CLIENT RESULTS · WARRENTON, OREGON
Two coastal women. One two-person crew.
$343 in Meta ads. A $45,000+ deck, booked.
What happened when Cowan Custom Finishing traded a big agency for local, tracked marketing. Every number below comes from Ads Manager.
WHERE SHE STARTED
She’d already paid for marketing once.
Amber Cowan runs a two-person, woman-owned deck and fence crew on the north coast—her and LaNae, no subs, no sales office. Before we met, she’d spent real money with a big agency. What she got back: AI-generated ads, junk leads, and public negative feedback from her own community about ads she never would have written.
The budget burned. The phone stayed quiet.
THE NUMBERS
First 60 days.
$342.90
total ad spend
$45,000+
deck project booked, deposit paid
~131x
return on ad spend
$68.58
cost per lead, vs. $94.35 with the previous agency
Why the louder ad lost.
THE WINNING AD
39% hook · 8.62% hold
Booked the deck.
THE AUGUST TEST
54% hook · 4.6% hold
Two leads at $157.19 each. Shut off on day 13.
Hook rate counts who stopped scrolling. Hold rate shows who stayed. The August ad stopped more people and still lost, because nobody stuck around. Closing that gap is what Neuro-Threading is built to do.
THE WORK
We did the opposite of what the agency did.
Started smaller, not bigger.
A testing budget first.
The data picks the winner before real money moves.
Let the data choose.
Facebook Stories beat every other placement. Buyers turned out to be women 55 and up—not who anyone would have guessed. We put the budget behind what worked and cut what didn’t.
Wrote every ad by hand.
By a person, for the people who actually hire deck builders here. The winning ad opened with the same line at the top of this page.
Shut it off.
When lead costs drifted past what the results justified, the ads went dark. Part of this job is knowing when to stop spending someone else’s money.
Their craft. My job was making sure the right people saw it.
Amber Cowan, Owner
Cowan Custom Finishing
Warrenton, Oregon
CCB #225044
“I hired a big marketing company who took my money and made AI ads, brought leads that were pretty much just annoying people, and I got a ton of negative feedback about the AI ads. Hiring someone local who understands this rural market with our own unique challenges, makes ALL the difference in the world. He actually cares about you getting the results you need from your marketing plan! I would recommend Kenny a thousand times over."
“I saw the Facebook ad and then looked at your Google reviews and had to call you!"
Cowan Custom Finishing customer quote,
describing the exact buying journey the campaign was built for
Your business deserves marketing that's made for it.
Your ads should pay for themselves. Your content should sound like you wrote it. Month to month, no contracts, no AI slop—just someone who gives a damn about your business working.
Or call or text 971-704-4517