The Client
Flanagan Wines is a boutique winery in Dry Creek Valley, Healdsburg, in California's Sonoma County. We built and run their Google Ads, a Search campaign that has produced 150+ phone calls from the ads, growing from about 10 calls a month to about 18.
Flanagan's tasting room takes reservations. For a boutique winery, a call from someone planning a Sonoma trip is often the first step to a tasting, a wine club membership and years of orders.
"About 10 calls a month in late 2025. About 18 a month by summer 2026."
The Challenge
Google Ads for wineries is a different game from most local businesses:
- Customers aren't local. Most people planning a Healdsburg tasting live hundreds of miles away and search days or weeks before the trip.
- A crowded valley. Sonoma and Napa have hundreds of wineries, many with far bigger budgets and famous names, all competing for the same trip planners.
- Browsers, not bookers. Wine searches bring people reading lists, looking up a bottle or researching a wine region with no plan to visit.
- Small budget, high value. A boutique winery can't outspend the big estates, so every click has to come from someone likely to visit.
What We Built
1. A Search Campaign Built on Trip-Planning Searches
In August 2025 we launched a Search campaign on Maximize Conversions, built around how visitors plan: "wineries near Healdsburg", "wine tasting Sonoma County", "Healdsburg boutique wineries", "Healdsburg wine tasting", "Dry Creek Valley wine tasting" and "private wine tasting Napa".
2. Nationwide Targeting
The campaign targets the whole United States, so it reaches travelers while they plan, not only people already in Sonoma County.
3. A Landing Page Built for Visits
Every ad sends visitors to Flanagan's Visit page, where they can see the tasting experience and plan a visit, instead of the general home page.
4. Calls That Count
The campaign counts calls from the ads lasting a minute or longer, so short hang-ups and wrong numbers are not reported as leads.
5. Over 100 Negative Keywords and an A/B Test
We added 100+ negative keywords to keep out jobs, wine shopping and other searches that don't lead to a visit, and ran an A/B test version of the campaign from August to November 2025 before focusing the budget on the main campaign.
6. Daily Optimization via Ad Campaign Concierge™
The campaign is reviewed daily through our proprietary Ad Campaign Concierge™ system: search-term reviews, new negatives and bids kept on the searches that bring calls.
The Results
- 150+ phone calls from the ads, each a minute or longer.
- Monthly calls up from about 10 to about 18, late 2025 to July to September 2026.
- About $44 a call from July to September 2026.
- Reach: 140K+ impressions and 3,300+ clicks from wine travelers across the US.
- "Wineries near Healdsburg" and "wine tasting Sonoma County" were the two strongest searches.
Key Takeaways
- Target the trip, not the town. Wine tourists search from home, so a winery's ads should reach them where they live.
- Place names sell. "Healdsburg", "Dry Creek Valley" and "Sonoma County" brought more calls than generic wine terms.
- Count real calls. A one-minute minimum keeps the numbers honest and trains bidding toward real visitors.
- A boutique budget can compete. Focused, place-based searches let a small winery win calls in a valley full of famous names.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Google Ads work for a winery tasting room?
It does for Flanagan Wines. Since the campaign launched, the ads have produced 150+ phone calls of a minute or longer, and calls grew from about 10 a month in late 2025 to about 18 a month from July to September 2026.
What do wine tourists search before they visit?
They search by place. 'Wineries near Healdsburg', 'wine tasting Sonoma County', 'Healdsburg boutique wineries', 'Healdsburg wine tasting' and 'Dry Creek Valley wine tasting' produced the most calls.
Should a winery target locals or travelers?
Travelers. Flanagan's campaign targets the whole United States, because most people planning a Sonoma County tasting trip search from home, days or weeks before they arrive.
How much does a winery call from Google Ads cost?
From July to September 2026, Flanagan Wines paid about $44 for each call of a minute or longer from the ads.
About This Campaign
Winery tasting room marketing on Google Ads, built with our proprietary Ad Campaign Concierge™ optimization system.
Industry: Wine & Spirits (Winery Tasting Room) Platforms: Google Ads (Search) Location: Healdsburg, California (Dry Creek Valley, Sonoma County) Account Duration: August 2025 (still running today)
Leads are calls from the ads lasting 60 seconds or longer, as recorded by Google Ads for our LPA campaigns. Clicks to call, directions, website visits and other engagements are excluded. The campaign launched in late August 2025 and recorded its first calls in October 2025; the April 2026 total reflects a short pause. Totals run through September 2026 and are rounded down. All amounts are in US dollars.