How Therapy Suites Used Niche Google Ads to Fill a Coworking Space Built for Mental Health Professionals
Our case studies showcase how coworking space operators around the globe use industry-specific Google Ads strategies to fill their locations, generate revenue, and create waitlists for their services.
Meet Dr. Christina Hansen Cohen: The Psychologist Who Asked to Be Talked Out of Coworking
Dr. Christina Hansen Cohen has spent twenty years in private practice as a licensed psychologist. When she relocated to Minnesota in 2021, she went looking for office space that would let her launch a second practice while working alongside colleagues with whom she could consult.
The Twin Cities metro area had plenty of great coworking spaces, but none of them met her compliance needs as a mental health professional.
So, she called her partner with an unusual request.
“I told him I wished there was a coworking space just for mental health professionals,” Dr. Cohen recalls. “I said I wanted to start it, and I needed him to talk me out of it.”
As luck would have it, he didn’t.
In fact, by the time she got home, he was already deep into a market analysis.
She adds, “Within an hour, he said it was brilliant.”
That weekend, she emailed Jamie Russo at Everything Coworking, and the two started working together.
Dr. Cohen knew exactly what mental health professionals need in a space, and Jamie supplied the coworking expertise she lacked.
Nine months after that phone call, Therapy Suites opened its doors.
Marketing a Niche Coworking Space with Zero Marketing Experience
Generic campaigns waste money on the wrong clicks, and every dollar at Therapy Suites had to reach licensed mental health professionals, a narrow audience searching with very specific intent.
Dr. Cohen is blunt about where she started.
“I walked into this knowing zero about marketing,” she says. “My first practice in Florida was in a small town, and it was all word of mouth. If I spent a thousand dollars on marketing in my whole career down there, that would’ve been a lot.”
Her profession made the learning curve even steeper. Psychologists operate under strict advertising constraints that most business owners never think about.
“Psychologists have to be very careful,” Dr. Cohen explains. “We can’t use patient testimony or anything that would identify someone, so our marketing had to be narrow. This was a whole new world to me. It wasn’t my specialty, and it still feels overwhelming at times because it isn’t my strength.”
Why Dr. Cohen Chose a Specialist Marketing Agency Before Therapy Suites’ Doors Even Opened
Many operators try the DIY route first, burn months of budget, and seek help once the damage is done.
Dr. Cohen skipped that chapter entirely.
When Russo recommended two agencies, one name came with a footnote.
“Jamie put an asterisk next to Spacefully and Reuben Lau, and said he was the creme de la creme,” Dr. Cohen says. “And I thought, if I was going to make this good, I needed the best.”
For her, the decision reflected a principle she applies across her whole life as a business owner.
“The key is knowing your strengths and knowing your weaknesses,” she explains. “My strengths were connecting with people and knowing what mental health professionals need in a space. Marketing wasn’t one of them.”
She adds, “If you come into this as a founder thinking you can do everything, from my perspective as a psychologist, that’s a narcissistic thought.”
She frames the cost of outside expertise the same way she frames her own doctorate: as an education tax worth paying.
“I could watch twenty YouTube videos and probably figure out how to replace my own garage door,” she says. “But I’m not going to pay somebody to mow my lawn, because I enjoy it and I’m good at it. The things you’re not good at, you’re happy to pay somebody to do.”
Defining Therapy Suites’ Google Ads Strategy and Finding the Search Terms a Narrow Audience Uses
Working with Spacefully meant building Therapy Suites’ Google Ads strategy around one crucial question:
What do licensed mental health professionals type into Google when they need an office?
“We had to hone in on the words our specific audience was searching for,” Dr. Cohen says. “It took a lot of thoughtful conversations between Reuben and me. He asked great questions that pushed my thinking.”
The process involved some trial and error, and she appreciated that honesty.
She adds, “Some of the terms we initially thought would be right weren’t right in the end.”
Budget required the same open conversation. Dr. Cohen needed to invest enough to build momentum without eroding her margins.
“We went back and forth between what I could afford to spend and what I needed to spend,” she explains. “In the beginning, I had to go out on a limb and spend more. Once things started going, we figured out a fair amount to keep momentum without overspending, so my profit margin stayed where I wanted it to be.”
Therapy Suites’ campaigns focus on the space and the audience rather than splitting the budget across its eight membership tiers.
Dr. Cohen explains, “Our focus is on the space itself and on licensed mental health professionals, rather than a specific plan.”
Passing the Baton: How Aisha Sow Keeps the Lead Engine Running
For the first year and a half of running Google Ads, Dr. Cohen handled the Spacefully relationship herself.
Then she did something many founders struggle with: she put her trust in her team to take it over.
Aisha Sow, Executive Assistant at Therapy Suites, had been growing into a bigger role, running social media, supporting members, and managing the day-to-day operations of the space.
“As Aisha grew in her role, I brought her into the conversations and passed the baton,” Dr. Cohen says. “It was a huge leap of faith to let go of that control, and she’s run with it. She’s more hands-on with daily operations, so at this point she has more knowledge than I do.”
Dr. Cohen sums up Aisha’s role in three words.
“Aisha’s our bloodline,” she says.
Since mid-2025, Aisha has tracked every lead that comes in through Google Ads and handled the ongoing communication with the Spacefully team.
That tracking proved valuable when the market took an unexpected turn.
“I would say that 2025 was a weird year for everybody with the economy,” Aisha says. “We had people looking for space who weren’t our particular audience, but were adjacent to it.”
She continues,
“So, we went back through our leads from the past couple of years, saw where our audience was going, and refined the little things. Going into 2026, we have a good hold on the queries we should be running.”
As the audience shifts, the data shows it, and the strategy adjusts. That rhythm is what keeps a niche campaign sharp.
Selling Privacy and Professionalism in the Same Message
Ask Dr. Cohen whether Therapy Suites markets its compliance features or its design, and she rejects the choice.
“It’s both,” she says. “The walls are thicker, and they go up to the decking. There are thresholds under the doors, so you have privacy when you’re with your client.”
At the same time, the space itself makes a statement about how mental health care deserves treatment.
“Coming out of the pandemic, there was a huge push toward mental health, and we were finally seen as an extension of medicine,” Dr. Cohen explains. “That’s something I’ve been saying since the day I got out of grad school. So, the space is very professional, with a Scandinavian design.”
She has a shorthand for what Therapy Suites refuses to be.
“We’re not grandma’s couch,” she says. “So many times you go into a therapy office and think, do I want to sit on this couch? We’re not that space. We’re clean, professional, and refined.”
The privacy commitment extends past the walls and into the operations.
The team designed scheduling and check-in so that no identifying information ever goes on display. This is a meaningful detail in a market where members sometimes see high-profile professionals and athletes.
“You wouldn’t know who walked in unless you recognized somebody,” Dr. Cohen says. “I can’t promise they won’t be recognized in the waiting room, but their identifying information won’t show up.”
Those messages come together in the ads: a polished, professional space where mental health practitioners can see clients when they want, how they want, with the privacy their work demands.
How Therapy Suites’ Lead Analysis Revealed an Entirely New Business
Over time, Therapy Suites’ lead data revealed something unexpected.
They track why prospects join and, just as carefully, why they walk away. Reviewing that data alongside our campaign reporting surfaced a pattern.
“We found that the number one reason people weren’t joining wasn’t the space or the cost,” Dr. Cohen says. “It was the fear of launching into private practice and feeling like they couldn’t do it on their own.”
Dr. Cohen saw a market signal in that finding.
She and Aisha are now building Private Practice Launchpad, a one-year, one-on-one intensive coaching program that walks mental health professionals through launching their own practice, complete with ongoing group sessions.
Graduates get the option of a discounted Therapy Suites membership during their launch year and for a full year after.
“This program filters into Therapy Suites, and it gets up-and-coming practitioners out on their own, which is their dream,” Dr. Cohen explains. “They’re making more income than they would working for somebody else. It’s a win-win, filling the need we see as the number one reason people don’t join.”
That kind of pivot only happens when lead tracking is trustworthy, and somebody reviews it every month.
Dr. Cohen’s Advice for Founders Eyeing a Niche Coworking Concept
For anyone considering a specialized coworking space, Dr. Cohen’s guidance starts before the lease gets signed.
“The key is doing a market analysis and making sure the audience is big enough,” she says. “Your space might meet your needs, but is the pool large enough to be profitable? There are a lot of great ideas out there. The question is whether they can make money long term.”
For Therapy Suites, that analysis pointed toward a durable truth about her industry.
“There will always be a need to see a therapist in person, whether you don’t have enough confidentiality at home or you simply prefer meeting face to face,” Dr. Cohen explains. “To me, this felt sustainable.”
She also engineered the membership model to protect the business from concentration risk.
“We made sure we had enough variety in plans that thirty people on a lower plan would be okay, versus needing five people on a higher plan,” she says. “And your costs need to stay at a point where you always sustain a profit. Some months are far better than others, but I always have a margin.”
Her final piece of advice concerns staffing, and it doubles as a compliment to Aisha.
Therapy Suites ran with front-desk coverage from 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM, Monday through Friday, until very recently, and members never minded, because the person in the seat was exceptional and the owner stayed willing to pitch in.
“Be thoughtful about who you hire and how you hire,” Dr. Cohen says. “It’s okay to roll up your sleeves. If you’re going into this thinking you’re going to hire somebody to do everything while you sit back, I don’t know that you’re meant to be an entrepreneur.”
Key Highlights from the Therapy Suites Story
The Therapy Suites journey shows what happens when a founder pairs deep audience knowledge with specialized marketing support instead of trying to become an expert in everything at once. A few lessons stand out.
- Dr. Cohen hired a coworking-specialized Google Ads partner before launch, skipping the expensive DIY phase entirely.
- Niche audiences require niche keyword strategies, built through thoughtful dialogue, testing, and ongoing refinement.
- Delegating lead tracking to a capable team member kept the campaigns sharp as the market shifted through 2025.
- Positioning paired compliance-grade privacy with refined, professional design, because the audience needed both.
- Analyzing why leads didn’t convert revealed the audience’s biggest barrier and inspired an entirely new coaching business, Private Practice Launchpad.
With the query strategy dialed in for 2026 and Private Practice Launchpad in development, Therapy Suites now has two engines for reaching the professionals it was built to serve.
Ready to Reach the Members Your Niche Space Was Built For?
If you want to fill your coworking space, generate more revenue, and create a waiting list so you’re never scrambling to fill vacancies, Spacefully can help. Book a free introductory call to learn how Google Ads can bring new members into your space starting today.
