Little Builders: 3,047 franchise leads and 21+ locations sold

Franchise sales is a long, local sale. A prospective owner wants to know the concept works, that their city is still available and that someone will pick up the phone. The brief was to find those people in every territory on the map, at a cost per lead that made a franchise sale pay back many times over, and to hand them to James with enough context to start a real conversation.

Every territory ran as its own campaign with its own small daily budget, usually A$20 to A$30, so each city told us on its own terms whether there was demand. Over nine months, 64 city campaigns went live across Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States and Singapore, and 58 of them produced leads. Dozens more were built and held ready for the next territories on the list.

Leads came through Meta instant forms, which kept the ask small on a phone and got the enquiry to the founder the same day.

The sandpit sells itself, so the creative led with it: kids on ride-on excavators, the scale of the sand, a packed venue on a weekend. The franchise angle came second, framed around the city in the ad, so a parent-turned-investor in Ottawa saw Ottawa, not a generic opportunity.

Because every city reported separately, budget could follow cost per lead. Canada and New Zealand came in under A$8 a lead, roughly half the Australian and British cost, so Canada took the largest share of volume. Cities that did not respond were switched off early, and the markets that kept producing, such as Ottawa, Edmonton and Surrey, were relaunched for a second round.

3,047 franchise and licence enquiries at an average of A$11.71 each, from A$35.7k of spend. Those leads turned into more than 21 franchise locations sold across Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Canada.