LaptopMD PPC Campaign

Google Ads Case Study: 5 Steps to Boost Conversions by 135% While Cutting Costs 61%

Let’s start with the exact figures:

  • 77.62% growth in the total number of qualified leads, branded included
  • 135.00% rise in the total number of qualified leads, branded excluded
  • The average cost per lead reduction by 34.16%, branded included
  • The average cost per lead decreased by 54.12%, branded excluded
  • The fall in overall overage cost per click by 61.32%

This right here is a result of Lasting Trend’s, New York digital agency, work with Google AdWords case for the LaptopMD Company. These figures are absolutely possible for you too. Contact us to get a free consultation!

So, what was the key factor of this success? What exactly allowed such positive changes to happen? The answer is simple – there was no one such thing. It was a combination of many little steps, taken on the road to a profitable and perfectly working AdWords PPC marketing campaign.

One can compare this process with bodybuilding. It is hard to see any significant changes when you are monitoring your progress day by day. All the alterations seem so tiny and unimportant! However, if you compare the results on day one and the results on day 30, you will definitely see the improvements!

Summing up, a lot of little steps, taken one by one, lead to a total game-changer! We offer you this AdWords case study based on LaptopMD. Take a look at the case itself.

LaptopMD Case

This is a company whose main sphere of operation is computer and iPhone repair, and data recovery. They cover five different districts. What seems to be the problem? Location. LaptopMD is based in a highly competitive area – Midtown Manhattan. Moreover, the office is on the 12th floor, so there is no chance of attracting potential customers by putting up a flashy sign.

The company decided that the only chance for them to stand out from numerous competitors would be to launch an AdWords PPC campaign. And that is where Lasting Trend entered the game. We would like to share these 5 major changes we made to their account so you can improve your understanding of Google AdWords.

1. Launching the PPC Campaign: Сompetition Analysis, Keyword and Keyphrase Selection

The first thing we did was conducting a competition analyze in the computer and iPhone repair and data recovery market. By doing this, we have collected a lot of precious information about the rivals, which played its role later in our strategy. We put together a short-list of companies who were using Google AdWords in New York, and looked through their location, statistics, found out their URLs, assessed their landing and services pages.

Then we have made a seed list of keywords the rival companies were using with the help of SEMrush (competitive analysis tool). By doing so, we were able to specify the required keywords exactly for LaptopMD. For this Google AdWords case study, we checked all the keywords (branded and general) and decided on cost per click. All this was done so our ads would be shown for each keyword, while all the unnecessary ones were eliminated.

In this Google AdWords case, we have decided to include negative keywords in our initial campaign, as well. For instance, people often used the keyword “windows repair,” meaning real glass windows, not Windows, the operating system. We made sure that the keyword included OS modifiers, like XP, Win 8, 10, etc.

We estimated the cost of the entire advertising campaign and prepared two editions of the ad copies (with USP in the ad text) for each group. For the lead conversion calculation, we created a dedicated Wordstream conversion tracking form and used a tracking phone number on our website and landing pages.

Landing pages were reworked in a way so potential customers would want to contact a business directly. We made a decision to run the campaigns for both Google and Bing. During the next four months, we have conducted several tests to adjust our strategy for the Google AdWords case study.

2. Check the Results Regularly and Shut Down Camps with Low Returns of Ad Spend

A key to understanding Google AdWords is the acceptance of the fact that not all keywords will show excellent results. Some of them will have low click-through rates and low-quality scores. And the problem is that such poorly performing keywords can ruin your account! It is like rottenness that affects your whole account.

Surely, there are ways to fight it. For instance, one can find such irrelevant search queries and block them, or, on the contrary, focus on the terms that show top performance.

This Google AdWords case study indicates that for two to three weeks, we were doing nothing but collecting information. We needed to know what was working right for the client and what wasn’t. Because we were not tight on the budget, we managed to make all the small changes within a month, not interrupting the data collecting process for a second.

After all, we have discovered something very interesting for our Google AdWords case study: the cost per lead was the same both for PC and for Apple repair! Nevertheless, the price for the job was completely different – Apple was almost two times more expensive! At the very beginning, we have set the budget 50/50 for Apple and Windows. However, after such revelations, we adjusted it and made it 75/25.

Additionally, we got rid of some quite specific camps which had low ROAS (returns of ad spend). Their nature was suspicious to us, so we contacted the lead engineer of LaptopMD. As it turned out, these searches were done by DIY repairers, who were just trying to find helpful information for themselves but had no intention to buy anything.

Doing all that by yourself may come rather tricky if you do not have a great deal of expertise in the sphere. Fortunately, Lasting Trend has been in the market for a long time now, and possesses unique knowledge. We are ready to share it with you! Call us and get a free consultation!

3.  Try to Set Up Single Keyword Ad Groups (SKAG)

It was time to take a look at our AdWords case study campaign and optimize them. We used a SKAG – single keyword ad groups – technique. Basically, it is the camp with only one keyword. Usually, it is the one that gives you the most ROAS and profits.

We knew such keywords, so we implemented this strategy. It gave us better control of the situation and allowed us to improve the performance even more. Then we ran these campaigns for the next month and practically made no changes.

4.  If Campaigns Didn’t Bring in Any Fresh New Leads, Close Them

It is no secret for anyone that a higher click-through rate brings you more leads, sales, and traffic. What’s not so obvious but very crucial to understanding Google AdWords is that it also makes your costs significantly lower!

It is that simple: the CTR directly affects your quality score in Google. When it is high, it means your ads get better positioning for less money. That is the reason why optimizing the ad copy is so crucial.

So after we were done with our Google AdWords New York campaigns, it became clear to us that we had to shut down more than 50% of all currently running ads! Remember this PPC mantra – if there are no new leads brought by a campaign, you need to close it, period.

The decision we made was extremely effective for this Google AdWords case study. We could allocate the money from these campaigns to ones that were bringing leads. Eventually, we have almost doubled the conversion rates. And it cost nothing to the client, as it all was within the initial budget!

5. Optimize Campaigns According to the Day of the Week and the Time of Day

Once we were done with the data analyze, the following idea occurred: why don’t we make our campaigns correlate with the day of the week and the time of day? From the data we gathered, it was clear that Sundays were completely unprofitable, even though LaptopMD was open on Sundays. Their CFO agreed with us on the matter as we all came to the conclusion that the company was actually losing money by working on Sundays!

Hour of the day was also affecting the performance. Approximately 70% of the budget was spent from 8:00 am to 8:00 pm, as during that period, the conversion rate was the highest. However, the owner of LaptopMD didn’t want to shut down the night camps, because that is what his competitors were doing. By keeping our campaigns active round the clock, he was hoping to stand out from the crowd. That was his strict position, even despite it could cost him about 30% of the Google AdWords budget.

We managed to find a win-win solution. We used negative vid adjustments for late hours, so the camps were active, but the CPC was significantly lower. At Lasting Trend, we are always listening to our clients and ready to work with your ideas. We won’t just ignore it because you lack knowledge in this sphere. To run a successful Google AdWords campaign in New York, you have to be open to every idea. That’s what makes us different.

The outcome

Let’s sum up our actions and the results of this thoroughly planned Google AdWords campaign for LaptopMD. It all took just four months:

  • 77.62% growth in the total number of qualified leads, branded included
  • 135.00% rise in the total number of qualified leads, branded excluded
  • The average cost per lead reduction by 34.16%, branded included
  • The average cost per lead decreased by 54.12%, branded excluded
  • The discovery of the fact that Apple computers are much more profitable though they have the same lead costs as Windows.
  • Understanding that Sunday are not profitable for business
  • We provided a cost-effective, mutually beneficial solution to owners’ will to run campaigns at night.
  • We managed to get negative keywords to work for us.

Conclusion

This is of the many Google Ads examples we can provide you with. Take any of these actions we did separately, and you will see no result. But a combination of them all will totally change your PPC game. The most complicated part of all this is to stick to the plan and continue doing quite a monotonous job. We hope this Google AdWords case study was helpful for you. However, if you still feel unsure, Lasting Trend can easily take this weight off your shoulders. We will set up, monitor, and adjust your Google AdWords campaigns. Give us a call and get a free consultation!

Lasting Trend