Overview

A longstanding solar company on the east coast was struggling to find the time and human resources to manage their Google Ads in a cost effective way. Additionally, miscommunication between stakeholders about day-to-day account oversight led to delayed review and implementation. As a result, the company’s account performance suffered greatly, hovering at a 3.3% percent conversion rate and sky-high cost per lead of nearly $400.

Goal

This client had already partnered with Doukas Media for other digital marketing initiatives, so it was easy for them to imagine and trust the potential for improvement on this channel as well. They enlisted the team’s help to reinvigorate the ad creative, optimize campaigns, and eliminate wasteful spend on their PPC efforts through Google Ads. Time was of the essence to recover lost revenue!

The Solution

After assessing the Google Ads account, the Doukas Media team uncovered three key areas of opportunity: keyword strategy, content optimization, and ongoing account management.

Keyword Structure

The former keyword structure (few ad groups with a massive number of keywords used for each) was unfortunately pulling in an overwhelming percentage of unqualified clicks, which was inflating the cost per lead and leading to the less-than-stellar conversion rate. To rectify the situation, our team got to work:

• segmenting ad groups so that each ad group had a smaller, and more specific, set of keywords attached to it;

• updating “broad match” keywords to “phrase match” and “exact match” so that the keywords triggering each ad were better defined and more relevant; and

• building a robust list of negative keywords to avoid spending on extraneous clicks.

Content Optimization

From a content perspective, the previous versions of the PPC ads did not utilize all of the extensions and resources available to optimize qualified traffic. After identifying the missing components, the team collaborated with the client to fill the holes:

• refreshing ad copy, specifically headlines and descriptions, to better reflect the keyword strategy and desired audience;

• building out a full catalog of ad extensions including callout text and site links, and formatting the ad components with easier-to-maintain structured data;

• correcting the tracking mechanisms on phone call and contact forms to more accurately measure Google Ads performance; and

• optimizing the landing page for these PPC ads to improve its quality score by adding more calls to action for conversion rate improvement and including compelling images and social proof (testimonials, reviews, and social media links) for better trust and page engagement.

Ongoing Management

As with any form of digital marketing, once your campaigns are created, you can’t simply “set it and forget it.” One of the biggest challenges for this client was finding the time to regularly manage their Google Ads campaigns, so the Doukas Media team took this into consideration when creating their overall account strategy.

To keep this partnership, and the ad performance, healthy, an effort was made to ensure consistent time on the calendar for campaign review and refreshment.

• An initial competitor audit was completed to identify additional keyword opportunities for each ad campaign, with the note made that regular revaluation is critical due to the fluid nature of digital advertising platforms.

• The team reviewed the search terms report daily and weekly to establish the health of the ads, and has stayed committed to scheduled review periods to avoid any future performance dips.

The Results

After implementing this series of strategic and creative updates to the client’s Google Ads campaigns, and staying open to regular account management, performance swiftly improved.

• The account saw an astounding 76% decrease in cost per lead, and a conversion rate that quadrupled from 3.3% to 12.9%.

• Impression share increased from a mere 17% to 83%, signaling industry dominance.

• Thanks to more relevant keywords and content optimization, cost per click (CPC) decreased by 14%.

Whether your Google Ad campaigns aren’t performing as expected, or if you’re simply eager to explore how you can improve your PPC results, the Doukas Media team would be happy to help you evaluate your PPC efforts and collaboratively develop a strategy that achieves your goals.