SF's #1 Dog Trainer Had the Reputation. We Built the Engine.
A full-service partnership covering brand, website, paid media, SEO, GEO, and video - engineered for a market most agencies misunderstand.
4,000+
Dogs trained
4.9★
Rating · 1,000+ reviews
#1
Rated trainer in SF
13+
Pages built & live
Client Snapshot
PrimePaw is a science-based, positive-reinforcement dog training center in San Francisco's Mission District. Founded by James Baybayan, the team is CPDT-KA certified, partnered with the SF/SPCA, and specializes in the critical 8-18 week puppy development window - the period that determines whether a dog grows into a confident adult or a reactive one.
The brand sits on real substance: 4,000+ dogs trained, a 4.9-star average across more than 1,000 Google reviews, and the highest local rating in San Francisco. The work for Green Pants Studio wasn't to build credibility - it was to translate existing credibility into a marketing system that could compound.
Business
PrimePaw Dog Training
Location
243 Alabama St, San Francisco, CA 94103
Founder / CEO
James Baybayan
Engagement
Agency of record - full-service
Channels
Brand · Web · Google Ads · Meta · SEO · GEO · Video
Status
Active, ongoing partnership
The Challenge
The strongest reputation in the category. Almost no infrastructure to capitalize on it.
No cohesive brand system
There were no design guidelines, no defined color hierarchy, no typography rules, and no UI component library. Every touchpoint - site, ads, social - looked like it came from a different company.
A website that didn't convert
The original site presented services but didn't lead anyone toward a booking. No clear funnel, no consultation flow, no per-service landing pages, no structured trust signals.
Zero paid acquisition
The business ran almost entirely on word-of-mouth and SF/SPCA referrals. No Google Ads, no Meta campaigns, no conversion tracking, no remarketing - meaning no way to capture demand from people actively searching.
Invisible to AI search
A baseline GEO audit returned a composite score of 33/100 - "Poor" across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, and Bing Copilot. Despite being SF's top-rated trainer, PrimePaw barely existed in AI-generated answers.
A reputation going underused
1,000+ five-star reviews, an SF/SPCA partnership, CPDT-KA certifications - none of it embedded into the marketing in a way that influenced conversion.
The Strategic Insight
“San Francisco isn't a high-volume market. It's a low-volume, high-intent one. The agencies that fail here apply national playbooks to a market that doesn't reward them.”
When we ran the keyword research, the numbers were sobering: many of the most relevant local terms (“dog trainer San Francisco”, “puppy training near me”) were producing roughly 10 monthly searches. Reactive-dog and off-leash-adventure terms had almost none.
This shaped every downstream decision:
- Geographic radius expanded to 25 miles to surface enough qualified intent
- Broad match prioritized over phrase match - phrase match was strangling impressions
- Niche-service campaigns cancelled in favor of sitelinks under primary campaigns
- Quality Score and ad rank treated as the primary lever, not budget
Spending more wouldn't have moved the needle. Understanding the market structure did.
The Approach
A five-pillar system, built in sequence.
Each piece reinforcing the next.
Brand: Authority over playfulness
Early concepts leaned cartoonish and orange-heavy - undermining the science-based positioning. We rebuilt around Deep Navy (#1A2B3C) for authority, Orange (#F25900) reserved exclusively for CTAs and prices, Teal (#00CDC2) for badges, and Yellow (#FFC72C) for ratings.
- Complete design system: color, typography, hierarchy, voice
- Component library and UI tokens
- Print-ready creative templates
Website: A funnel, not a brochure
A complete site rebuild on WordPress + Elementor, structured around a clear conversion path. Service-specific landing pages - not the homepage - became the primary destinations for paid traffic.
- 13+ service-specific landing pages with embedded contact forms
- Booking page with Calendly integration + thank-you page
- Photo gallery / Moments page with infinite scroll
- Testimonial slider powered by real Google reviews
- Full GTM + Google Analytics deployment
Paid Media: Engineered for a thin market
Three active Google Ads campaigns using broad match within a 25-mile radius, plus multi-angle Meta Traffic campaigns across urgency, emotional support, and social proof.
- Campaign 1: Puppy Training (8-18 week development window)
- Campaign 2: Group Classes & Reactivity
- Campaign 3: Doggy Daycare SF
- Meta: urgency, emotional, and social proof angles
- Full conversion tracking across every campaign and page
SEO + GEO: Built for both Google and AI
A complete homepage SEO package plus a three-phase GEO improvement plan - from quick-win schema additions to long-term authority signals.
- Production-ready SEO package: title tags, meta, H1-H3 structure
- LocalBusiness + Organization + FAQ JSON-LD schema
- 5-platform GEO audit (33/100 baseline)
- 3-phase GEO improvement roadmap, actively executing
Video & Creative
Production-ready briefs and scripts across formats. Real footage anchors hero moments; AI-generated clips are used for b-roll only. Production polish has to match the brand's clinical credibility.
- 45-second AI-generated ad concept (6 x 8s clips)
- 10 Facebook video ad scripts across hooks, angles, CTAs
- Standardized YouTube editing briefs
- Music-only text-overlay format for social distribution
Results
Before & After
Before Green Pants
Brand system
None - inconsistent across every touchpoint
Website
Brochure structure, no funnel
Paid acquisition
None
Conversion tracking
None
AI search visibility
"Poor" composite (33/100) across all 5 platforms
Use of social proof
1,000+ reviews going underused
After Green Pants
Brand system
Complete navy-led design system, single source of truth
Website
13+ landing pages with booking flow, gallery, testimonials
Paid acquisition
3 active Google campaigns + multi-angle Meta, fully tracked
Conversion tracking
GTM + GA4 across every page and campaign
AI search visibility
3-phase GEO roadmap actively executing across all 5 platforms
Use of social proof
4.9★ embedded across every marketing touchpoint
Performance
This is a live, ongoing engagement. CPL, ROAS, consultation booking rate, and AI-citation lift are tracked continuously through Google Analytics, the ad platform dashboards, and our GEO monitoring stack.
Live performance data is shared directly with prospective clients on request.
What PrimePaw's Community Says
This is the brand equity Green Pants Studio was handed on day one. Our work makes sure it reaches every San Francisco dog owner who's searching for it - on Google, on social, and increasingly, in AI-generated responses.
“Puppy preschool was the best decision. Our puppy learned basic commands and the Google Classroom resources were extremely helpful for training at home.”
Caity Ferdinando
Puppy Preschool
“This was our first puppy and we were very anxious. Once we found PrimePaw our anxiety melted away. We felt supported throughout the entire process.”
Lejla Delic
Puppy Program
“Off-leash adventures dramatically improved recall and our dog gets very excited to go each morning. We've worked with PrimePaw for several years.”
Cara Kandangath
Multi-Year Client
Key Takeaways
What this project taught us.
Market-specific strategy beats generic playbooks.
SF's dog training search volume is a fraction of what national agencies assume. The agencies that fail in this market apply big-city volume strategies to one that doesn't support them. Recognizing the structural constraint is what made the entire ad strategy viable.
GEO is the most underestimated channel in local marketing.
Most local businesses have no idea whether they show up in AI-generated answers. PrimePaw - the highest-rated trainer in San Francisco - scored "Poor" across every AI platform we tested. Auditing this before competitors do is a genuine, durable advantage.
Real partnerships don't end at launch.
A website and a campaign deck are starting points, not deliverables. The compounding work - optimization, iteration, adapting to what the data actually shows - is where the results actually get built.
Interested in working together?
Green Pants Studio is PrimePaw's exclusive marketing partner, handling brand, website, paid advertising, and digital strategy.
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