How LocalWorks built a turnkey scalable Google Ads system for 45 locations and counting

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 Barry Greenfield: The LocalWorks Founder + CEO Running 45 Locations With a Team of Six

Barry Greenfield didn’t stumble into multi-location coworking management. He’d been in and out of the industry since 2012, treating it as a part-time hobby before launching LocalWorks full-time in late 2019.

Today, LocalWorks operates 45 locations across ten states with a team of six full-time employees. There are no concierges at any location, no dedicated property managers, and no large operations team handling the day-to-day.

Just Barry, his partner who handles finances, and four other people running everything else.

“Marketing is obviously a key driver of the business,” Barry explains. “We’ve always outsourced our lead gen, and we were looking to make a change when we came across Spacefully.”

That change would turn out to be far more comprehensive than Barry initially anticipated.

The Multi-Location Marketing Black Box at LocalWorks

As LocalWorks grew from one location to five to 15, then expanded beyond Boston into Washington DC, Chicago, and other markets, its marketing setup started showing cracks.

They’d been working with a local advertising agency in Boston, which had been referred to them. The team ran Craigslist ads in-house for a while and managed their own SEO.

“We managed our own SEO in-house,” Barry says. “Not well.”

The agency they’d hired knew Google Ads: keyword campaigns, CPC bidding, and the technical mechanics. But they were generalists, not coworking specialists.

“They were a general advertising agency,” Barry explains. “They obviously had knowledge of Google advertising campaigns and CPC, but they were more of a generalist. Our lead flow was okay. A lot of times, the leads weren’t necessarily of the quality that we were seeking.”

As they scaled, the disconnect grew worse. Marketing became what Barry calls a “black box.” Money went in, leads came out, but there was no real visibility into what was working or why.

“We were less and less comfortable with really having any say in the marketing because it’s kind of a black box for us,” Barry says. “Our agency was starting to realize that they didn’t have the expertise we needed as well.”

When Growth Demands More Than Your Agency Can Deliver

The problem wasn’t just lead quality. It was the fundamental limitation of working with a vendor who placed ads and took a fee rather than a partner who understood what LocalWorks actually needed to scale.

“We had been heading down a path where we were starting to look for someone else to help us,” Barry says. “We needed someone taking a larger role in the whole marketing operation versus just placing money and taking a fee for those ad placements.”

So, in late 2023, Barry started asking around. 

He’d just finished working with a business process management company that helped LocalWorks get a clearer picture of what was happening to their leads: how they were stored, what they were doing with that information, and how effectively their dollars were being spent.

That exercise clarified just how much they needed to change their approach.

Then Barry discovered something that refined the equation entirely.

He explains, “As soon as we found out there was actually an agency that specialized in flex office, it became apparent that was a conversation we needed to have very quickly.”

The Conversation That Revealed What LocalWorks Actually Needed

When Barry and his partner first sat down with us, they laid everything on the table.

Their in-house resources were stretched impossibly thin. Barry’s partner had built them a WordPress website, and while they knew it had limitations, they didn’t have the capability (or frankly, the desire) to rebuild it from scratch.

“My partner and I own the company, and we’re still only at six full-time employees,” Barry says. “So, our resources are limited in-house. As you can imagine, they haven’t even grown that much as we’ve essentially doubled in size in the last two years.”

Our conversation started with marketing, but quickly expanded beyond it.

“When we first started talking to Reuben, we were very forthcoming,” Barry says. “From A to Z, top to bottom, inside and out, we explained what we were facing if we wanted to continue to grow and the walls that we keep running into.”

Our response wasn’t what Barry expected. 

We told them we didn’t have to be just an ad or marketing agency. Instead, we could help find people to fill roles where they couldn’t, either because it wasn’t a capability or they didn’t have the bandwidth.

“They essentially said they’d become an operations agency for us,” Barry says.

Redesigning the LocalWorks Website for Performance Without Rebuilding It

The first priority was fixing the website to support Google Ads conversion.

We conducted a comprehensive review of:

• The homepage and every location page
• FAQs and Google reviews
• Calls to action and button placement
• Images and Matterport tours

The goal was to optimize everything for Google Ads conversion without rebuilding the entire site from scratch.

“His team did an amazing job,” Barry says. “It was a comprehensive review and restructuring of the website without actually rebuilding the entire thing, which was very cost-effective.”

Our approach was methodical. We suggested testing changes on a development server first, then rolling them out to a couple of location pages to measure impact before implementing across all 45 locations.

That testing phase took a few months. Then, they deployed the changes to every location page.

The result was a foundation optimized for conversion. Every location page was now structured to turn Google Ads traffic into tour bookings.

Developing a Turnkey Google Ads System That Scales Across 45 Locations

With the website foundation in place, we turned our attention to the core challenge: building a Google Ads system that could deploy seamlessly across 45 locations and scale as LocalWorks continued to grow.

The old approach treated each location as a one-off campaign: every new market meant starting from scratch, testing keywords, adjusting bids, and hoping for the best. 

There was no consistency, efficiency, or way to learn from what worked in one market and apply it to the next.

We built something different: a structured system that could be deployed to any new location in under a week while still accounting for local market differences.

All Google Ads campaigns are built around LocalWorks’ specific business model. 

With no concierges on-site and everything handled remotely until a tour booking, the Google Ads targeting focuses on high-intent searches from people actively looking for office space in specific markets. 

The ad copy and landing pages work together to pre-qualify leads before they ever book a tour.

“The system they built makes it easy to roll out a new location online,” Barry says. “When we launch a new physical location, the Google Ads deployment is essentially just flipping a switch.”

Becoming an Integrated Partner for the LocalWorks Team 

The Google Ads system was just the beginning. As we dug into LocalWorks’ challenges, the engagement evolved beyond marketing.

One of their biggest operational burdens was answering phones. Without on-site staff at any of their 45 locations, every inquiry had to be handled remotely. Lead quality from Google Ads mattered enormously because there was no concierge to qualify interest in person.

“Even though we didn’t love the types of leads from our previous agency, we weren’t able to handle them,” Barry says. “It was a real burden just answering the phone.”

So, we helped LocalWorks hire the people they needed: 

• A full-time receptionist
• Sales team members
• A junior support person in their largest market

The impact rippled through the entire business:

• Barry’s partner could focus on finance and raise debt for growth
• Barry could focus on business development instead of overseeing sales
• Their Head of Support came off the phones

“Across the board, we’ve seen improvement in every aspect of our business,” Barry says. “Spacefully is literally a consulting firm for us now.”

The relationship doesn’t follow the usual agency-client dynamic.

“It’s very different from a typical agency relationship,” Barry explains. “We don’t operate like ‘we’re the client, you’re the agency.’ Spacefully works perfectly in a collaborative environment.”

The Results: Better Leads, Lower Churn, and Leadership That Can Actually Lead

Within months of implementing these changes, the business impact was clear.

Lead quantity from Google Ads increased, and more importantly, lead quality improved, in turn supporting increased revenue.

More importantly, the follow-through rate on tour bookings increased:

• The Google Ads campaigns targeted high-intent searches from people actively looking for office space
• The landing pages pre-qualified leads before they ever booked a tour
• The result: fewer tire-kickers, more serious prospects who actually followed through

Beyond Google Ads metrics, the operational support freed Barry and his partner to focus on what only they could do: raising capital, finding new property owners, and managing finances.

The impact extended across the entire business:

• Churn rate dropped
• The sales team was properly staffed
• The Head of Support was no longer drowning in phone calls
• Revenue increased across the board

As Barry explains, “We’ve seen improvements in every aspect of our business.” 

Barry’s Advice: Don’t Pay the Dumb Tax Longer Than You Have To

When asked what advice he’d give to other operators scaling multiple locations, Barry is blunt about his biggest regret: not looking for specialized support sooner.

“I wish we’d found Spacefully two or three years ago,” he says. “I think we’d be in an even better position.”

His perspective is shaped by the reality of running a coworking operation.

“There isn’t really a secret sauce for anybody in this industry,” Barry admits. “We’re all trying to do the same thing: win in a low margin business, high volume, and customer service is of huge importance.”

He continues, “If you have the opportunity to go with an agency that’s going to help you get people in the door, why wouldn’t you go with someone who has more experience in this industry than anyone else?”

The fact that LocalWorks sometimes competes with other Spacefully clients doesn’t concern him. The differentiators are things only the operator can control.

“We go up against our competitors who are also working with Spacefully,” Barry says. “It doesn’t really matter. We have a different product to offer because we’re in a different building, or we might be in a different geographic area. That’s up to the operator to figure out: what’s your real opportunity for someone who needs office space? Spacefully brings that message to the consumer better than anyone.”

He adds, “That’s the hardest part of running a business: How do you avoid that dumb tax or eliminate it as quickly as possible?”

Ready to Build a Scalable Marketing System for Your Multi-Location Operation?

LocalWorks went from a marketing black box to an integrated operations partnership in less than a year. If you’re scaling across multiple locations and your current marketing can’t keep pace, we can help you build a system that actually works. Book a free introductory call today to learn how we can become an extension of your team, not just another vendor.