An Australian distributor of premium building products supplied high-end hotels, hospitals, and leisure centres, as well as architects, builders, and homeowners at the fixtures and fittings stage of planning a high-end home. With most products selling for around $10,000 to $20,000 each, a single sale was worth a great deal, and the distributor had been running their own Google Ads campaigns on a small monthly budget. However, click through rate (CTR), contact page views, online enquiries, and return visits from Google Ads were all very low, so they asked for a review of their Google Ads campaigns.

Summary

309% more contact page views and 184% more enquiries from Google Ads, including a large hotel group enquiry within 2 weeks.

How I helped

Before any changes were made, a lot of time was spent with the distributor learning about their products, who buys them, and why. A hotel, hospital, and homeowner might all be interested in the same product, but each has very different needs and motivations, and each is likely to respond to different ad messaging.

The previous account had just 1 campaign, 4 ad groups, and 19 keywords, all set to phrase or broad match, with no negative keywords. Even though most of the keywords were somewhat related to the distributor’s products, an estimated 65% of all clicks came from searches which had no relation whatsoever to the products or positioning, including searches for unrelated products and accessories, budget and discount products, second-hand marketplaces, and even products overseas.

For the searches which were relevant, a wide range of very different themes were being sent to the same 4 generic ad groups. In one ad group alone, over 90 different search themes were shown the same generic ad message in a single 30-day period, ranging from budget and sale searches, to competitor brands and models, exact sizes and measurements, materials and colours, installation types, and unrelated accessories. Some of these searches were relevant, some were only slightly relevant, and some were not relevant at all. However, no distinction had been made between searches with different levels of relevance and qualification, or between searchers with different needs and requirements.

To find out which searches were worth paying for, search query data was aggregated into single-word themes, allowing the performance of each theme to be assessed, rather than lost in the averages.

Part of the theme analysis, blurred to protect the client’s data.

The analysis showed huge differences between themes which had all been bundled together in the same ad groups. Some themes were generating contact page views for under $9 each, while others were costing almost $90 per contact page view, a 10x difference, and many others had never generated a contact page view at all. Using these insights, the campaigns were completely rebuilt:

• Number of campaigns increased from 1 to 32
• Number of ad groups increased from 4 to 4,403
• 90 unique search themes
• 400+ negative keywords

Searches were broken down into separate groups of words: descriptive words (such as buying, quality, and installation type), product words, and words describing the searcher’s needs (such as supplier and showroom searches, home and commercial use, specific features, accessibility needs, and 13 target locations). Each campaign covered a different combination of these word groups, with negative keywords used to funnel each search to the campaign and ad group most closely matched to it, and prevent any overlap.

Ad messages were also tailored to the key motivations behind each product line. For a product line used in healthcare, ad messages focused on practical, functional benefits, to appeal to the clinical staff who influence and make the buying decision. For product lines featured in luxury hotels and resorts, ad messages instead focused on the more emotional and aspirational side, communicating the experience of having a five-star resort at home.

Campaign results

With wasted clicks cut out, the monthly click budget was increased about 4x, and focused on the themes most likely to generate enquiries. Comparing before and after the rebuild:

• Click through rate (CTR) rose by 386%
• Clicks from Google Ads rose by 109%
• Return visits from Google Ads rose by 228%
• Google Ads rose from 26% to 43% of all website traffic
• Total website visits rose by 28%

Client results

Within 2 weeks of the new campaigns starting, the distributor received an enquiry from a large Australian hotel group, for the potential supply of 20+ units for a hotel refurbishment. The visit and enquiry were later matched in Google Analytics, confirming that the prospect came from Google Ads.

Compared to before the rebuild:

• Contact page views from Google Ads rose by 309%
• Enquiries from Google Ads rose by 184%
• Enquiry conversion rate from Google Ads rose by 36%
• Contact page view rate from Google Ads rose by 96%

Even with about 4x the monthly click spend, the cost per contact page view stayed level, as budget which had previously gone on irrelevant searches was now going to the distributor’s most relevant audiences.

The client has since launched a second business, with a new premium product for the home, and uses Google Ads to build consumer awareness from the ground up, and drive walk-ins to the showrooms of a national retail partner where the product is stocked. In the first 5 months, monthly return visits from Google Ads rose by 276%, the return visit rate rose from 6% to 16%, and almost 1 in 6 visitors from Google Ads clicked through to find out which store stocked the product.

If you sell premium building products to commercial, trade, or residential buyers, and want more quality enquiries from Google Ads, get in touch today for a free analysis and review.