A Melbourne-based niche B2B consultancy, serving clients across Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia, had been running their own Google Ads campaigns in-house. In their sector, the difference between a relevant and an irrelevant search often came down to small nuances in the search phrase, and with click costs already high, every wasted click was expensive. Each country had its own website and Google Analytics property, but tracking between Google Ads and Google Analytics had become tangled, making it difficult to see what was working in each market. Wanting more enquiries from a relatively small budget, they contacted Calculate Marketing for a review of their Google Ads campaigns.

Summary

312% more enquiries and 74% lower cost per enquiry, for a similar spend.

How I helped

Since each country had its own website and Google Analytics property, the campaigns were first separated into a dedicated Google Ads account for each country. This gave one-to-one matching between Google Ads and Google Analytics, and much cleaner tracking and reporting than the previous many-to-many setup.

The consultancy had assumed that prospects searched for their service by name, such as “[service] Melbourne”. However, keyword research using Google’s keyword data (via the Google Ads API) and Calculate Marketing’s own filtering and aggregation tools showed that, due to a lengthy research and buying cycle, the relevant keyword space was much wider. It included searches based on problems, solutions, best practices, examples, and Australian government policies. Using this research, the campaigns were completely rebuilt:

• 840 campaigns
• 7,852 ad groups
• 47,129 keywords
• 31,650 ad messages
• 206 negative keywords

Campaigns were structured and tagged so that data could be reported across 8 higher-level themes, allowing each theme to be assessed separately, while keeping the benefits of individual campaigns (separate budgets, ad extensions, bidding etc).

Previously, only a small percentage of visitors from Google Ads went on to return to the website. So over 20 remarketing audiences were built from Google Analytics data, grouping visitors by their original search theme, the types of pages they viewed, and their level of engagement and actions on the website. These audiences were then re-engaged through both display remarketing and RLSA (remarketing lists for search ads).

One of the accounts targeted a country with a different language, where the website was also in that language. Using a translator and a spreadsheet lookup template, keywords and ad messages were adapted for that language, while keeping the same targeted campaign structure as the English language campaigns.

Campaign results

Wider keyword coverage, more closely tailored ad messages, and remarketing to previous visitors led to large improvements in campaign performance. In the first 6 months, for a similar spend:

• Click through rate (CTR) rose by 408%
• Average cost per click (CPC) fell by 28%
• Clicks from Google Ads rose by 45%
• Return visits from Google Ads rose by 236%
• Return visit rate from Google Ads rose by 106%

Visitors from Google Ads were also more engaged, with average time on site up 26% and average pageviews up 21%.

Client results

Despite a relatively small budget, for a similar Google Ads spend in the first 6 months:

• Enquiries from Google Ads rose by 312%
• Enquiry conversion rate rose by 183%
• Cost per enquiry fell by 74%

Based on these results, the consultancy more than doubled its Google Ads budget, delivering 694% more enquiries per month than before the rebuild, at a 72% lower cost per enquiry. The quality of enquiries also rose, and one of the consultancy’s key services, which previously brought in almost no enquiries other than the occasional referral, saw a large uplift in enquiries, which aligned closely with the increased Google Ads activity for that service.

Enquiry volume has since dipped slightly, as search volume in the sector has fallen by about 20%. However, the quality of enquiries remains extremely high, and with deals often taking 6+ months to close and 1–2 years to fully implement, the consultancy has a busy pipeline of work ahead.

If you’re a B2B business looking to generate more quality enquiries from Google Ads, get in touch today for a free analysis and review.