides and river guides in Banff National Park. Its programs are designed for 18- to 24-year-olds planning a gap year or a first career in the mountains. The academy had been running Meta ads for three years, and nobody could say whether any of that spend had produced a single student.
Live Stats From Our Campaign
02 / 4
What They Came With
The website's hard-coded tracking pixel belonged to a different account, and the academy's dataset had no integrations. That meant no campaign in three years could be optimized for an inquiry. Every one was bought on link clicks or landing page views, so Meta was rewarded for finding cheap clicks rather than future students. No retargeting audience had ever been built.
Behind the ads there was no lead capture and no email list. The only route in was an inquiry form, followed by an interview call. Once a cohort was filled, a late inquiry had nowhere to go.
03 / 4
The Approach In Three Moves
Fix Measurement
I installed the academy's pixel through Google Tag Manager, set up GA4, and fired a conversion event on the inquiry form so both ad platforms could finally see an inquiry.
Rebuilding The Campaigns
Meta moved from link clicks to the Leads objective. On Google, I concentrated the budget on Search only, without Performance Max. Someone typing "CSIA level 1" or "ski instructor course Canada" already knows what they want, and on a high-ticket program, that intent is worth paying for. YouTube carries the top of the funnel. After launch, I left everything alone for two weeks so both platforms could get through their learning phase.
Make Every Lead Go Somewhere
Enquiries now land in a CRM. Sales reports deposits back weekly, so the next layer of campaigns can retarget people who enquired but never followed up, while excluding anyone who has already paid. A dashboard updated daily pulls Meta, Google Ads, GA4 and the CRM into one view, so the owner sees the same numbers I do.
Swipe sideways for the next move →
04 / 4 · NEXT CASE STUDY
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