An Australian industrial manufacturer, supplying the agricultural, construction, and hospitality industries, offered a large range of custom-made products with many genuine points of difference. However, they had found it difficult to reach the right audiences with the right messages on Google search. They also relied heavily on Performance Max, and while it generated plenty of form fills, it was unclear whether those leads were turning into sales, so they contacted Calculate Marketing for a review of their Google Ads campaigns.

Summary

112% more enquiries from Google Ads, at a 46% lower cost per enquiry.

How I helped

An analysis of the existing campaigns found that over 60% of all Google Ads search traffic the manufacturer was paying for came from irrelevant searches. In one campaign alone, over $2,600 was spent in a single month on clicks which were completely irrelevant. Much of this traffic came from searches for manuals, PDFs and installation guides, and from searches with a residential or consumer focus, since some products appeared (to Google’s algorithm at least) to cross over into the consumer market, despite the manufacturer’s focus being 100% non-consumer.

Performance Max enquiries in Google Ads were also matched against the manufacturer’s sales data, which showed that the majority were spam or low quality. Performance Max appeared to be maximising form fills, with little regard for who those leads were, whether they would turn into a sale, or what each sale might be worth.

Very often, the difference between a relevant and an irrelevant search came down to the extra words which accompanied the base search phrase. To find these words, several years of search query data were aggregated into one-, two- and three-word themes, allowing more obscure, long-tail searches with only a handful of clicks each to be grouped together for richer insights. Click through rate (CTR) was used as a proxy for themes with little conversion data, to flag any which needed further investigation, which would not have been possible by manually checking over 4,000 individual themes. Lists of more technical themes were also shared with the manufacturer, so that their own experience and expertise could help decide which themes were relevant.

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

The analysis showed huge differences between themes which had previously been bundled together in the same ad groups, and hidden in the averages. Some themes were generating enquiries for under $50, while others were costing over $1,100 per enquiry, and some had never generated an enquiry at all. Using these insights, the campaigns were completely rebuilt:

• Number of campaigns increased from 5 to 307
• Number of ad groups increased from 7 to 1,985
• Number of keywords increased from 28 to 2,736

Campaign results

Previously, 85% of all clicks went to just 5 keywords. After the rebuild, 85% of clicks were spread across 255 different keywords, each with ad messages more closely matched to the search. For non-brand searches:

• Click through rate (CTR) rose by 101%
• Average cost per click (CPC) fell by 77%
• Google Ads rose from 17% to 37% of all website traffic
• Google Ads rose from 6% to 38% of all contact page views

Comparing the first 9 months after the rebuild with the same 9 months a year earlier, for a 14% higher click spend:

• Clicks from Google Ads rose by 97%
• Average cost per click (CPC) fell by 42%
• Return visits from Google Ads rose by 102%
• Total website visits rose by 37%

Client results

Cutting out irrelevant searches, and focusing the budget on the themes which were generating real enquiries, meant that over the same 9 months:

• Enquiries from Google Ads rose by 112%
• Cost per enquiry from Google Ads fell by 46%
• Total online enquiries rose by 89%

The manufacturer has since gone through a rebrand and launched a new website, added new product lines, and changed how its products are grouped online. It has also widened its positioning to include another growing target audience, with the Google Ads campaigns adjusted to suit. Due to the strong return on investment, Google Ads click spend is now the highest it has ever been, as are leads and sales.

If you’re a manufacturer looking to cut wasted clicks and generate more quality leads from Google Ads, get in touch today for a free analysis and review.