Case Study: Using a Data-Led Approach to Increase Leads & Reduce Google Ad Spend
Overview
With this client, who wishes to remain anonymous, we used a data-led approach and leveraged a third-party analytics platform to help them increase leads and sales from their Google Ads campaigns. We were also able to reduce spend and achieve a record-breaking month for performance!
Since December 2022, we’ve seen the following results:
- A 10% year-on-year (YoY) increase in leads (January to May 2023 compared to January to May 2022)
- A significant 67.5% YoY reduction in Google Ads spend across January and February 2023
- March 2023 was a record-breaking month for lead volumes
Read on to find out exactly how we achieved these results or get in touch with us here to find out how we can help you with our digital marketing services.
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Background
We’ve been working with this online training course provider for over 2 years, providing a range of digital marketing services, including Paid Media.
The business offers a wide range of online training courses, focusing on healthcare, social care, and education. Their goal is to reduce inequalities in training, compliance and education through vocational certification.
The Problem
Our client’s sales happen offline, once a salesperson has spoken to the lead and secured their business and there wasn’t a method in place to send this data to Google Ads.
This meant that we weren’t able to identify the campaigns, keywords and courses that generated the types of leads that would convert into sales. It made it difficult to assess Google Ads’ performance and therefore allocate the monthly £21,000 budget to the effective campaign elements.
As a result, we knew that some budget was likely being wasted, but we didn’t have a means of identifying the cause. It also prevented us from upgrading our bidding strategy from ‘manual CPC’ to ‘smart bidding’ which uses machine learning to optimise for conversions and better identify who should be targeted, when they should be targeted and how much should be spent on targeting.
Our Solution
We onboarded Ruler Analytics, a platform that automatically ties revenue back to your campaigns and channels via marketing attribution.
It allowed us to identify the campaign and keyword, etc. that generated a lead and sale by connecting web tracking with CRM sales data. This resolved the disconnect between marketing and sales, allowing us to see sales and revenue in Google Ads for the first time. This enabled us to:
- Reduce spend on, or pause, underperforming campaigns and keywords.
- Allocate more budget to the campaigns and courses driving the most conversions.
- Confidently switch from an outdated ‘manual CPC’ bidding strategy to an automated ‘smart bidding’ one.
The Results
- A record-breaking month for the number of leads in March 2023
- A 10% increase in leads YoY (January to May 2023 compared to previous period)
- A significant YoY reduction in Google Ads spend of 67.5% in January and February 2023
The client was thrilled about our ability to slash media spending significantly while maintaining excellent results. What made the achievement even more satisfying was generating the highest number of monthly leads in the company’s three-year history.
The Future
We continue to build on this growth as we develop the campaigns and Paid Media strategy in 2023. This increased level of data from Ruler Analytics has allowed us to identify further budget-saving opportunities and areas for growth including:
- Implementing Smart Bidding
- The use of Broad match keywords
- Using a Target CPA bidding strategy
- Exploring Paid Social ads
Contact Us
If you’re looking for support with your Paid Media efforts, please leave us a message via the form below. We’d love to help!