How I Decreased a Businesses Cost-Per-Lead By 76.15%
Business In Case Study: Tipi Hire Business Situated In UK
Platform Used: Google Ads
Before Cost-Per-Lead: £69.40
After Cost-Per-Lead: £16.55
End Result: 76.15% Reduction In Cost-Per-Lead
How Did I Do It?
1.) Ran a Full-Scale Audit On The Ads Account
2.) Researched Competitors Aggressively
3.) Implemented The Improvements Found During Audit
How I Ran The Google Ads Audit
1.) Structure
First thing I always check with any ads account is how the account is structured.
Most of the time, the person or company beforehand has structured the account in a way that makes no logical sense and haphazardly.
It is typically hard to navigate for a professional digital marketer, let alone the business owner.
My aim when structuring an ad account, whether it be Google or Facebook, is to simplify the account so that the business owner can go into the account, make sense of it + navigate the account themselves.
Simplify the account so that the business owner can go into the account, make sense of it + navigate the account themselves.
If I can’t simplify the account to the point where the business owner I am helping can’t understand it, then I have failed because 90% of clients like to know what is going on and will dip in and out of the ad account to check up on you.
2.) Review Negative Keywords
If an advertiser came into your shop and you sold running shoes and nothing else, would you pay him or her money to advertise in his horse riding magazine that is read by horse-riders?
No.
This is the exact same scenario with negative keywords in Google ads.
I have seen businesses bidding for search terms that are unrelated to their business, product or service.
It can cost businesses £100’s and £1,000’s.
I went through the business in question and noticed search terms that were being bidded on that had no relation to tipis.
Be objective with the search terms you are bidding on.
I’ve even gone as far and cut out expenditure on search terms that are related because the budget has been limited and I’ve had to make the decision to pull the plug on them as there have been search terms with a better chance of conversion.
3.) Pin-Point Your Location(s)
This business has 4 key areas which it wanted to compete in.
When I audited the account, I noticed that it was competing across the whole of the UK.
It isn’t uncommon for this to happen.
Sure, you may get the odd individual up North, for example, who wants to hire a tipi for an event in the South but don’t bet your clients money on it.
Go with what you know.
People who live in the area or surrounding areas will typically want to hire from a company within the same vicinity.
- I broke down the ad groups by the 4 locations
- Then, I created keywords with the location in them
- Finally, I created ads with the location keyword in them also
So simple, but so overlooked.
4.) Included & Optimised Extensions
The sheer number of businesses who run ads without extensions is SHOCKING.
It’s like someone coming up to you in economy and offering you an upgrade to First Class for no extra fee and you saying:
“I’ll pass, thanks a lot though”.
I included all relevant extensions such as:
- Sitelink extensions
- Call-out extensions
- Call extensions
- Structured-snippet extensions
What are the main benefits of using extensions?
- They bulk-out your ads and give you more real-estate
- Give your potential customer more options
- Provide your potential customer a better insight into what your business does
Plus a whole lot more!
5.) Used S.K.A.G. To Structure The Account
I’m still unsure as to why businesses and marketers aren’t using this way of structuring their accounts because it works for nearly 99.99% of businesses.
What does it stand for?
Single Keyword Ad Groups.
They’re the life and soul of the party.
The way I use them is by breaking down the account into its core components and structuring the campaign → ad group → ads so that they’re super-relevant to one another.
For example, with the 4 locations, I had already broken down the ad groups into their locations and now with the ads, I included:
- Exact match keywords
- Phrase match keywords
- Broad-match modifier keywords
Into each ad group with the location keyword.
After this, I created ads that had the location keyword included.
Again, this was an account limited by budget — not for its market but in the grand scheme of budgets used by most businesses.
What are the benefits of using a S.K.A.G structure?
- The click-through rates can go through the roof
- Cost-per-click (CPC) can fall through the floor
- Cost-Per-Conversion can drop by over 50%
*All 3 of the above happened to this account.
Other Relevant Before & After Results
Conversion Rate:
Definition: people taking a desired action i.e. leads generated for the client.
Before — 1.95%
After — 18.75%
Result = 862% increase
Search Impression Share
Definition: number of impressions received divided by the number of impressions the client could have received.
Before — 26.26%
After — 86.70%
Result = 230% increase
Search Impression Share Lost
Definition: percentage of time clients ad didn’t appear because of poor ad rank.
Before — 45.24%
After — 7.98%
Result = 82.30% decrease
Search Impression Share Lost Due To Budget
Definition: percentage of time clients ad didn’t appear due to low budget.
Before — 28.40%
After — 7.98%
Result = 81.20% decrease
Conclusion
Some of the techniques above may seem simple to do and I used to think the same when I first started learning about Google ads, but they’re only simple when you know the complexity of it all.
As Leonardo Da Vinci said:
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
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