YesCanDo Money
Taking Cost per Lead from £101 to £33 to Build an Owned & Scalable Mortgage Lead Engine
Project Summary
Project Summary YesCanDo is an established UK mortgage broker with locally based advisers and a steady flow of enquiries from multiple lead sources. While lead volume was already strong, the real challenge was in efficiency. So, improving the conversion rate from ‘enquiry’ to ‘completed mortgage’ without increasing adviser workload, was the main goal.By building an owned paid search lead source and optimising relentlessly for intent and conversion quality, Hewitt Matthews helped YesCanDo to triple their conversion rate, cut cost per lead by two thirds, and more than triple weekly enquiry volume.
How we did it
YesCanDo Money | Paid Search
The Challenge
YesCanDo already had a good volume of enquiries. The brokerage was purchasing leads from a range of third party providers at costs between £15 and £90 per lead, keeping advisers busy but not necessarily productive. Volume was not the problem, lead quality and conversion was.
Too many enquiries resulted in unproductive calls which tied up advisers who should have been focused on writing mortgages rather than qualifying poor quality leads. The business needed to improve efficiency across their sales funnel, which meant we had to:
- Increase the conversion rate from enquiry to customer
- Reduce time spent on low intent conversations
- Create a scalable, owned lead source rather than relying heavily on external providers
- Maintain a target cost per lead of £40–£50, with flexibility to pay more for genuinely, high quality enquiries
Put simply, the big goal was to have fewer wasted calls, higher conversion efficiency, and a lead source the business could control and scale confidently.
The Strategy
We approached the challenge head on and focused on building a brand new, owned paid search channel, optimised for quality, not just volume. From the outset, success was measured by conversion performance and downstream efficiency, rather than surface level metrics.
We agreed to benchmark performance from the first full week of activity (30.06.2025 – 06.07.2025) and compare it against the most recent full week (19.11.2025 – 25.11.2025) to assess true progress.
The strategy focused on three pillars:
- Conversion led optimisation
- Intent driven traffic quality
- Continuous testing and iteration
Our Approach
Conversion Optimisation from Day One
Bidding was aligned to meaningful outcomes from the very start, including form submissions, phone calls, and WhatsApp enquiries. Rather than optimising for shallow signals, we focused on actions that reflected genuine intent.
Why this matters? Better conversion signals lead to smarter automated bidding, which in turn, drives higher conversion rates and lower Cost Per Lead over time.
Intent Led Keyword and Search Term Restructuring
Traffic quality was improved week by week through disciplined search term analysis:
- Weekly reviews to identify high intent themes
- Proactive negative keyword additions to remove irrelevant searches
- Budget reallocation towards keywords driving qualified enquiries
- Tighter match types where needed to maintain intent control
Impact: Reduced wasted spend, improved conversion rate, and steadily declining Cost Per Lead.
Ad Messaging and Relevance Improvements
We refined ad copy to align closely with high performing search intent and tested value led messaging that highlighted YesCanDo’s key propositions and USPs. Landing page copy was also improved to better reflect user intent and expectations.
Impact: Higher click through rates, improved quality scores, and cheaper, more qualified clicks entering the funnel.
Structured Testing and Iteration
Performance gains compounded through consistent optimisation rather than one off changes:
- Weekly and monthly reviews against clear roadmap milestones
- Ongoing testing of keywords and ad messaging
- Decisions driven by data, not assumptions
Impact: Continuous week-on-week improvement toward and beyond the target Cost Per Lead, with conversion efficiency improving as the campaign matured.
The Results
Conversion Rate Uplift
- First full week: 4.38%
- Final full week: 13.16%
Over the campaign period, conversion performance tripled. Conversion rate increased by 200%, rising from 4.38% at launch to 13.16% in the final week. This represented a 3× improvement in efficiency, meaning a far greater proportion of enquiries turned into genuine opportunities for advisers.
Cost Per Lead Reduction
- First full week CPL: £101.09
- Final full week CPL: £33.08
Cost efficiency improved dramatically as performance compounded. Cost Per Lead dropped by 67%, falling from £101.09 to £33.08. By the latest figures, YesCanDo were consistently generating high quality enquiries well below the original £40 – £50 target range, while maintaining strong intent and conversion performance.
Lead Volume Growth
- First full week volume: 6 enquiries
- Final full week volume: 20 enquiries
Weekly lead volume also increased by 233%, growing from 6 enquiries to 20 per week. Importantly, this growth did not come at the expense of quality. The increase in volume was paired with higher conversion rates and lower costs, allowing the team to scale output without increasing inefficiency.
Conclusion
By shifting the focus from raw lead volume to conversion efficiency and intent quality, YesCanDo transformed paid search into a scalable, owned acquisition channel. The result was a system that delivered more enquiries, at a lower cost, with significantly higher conversion rates. This allowed advisers to spend more time doing what matters most, writing mortgages.
More high quality enquiries, lower costs, and a scalable paid search channel that delivers real commercial impact.
