Advertising reinforced concrete products - 2500 leads per month from search ads
We'd like to describe working with one of the best clients and present it as an excellent example of trust between agency and client, resulting in real synergy.
Developing landing pages and setting up call tracking
The task: Present the full list of products with prices and photos on a 1 page adaptive site with 3000 products. Allow editing of products and prices. To track the effectiveness of the advertising by connecting the CRM to the site.
The client started a new business in 2018. It sells concrete products with delivery within Ukraine. They decided to abandon cold calling and focus on advertising on the internet, as even in such a conservative business niche everything is online.
A landing page was required. We gathered company information with the client, created a story, USP, packed the offer into 8 website blocks and launched search advertising.
We sent a team to film in the factory using a quadrocopter, as we wanted to stand out. We created a video sequence of flying over the factory at high altitude. We uploaded the whole of the video clip to the YouTube channel. Rendered the products. Made gif animations to show the products from all sides. Put all the product names into categories, put everything into spreadsheets on Google Docs for easy to use and edit. Set up how to sell the LPs. Set up the GTM and all the targets on the web site. Linked CRM and IP telephony.
We decided to keep the standard structure of the site to give users confidence and comfort. However, we kept the parallax and video feature on the main page.
From the very first days, the landing page started to convert more than 4% of visits into leads. But we also added call tracking, chat and callback forms. Together, these have resulted in a conversion rate of almost 10% visits to leads!
Ad campaigns setup
The next step was the creation of advertising campaigns. We prepared the keyword list by product category. To do this, we asked for an up-to-date and complete price list for all the products. We took the SKUs and based on that, we created ad groups for the shopping campaigns by SKU and product title.
From there, we took the categories and then, using the Google keyword planner, we manually collected all the possible search queries for each category and put them all into a campaign with ad groups of keywords in the exact match type. In this way, we collected 8215 exact match keywords, all of which do not have the low search volume, i.e. they are collecting impressions and traffic. We achieved this by
- Using Google Keyword Planner to manually collect searches;
- Analysing the search queries report and adding keywords from there;
- Translating all the keywords into the Ukrainian language and adding them to the ad account;
- Iterating all keyword variations using our proprietary script and deleting low volume keywords.
After the launch of the advertising campaigns, we are waiting for the right statistics to be collected in order to be able to switch to the Google smart strategies with a target cost per conversion or target ROAS. When we successfully switched to these strategies and there was not much use in analysing the keyword report as all the main keywords were already added, including negative keywords (it took us 3 months), we decided to add ad groups with phrase match keywords. Immediately there was more work, daily analysis of search terms, addition of new keywords and negative keywords. However, without increasing the CPL, we significantly increased the semantic core and increased visits by 30%.
The next step was the creation of audiences for banner campaigns. We created the following audiences
- Product category remarketing in the context of ad groups;
- People who have entered the search terms that are active in our ad account;
- People who have visited websites containing the keyword(s) added to our advertising account;
- People who have visited competing sites;
- Several from the Google list of target groups.
In addition to the banner campaigns with manual targeting, we have also launched a smart banner campaign. We have also launched Discovery banner campaigns with similar targeting. A lot of work has been done, but to be honest, our media campaigns have not been working very well, no matter how hard we have tried. So, ultimately, only one intelligent banner campaign remains active. It has learnt on the basis of conversions, it is a low cost lead generator, but the volume is not great in comparison to search campaigns.
Also, on the advice of the Google manager, we have started a smart search campaign, but when we analysed the search report from it, we have once again made sure that we have all of them as keywords in the standard search campaigns.
When the client decided to increase the size of the sales department due to the increased number of leads from advertising, we were faced with the task of further increasing the volume of leads, but at the same time not increasing the bids and CPL, but increasing the coverage. We took a chance and added groups of keywords in the broadest (no modifier) match type (just before the broad modifier disappeared a couple of months ago). To be honest, we rarely do this, but in this particular case, we had excellent stats, lots of conversions, and we were moving to a data-driven attribution model. So we had a perfectly configured ad account and campaigns.
So we took a risk and we added all the keywords and all the groups in the broad match type. Immediately, we started preparing for the spam to come, despite the automated CPA campaigns being set up. But, to be honest, it wasn't all that scary. Yes, some irrelevant searches appeared, but even on the first day after the launch, our efficiency didn't drop much due to the excellent work of other groups. We also added all cross-negative keywords:
- All exact match keywords from the active account were added to ad groups with phrase match keywords;
- All phrase match words from an active ad account were added to broad match ad groups.
We also had a long running dynamic search ad, which added all new keywords and negative keywords beforehand.
As a result
As a result of all of the above, we have doubled the volume of leads while keeping the cost per lead at the same level.
At a certain stage of the analysis, together with the client, we discovered that leads from the east of Ukraine were easier to convert into sales than leads from the west.
Initially, we decided to fix this by using bid modifiers at geo-targeting levels (regions), but modifiers don't work with automated strategies, so we had to split & duplicate the campaigns in search. The campaign for the east was left in the running campaign for efficiency reasons and a new campaign started for the west of Ukraine. We were very concerned about how the new campaign would learn and gain conversions, but everything went relatively smoothly due to the high conversion rate of the landing page, and after 7-10 days the campaign was performing no worse than when it was part of a large overall search campaign aimed at the whole of Ukraine.
1050 leads
890 calls
$2 cost per lead
50000+
keywords
In general, the outcome of the co-operation was as follows:
We decided to launch an e-commerce shop together with the client to further increase the volume of leads and get on all the advertising spaces in search.
We have uploaded the most important types of products to the online shop, on each product page you can select the products of the size you want and place an order. If you wish, you can pay immediately, but since the product is oversized, it is best to clarify all the delivery details during a phone call with the sales manager and then choose a convenient payment method and delivery option.
Now that winter and the holidays have arrived, the demand for building materials has decreased, but we are sure that in April, at the peak of the season, we will reach new records and increase the volume of leads to 3000 per month, again without increasing the cost per lead, as we have managed to do before.
Conclusions & summary
Always start advertising with keywords that are exact matches, so you can properly train your account(s), collect conversion data, and build an image of your target audience for both you and Google's automated strategies.
Add new keywords and negative keywords by analysing the keyword report. Yes, it's a routine and time-consuming process, but it can be very rewarding in the first few months or when you are launching new ad groups and campaigns. At the same time, try to add negative words in the broad match type, not the entire search term, but a specific keyword that is repeated in similar other search terms. We often see a picture where other agencies or PPC managers simply copy and paste a list of specific keywords from the keyword report and it turns out that they have added 100 similar keywords instead of excluding them all with a common negative word.
Try launching phrase or broad match keywords if you are not afraid, but only after you have already effectively configured exact match campaigns. Our recommendation is to add new types of keywords in separate groups, with adding cross negative keyword list, in the same running campaign and not to launch new campaigns and retrain them.
Display campaigns are great, but they are not suitable for all clients. In the case of reinforced concrete, the number of people who are intrigued by your creativity, and who then go on to the website, is tiny.
