Case study · Wilkins & Co · Financial consulting
Half the spend. Nearly all the volume.
PPC spend cut in half with ~5% volume loss — and a stack unified in HubSpot.
Fix the economics first, then fix the systems underneath.
A financial-consulting firm brought Kyle Hamer in to fix a paid-search program that was quietly losing money, and the work expanded into systems. He cut PPC spend roughly in half while giving up only about 5% of volume — turning unprofitable leads profitable — then moved a disjointed five-tool stack into HubSpot and cleaned the data.
The situation.
The client’s end customer ran on PPC — the primary source of leads and sales — but the economics were upside-down: losing money on the front end to make it on the back, with something clearly off. The business also ran on a disjointed five-tool stack with messy data.
The mandate.
Fix the PPC economics first, then fix the systems underneath so the whole operation could run leaner and report honestly.
The work.
- 1Restructure paid search — cut the waste while protecting nearly all the volume.
- 2Flip the unit economics — turn money-losing leads into profitable ones.
- 3Consolidate the stack — five disconnected tools unified into HubSpot.
- 4Clean the data — a foundation honest enough to report on and automate.
The results
The results.
PPC spend dropped by half while volume fell only about 5% — flipping the unit economics from losing money per lead to profitable. Consolidating into HubSpot and cleaning the data cut the headcount needed for the same volume roughly in half.
In their words
What the client said.
“You can just give Kyle an objective, and he can take it and turn it into reality.”
Why it transfers.
This is audit-before-automation in one engagement: fix the economics, unify the systems, clean the data, and the efficiency follows. The CRM cleanup that halved required headcount is exactly the foundation work every AI initiative depends on.
FAQ
Common questions
What was wrong with Wilkins & Co's paid search before Kyle Hamer got involved?
The economics were upside-down. Paid search was the primary source of leads and sales, but it lost money on the front end to make it on the back. Underneath sat a disjointed five-tool stack with messy data. Fix the economics first, then the systems underneath — that was the mandate.
Wilkins & Co cut PPC spend in half — how much lead volume did that cost?
About 5%. Half the spend came out of paid search and roughly 95% of the volume stayed. That flipped the unit economics from losing money per lead to profitable. Restructuring the account, not throttling it, protected the volume.
What did Kyle Hamer do with Wilkins & Co's five disconnected tools?
Consolidated them into HubSpot and cleaned the data. The payoff was headcount: the same volume of work needed roughly half the people afterward. A five-tool stack with messy data doesn't just cost licenses — it costs the hours spent reconciling what each system claims is true.
Why fix Wilkins & Co's ad spend before touching the CRM?
Because the money was leaking there first. Paid search drove the leads and the losses, so restructuring it stopped the bleeding. Sequencing matters — consolidating five tools into HubSpot would have automated an unprofitable model faster, not fixed it. Audit before automation, in one engagement.
Does cleaning up a CRM like Wilkins & Co's matter if we're planning AI?
Yes — it's the prerequisite. The Wilkins & Co cleanup unified five tools into HubSpot and made the data honest enough to report on and automate. Every AI initiative runs on that foundation. Dirty data across five disconnected systems doesn't get smarter when you point a model at it.
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