Nobody likes a clog.
For nearly four decades, one of Foremost Media’s clients (they asked to remain anonymous) has prided themselves on formulating and providing 100% natural biological products that keep things like septic tanks and wastewater treatment products running clear and smooth.
When it comes to pay-per-click (PPC) marketing, however, the company spent years running amok and needed to be unclogged.
Through the first five months of 2021, their PPC campaigns are running smoothly, including a 55% jump in return on their advertising spend (ROAS) and an increase in overall revenue despite a 37.5% drop in money spent on PPC.
Building Trust in PPC Campaigns
From carefully selecting quality keywords and crafting solid campaigns to managing a budget and tracking results and progress in order to optimize the process, a lot goes into a PPC campaign.
When you are a business owner, putting all that in the hands of someone else requires a great deal of trust. And in the case of this septic/wastewater treatment business owner, the fact that they, themselves, were knowledgeable in PPC presented a bit of a tug of war from 2014-2020.
During that time, the business owner went back and forth between managing their own PPC campaigns and utilizing an agency to run them, and the results often mirrored that inconsistency.
In September 2020, Foremost Media hired a new Digital Marketing Specialist that brought with him expertise in PPC campaigns. Soon, the mission to gain the trust of the client began with a thorough review and analysis of campaign performance.
The client slowly began rolling out some of the recommendations, and Foremost extensively tracked PPC data—including total ad clicks, ad costs (Cost), click through rates (CTR), cost per click (CPC) and cost per conversion (CPL). This data was charted on a daily, weekly and monthly basis and further broken down to understand success rate based on specific days of the week and by device (desktop, mobile, tablet).
Based on that data, Foremost put together an extensive list of PPC recommendations for the client to begin 2021. The recommendations were laid out to organize the client’s campaigns and to optimize them. Those optimization ideas included but were not limited to: properly setting bids based on keywords; correctly formatting and expanding ad text and extensions; and honing in on targets based specifically on their location and device.
Seeing PPC results
The first five months of 2021 included increased success as the client put their PPC campaigns fully in the hands of Foremost Media.
The boost in total revenue generated for the company through PPC might not leap off the page (up 1.5%), but any increase is notable given the cost to get there has plummeted. Compared year-over-year to January-May of 2020, the client decreased its advertising spending 37.5%.
The optimization of the keywords and campaigns has been critical. The clients’ ads actually saw 70% fewer total clicks in 2021 compared to 2020. But the fact that sales revenue improved shows that the ads have been more effective at reaching target customers. Those customers delivered a healthy 55% growth in Retun On Ad Spend (ROAS) and a 35% decrease in cost per lead. Instead of losing $0.08 for every dollar spent on advertising, the client is now generating $0.43 for every dollar.
The work continues. Maintaining successful PPC campaigns is an ongoing process. But having a client that invested in the process and willing to build trust and an expert on the marketing team to build that relationship has proven to be a successful match that has this PPC pipeline running smoother than ever before.
Check out our Case Studies page to read the full version of this study.