The eighteen months before us
$10,060 → 28 leads
$359.29 a lead, DIY
Google Ads · York, PA
From $436 a lead to $75.
His last quarter alone vs. our best quarter together. Two years of Google Ads for The Junk Lord — the full quarterly ledger, rebuild included.
The Junk Lord Junk Removal & Hauling · William Arn · York, PA · Google Ads client since July 2024
- Leads since takeover
716
Leads since takeover
- Average cost per lead, era vs. era
$359 → $99
Average cost per lead, era vs. era
- Leads in his best month with us vs. his best month DIY
93 vs. 7
Leads in his best month with us vs. his best month DIY
- The same auctions as the national franchises
1-800-GOT-JUNK
The same auctions as the national franchises
The backstory
Four years of nothing, then eighteen months of $359 leads
William Arn runs The Junk Lord in York, PA. His Google Ads account was created in July 2019 — and didn’t spend a dollar for almost four years. Then came eighteen months of running it himself: $10,060 spent, 28 leads, $359.29 a lead on average. One quarter he paid $870 a lead. His best month ever on his own: 7 leads.
We took over in July 2024.
What we built
A phone business gets a call-first build
Junk removal is a phone business — nearly 98% of this account’s spend lands on mobile, and the build is call-first. On top of that:
- ·Competitor-conquest campaigns bidding into the searches the national franchises own. It works: people in York search "1800 got junk" and click The Junk Lord instead.
- ·York-specific junk removal and dumpster rental campaigns
- ·House cleanout campaigns
The first sixty days were rebuild. Then the machine caught: 14 leads in September, 31 in October.
The numbers
Every full quarter, takeover to today
| Quarter | Leads | Cost/lead |
|---|---|---|
| Q3 2024 (takeover + rebuild) | 20 | $322.57 |
| Q4 2024 | 71 | $126.66 |
| Q1 2025 | 67 | $74.57 |
| Q2 2025 | 93 | $84.40 |
| Q3 2025 | 211 | $77.54 |
| Q4 2025 | 110 | $114.48 |
| Q1 2026 | 66 | $102.10 |
| Q2 2026 | 46 | $76.30 |
The quarter before he handed us the keys, William paid $436.10 a lead. Two quarters in, we had it at $74.57.
The full engagement
$70,756 → 716 leads
$98.82 a lead, era average
His first full quarter with us — 71 leads — out-produced the previous eighteen months combined. September 2025 alone brought 93, thirteen times his best DIY month.
Standing next to the giants
Same stage as the national franchises
The Junk Lord shows up in the same auctions as 1-800-GOT-JUNK and Junk King, hitting top-of-page 51.5% of the time — a local operator on the same stage as the national franchises, and taking clicks off their own branded searches.
Why 2026 runs leaner
A lead you can't run isn't cheap. It's wasted.
You’ll notice 2026 is quieter than 2025’s peak. That’s on purpose. Spend here flexes with William’s crew capacity and the season — when the calendar’s full, we turn it down. A lead you can’t run isn’t cheap, it’s wasted. Most agencies will happily keep spending your budget either way.
We built thejunklord.com too — the site these campaigns land on.
William Arn
Owner, Junk Lord Junk Removal and Hauling
“We're spending just about the same amount each month on Google Ads spend, and we're generating twice the amount of leads, if not more, per month.”
Methodology
Where every number comes from
Figures from account-level Google Ads exports for the account Adimize manages (quarterly cost and conversions, monthly conversions, and the full campaign list including removed campaigns; Feb 1, 2023 – Aug 19, 2026, pulled Aug 19, 2026). The data reconciles to the dollar: the campaign-list total equals the time-series total at $80,816. The headline compares William’s last full quarter before takeover (Q2 2024: $436.10 a lead) with our best quarter (Q1 2025: $74.57 a lead); the era averages are $359.29 before us vs. $98.82 since. “Leads” are conversions as tracked in this account’s call-first setup. Conversion counting differs between accounts, so comparing cost-per-lead across our case studies is apples to oranges — the comparison that matters is this account before and after July 2024, which is when we took over (Q3 2024 is treated as the first Adimize quarter). No revenue or ROAS claims.
Your turn
Want the quarterly ledger for your account?
Every quarter is on this page, rebuild included. Ask your ad manager for the same table — takeover to today, nothing skipped.