Intellect – Mental Health Clinic (Singapore)
Impact at a Glance
9× ARR | –66 % CPL | +47 % CVR | 1.3× Repeat Rate | +108 % Budget Growth | 20 % MoM Organic Growth
Between July 2024 and August 2025, Intellect Clinic evolved from a small practice into one of Singapore’s fastest-growing mental health brands, scaling ARR from SGD 90 K to 810 K, expanding from 2 to 5 clinics, and tripling its clinician base.
Starting Point & Business Context
Intellect is a Singapore-based mental health platform offering therapy, counselling, and psychological assessments across in-person clinics and telehealth. Its mission to make mental healthcare accessible, stigma-free, and data-driven blends clinical science with human empathy.
When I joined, Intellect’s clinical credibility outpaced its marketing maturity. About 90 percent of the budget sat in Meta Ads, attribution was limited, and campaigns were optimized for clicks instead of conversions.
“Build Singapore’s number one mental health clinic and capture 50 to 70 percent market share profitably.”
At the time, the team was generating about 70 leads per month (CPL ≈ SGD 50, 17 percent booking rate). The goal was to design a scalable growth system that could drive both credibility and conversion.
Designing the Growth Engine
In mental health, trust and humanisation are the first conversions. People don’t buy therapy sessions; they buy safety.
I began by fixing the data foundation. Tracking upgrades through GTM, GA4, and HubSpot revealed where performance was breaking down across the funnel. By analysing campaign and creative signals, I developed early hypotheses that evolved into the Trust-First Growth System™, a data-led, human-centred marketing framework built on three pillars:
- Intent-Led Acquisition – Rebuilt campaigns around high-intent search demand (Google Search + PMax).
- Cohort Intelligence – Full-funnel visibility to identify and scale winning signals.
- Humanised Experience – Clinician insights shaping creative, content, and CRO.
From Insight to Execution
The Search Shift: Google Ads & PMax Lead Strategy
We restructured Google Ads from one generic campaign into over 5 category-based funnels (ADHD, anxiety, depression, couples therapy, and others), each with tightly themed ad groups and RSAs.
Meta Ads were streamlined into always-on reach and awareness, leads and remarketing.
Channel mix flipped from Meta 90 percent to Google about 85 percent, unlocking higher-intent audiences.
Creative Reinvention: Humanised Therapy Messaging
We replaced urgency-led “Get Help Now” concepts with symptom-specific and clinician-based creatives, myth-busting (stigma-breaking) themes, and positive-outcome messages for common problems. CTR rose by more than 40 percent. A creative testing loop evaluated tone and booking quality, refining what resonated emotionally and clinically.
SEO & Content Strategy: Driving Organic Discovery
To compound authority and reduce paid dependence, I initiated a structured SEO and content plan that became one of our strongest levers:
- Improved on-page and technical SEO for speed, schema, and E-E-A-T signals.
- Created and published about 25 high-quality content pieces over 8 months, aligned with clinical keywords and search intent.
- Achieved more than 20 percent month-on-month organic traffic growth.
- Ranked 8 to 10 keywords between #1–10 like “ADHD Test Singapore,” “Insomnia Treatment Singapore,” and “Anxiety and Worry Symptoms.”
Organic traffic soon became a consistent CPL reducer and credibility driver.
Conversion Optimisation: Landing Pages that Build Trust
Working closely with clinicians, we mapped hesitation drivers such as privacy, cost, and credibility, and rebuilt landing pages for clarity and reassurance.
Dedicated pages for OCD, Couples Therapy, and ADHD became top-five traffic sources within 45 days of launch.
Free mental health assessments generated more than 20 daily submissions by week three, converting low to medium-intent visitors into marketing qualified leads.
Growth Infrastructure: Tracking, Attribution & Scale
End-to-end tracking across GTM, GA4, and HubSpot enabled real-time cohort insights.
This transparency built stakeholder confidence and secured a budget increase from SGD 48 K to 100 K for FY 2025.
The Turning Point
The true inflection came from integrating accurate data tracking, optimizing channel mix, and systematically testing creative themes. These insights revealed which lead acquisition method (web form versus WhatsApp) converted best at channel level and how budget should be redistributed.
Once systems aligned, performance became both predictable and scalable.
Results That Redefined Scale
Inflection (Q1 2025): CPL decreased 38 percent, CVR increased 21 percent after data integration and channel optimization.
What I Learned as a Growth Leader
“In mental health, marketing isn’t about persuasion; it’s about permission. People act when they finally feel safe.”
- Trust outperforms urgency – Empathy-driven storytelling lowered acquisition costs and improved retention.
- Data creates conviction – Transparent reporting aligned marketing and clinical teams around facts.
- Systems enable human scale – Automation freed people to focus on care, the true bottleneck in any high-trust category.
“Recognized for building Intellect’s LTV model and data-first growth discipline.” — Theodoric Chew, CEO acknowledgment (internal)
Beyond the Metrics
This growth was both digital and operational:
- Clinician hiring: 8 to 25+ (freelance + full-time)
- Clinic expansion: 2 to 5 locations across Singapore
- Marketing budget: SGD 48 K to 100 K (2024 vs 2025)
The marketing engine could have scaled to a ~SGD 100 K annual run rate (around SGD 8.4 K per month) but plateaued at about SGD 5.8 K per month after maxing out supply.
Demand grew faster than capacity, a healthy constraint that underscored the system’s success. A rare and healthy problem to solve next.
Care quality and brand trust were maintained throughout expansion.
Let’s Build Your Growth System
Sustainable growth does not come from bigger budgets. It comes from smarter systems. When data, customer centricity and execution align, brands scale predictably and profitably.
Let me help you design yours…