Lead Quality Case Study

We cut wasted leads from ~66% to ~16% of the pipeline

How Thundr Digital turned a Tonic Surgery pipeline that was two-thirds dead-ends into one where five in six leads were worth the sales team’s time.

Client: Tonic Surgery Service: Full-Service Digital Marketing & Lead Generation Industry: B2C Weight-Loss Surgery
~66% → ~16% Share of leads that were junk

Bad, uninterested or uncontactable leads dropped sharply when comparing the previous agency period with Thundr’s like-for-like period.

~84% Usable leads after, up from ~33%

The sales team had a much cleaner pipeline, with a far higher share of leads worth contacting.

~76% Reduction in wasted lead proportion

The proportion of pipeline waste fell significantly, reducing time spent chasing dead-end enquiries.

HubSpot Quality verified by the client’s own sales team

Lead quality was assessed using sales-team statuses in HubSpot, not agency-side assumptions.

Tonic Weight Loss Surgery logo

Lead generation that focused on quality, not noise.

Tonic Surgery did not need a pipeline inflated with low-quality leads. The priority was to help the sales team spend less time chasing dead ends and more time speaking to people who were genuinely worth contacting.

Tonic Surgery weight loss surgery consultation

Who are Tonic Surgery?

Tonic Surgery is a UK weight-loss and bariatric surgery provider supporting people considering procedures such as gastric sleeve, gastric bypass and other specialist weight-loss treatments.

As a high-consideration healthcare provider, lead quality matters. The sales team needs a pipeline that prioritises serious, contactable and better-qualified enquiries, rather than wasting time on people who are not interested or cannot be reached.

This case study focuses on pipeline quality and sales-team efficiency, not lead volume, revenue or sales outcomes.

Before

Two-thirds of the pipeline was waste.

In the previous agency’s final like-for-like period, the pipeline was dominated by bad, uninterested or uncontactable leads.

~66% junk leads
~33% usable leads
After

Most leads were worth the team’s time.

Under Thundr, the balance shifted towards usable leads, giving the sales team a cleaner and more efficient pipeline to work through.

~16% junk leads
~84% usable leads

The challenge

Tonic Surgery’s pipeline was drowning in bad, uninterested and uncontactable leads. This meant the sales team was spending too much time on people who were never likely to progress.

The goal

The priority was quality over volume: reduce wasted calls, improve lead qualification and make the pipeline easier for the sales team to trust, manage and prioritise.

The Strategy

A full-funnel clean-up focused on lead quality.

We tightened the media strategy, removed channels creating poor-quality demand, improved nurture activity and worked with the sales team so lead quality could be seen clearly in HubSpot.

Paid search

Restructured Google Ads into focused procedure- and location-based campaigns to improve relevance and search intent.

Paid social

Rebuilt and restructured the Meta account, where much of the poor-quality demand had been originating.

TikTok removal

Cut TikTok ads entirely due to poor lead quality and weight-loss-surgery ad-policy risk.

Email nurture

Reworked the nurture workflow to re-engage, educate and qualify leads before further sales-team time was spent.

Organic social

Supported ongoing content to build trust and reach.

SEO

Improved organic visibility for relevant weight-loss and procedure searches.

Lead operations

Worked with the client’s sales team to define a bad lead and fix HubSpot tagging so quality was finally visible.

The outcome

The pipeline became cleaner and easier for the sales team to work through. Instead of spending large amounts of time on bad, uninterested or uncontactable leads, the team had a higher-quality lead pool to prioritise.

Why it matters

For a high-consideration healthcare provider, lead quality is critical. A cleaner pipeline helps protect sales-team time, improves follow-up focus and makes marketing performance easier to judge honestly.

Pipeline Quality Snapshot

Usable leads became the majority of the pipeline.

The chart below illustrates the shift from a pipeline where around one-third of leads were usable to one where around five in six were worth contacting.

Before ~33% usable
After ~84% usable
Before ~33% usable
After ~84% usable
Previous agency Audit & rebuild Quality clean-up Thundr period
~66% → ~16% share of the pipeline classed as bad, uninterested or uncontactable.
~33% → ~84% share of the pipeline classed as usable and worth contacting.
~76% reduction in the proportion of wasted leads.

Illustrative representation only, not exact monthly data.

Methodology

Based on lead statuses assigned by Tonic’s own sales team in HubSpot. “Bad lead” is defined as leads tagged bad, uninterested or uncontactable. Before period: September–October 2024 under the previous agency. After period: February–March 2025. Later periods exclude duplicate resubmissions. This case study reflects an improvement in lead quality and pipeline efficiency; figures are expressed as percentages of total leads. Performance varies by season, market demand and other factors.

Want a cleaner, higher-quality lead pipeline?

If your sales team is wasting time on low-quality leads, Thundr can help you identify what is holding the pipeline back and build a lead generation strategy around quality.

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Figures are expressed as percentages of total leads. This case study reflects lead quality and pipeline efficiency only, not conversion volume, sales or revenue performance.