Transcript

The Revenue Room – Episode 023 Highlights

Host: Harry Hughes

Guest: David, co-founder of Linea

Topic: The first guest episode. David explains how Linea built a dentist-supervised clear aligner business in Australia, and how paid media, creative strategy and CRM work with MMG took cost per lead from around A$40–50 to A$15–16 while revenue grew two to three times in twelve months.

From Accounting to Aligners

David trained as an accountant, left after two years and spent around six years in Beijing. He and a business partner worked on a teeth-whitening brand, then a toothpaste, before conversations with dentists in Melbourne and Perth pointed to a different problem.

• Traditional aligner treatment at A$8,000 to A$12,000 was pricing many people out

• Those people were turning to at-home aligner brands with little or no clinical oversight

• Dentists were then seeing patients arrive with complications

Linea was started to sit between the two: more accessible and convenient, with a dentist still responsible for the treatment. Australia had no hybrid model in the market at the time.

The Hardest Part: Signing Dental Partners

Linea needs both sides of a marketplace: dentists to deliver treatment and patients to fill their books. Dentists came first, and David says it remains the hardest thing they have done.

• He and a co-founder drove up the east coast going door to door

• Around 500 practices in Sydney produced two partners

• The same approach followed in the Gold Coast, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth

• Cold email didn’t work at that early stage

Those first two partners were enough to start marketing in Sydney, which David says is probably Linea’s biggest market. Once the brand had patients and proof behind it, recruitment ads became viable.

Harry adds that MMG now runs dentist recruitment on Meta too, using broad targeting, tight geography, creative written for the practice owner and a dedicated landing page with social proof.

Early Consumer Ads and the Fatigue Wall

Linea’s first ads were Facebook statics from a model shoot and product images, alongside Google. David’s warning for founders: the platforms give you the lowest-hanging fruit first, so the opening month feels easy. Then ads fatigue, cost per lead climbs and you are left asking what to film next.

Creative When You Can’t Lean on Before and After

Healthcare advertising limits how far results and testimonials can be pushed, so Linea had to get creative.

• Patient journey content: filming people going through the process, “come with me” style, so viewers feel they have experienced it before they start

• Dentist-led education: clinicians explaining what clear aligners are, who is suitable and the health benefits of straight teeth

• Product and model imagery to build the brand around it

Harry describes the mix now running in the account: polished dentist content for trust, a large volume of UGC, and statics that speak directly to price and insurance. Each format reaches a different person, which is how the account has scaled within the same market.

On creators, David’s point is that every one brings a different look, voice and edit, and a constant stream of them builds social proof.

What Changed in the Paid Media

Before working with MMG, Linea’s cost per lead on Meta sat around A$40 to A$50, and reached A$70 to A$80 in some months. David’s main frustration was that nobody was taking responsibility for the creative: the ads were being run, but no one was telling the team what to make.

What changed:

• Detailed creative briefs with examples, for instance 10 to 15 statics on pricing and 10 to 15 on insurance, each split by the emotional lever being tested

• Static ads introduced. Linea had been running a small number of videos only

• A steady pipeline of creators

The result, in David’s words, is a cost per lead of around A$15 to A$16, roughly a third of the best figure they had seen before. Monthly spend has grown from around A$20k to between A$70k and A$80k without cost per lead creeping up.

The Second Stage: After the Lead

For Linea the journey doesn’t end at a checkout. A lead has to speak to sales, book a consultation with a dentist and then decide to go ahead. David calls bringing MMG into the CRM the second stage of growth.

• Patients can now schedule a call with a sales consultant directly from the website

• Email and SMS nurturing sequences follow each step

• Follow-up activity is structured through to the dentist consultation and beyond

Before this the sales team relied largely on cold calls. After the change their diaries filled with scheduled calls. David recalls a day with around 40 bookings, a number that used to count as a good month.

Where Linea Is Now

• Revenue up two to three times in twelve months

• Some areas have dentists booked to capacity, with waiting lists

• Recruitment ads are running to expand the partner network across Australia and, in time, overseas

David names two moments when it clicked: three or four months into the partnership, when lead volume, consultations and conversions became consistent, and around March and April this year, just after the scheduling and nurturing system went live.

Key Takeaways

• In a two-sided business, the supply side can be the harder one to build

• Early ad results flatter you. Plan for creative fatigue

• When results can’t be shown, show the journey and let clinicians educate

• An agency should direct the creative, not only run it

• Statics, UGC and expert content reach different people

• Fix what happens after the lead before buying more of them