IT Services Company – Google Search Ads Case Study
At the beginning of 2023, we got a new client, 400+ employees IT services company based in Poland.
March 2023 – Start of the collaboration
To start, we did detailed keyword research and mapped out the Google Ads account structure.
While picking keywords we focused on specific services rather than going wide.
For example, instead of using keywords like “DevOps outsourcing” we decided to focus on “Azure Consulting” or “Azure Partner”.
We grouped keywords into ad groups by theme, aka STAG – Single Theme Ad Groups. This approach helped me make clear boundaries between different services which resulted in more relevancy between search queries, ad copy, and landing page copy.
Campaigns Setup
Next, we set up the campaigns. We initially set up 10 new campaigns. We used a new campaign for each service group and location group (EU, North America, etc.) combination.
For example, one of the campaigns focused on Azure consulting services in the US.
While another focused on Azure consulting services in the EU.
Then AWS consulting services in the US, then AWS UK, etc.
On the initial setup, we used the Max Clicks bid strategy with no cap to test the field and see what kind of CPC I’d get.
We made sure all the initial optimizations were applied:
- Location settings are set to “Presence: People in or regularly in your targeted locations”.
- Disabled Google networks.
- The language is set to English.
- Since we are targeting CTOs, on the ad group level for the US and Canada we disabled the audience with a lower household income.
That’s it, initially, we didn’t set up any other optimizations.
The daily budget for all campaigns combined was approximately 200$.
Next, we created the ads and ad extensions.
Before hitting the enable button we fixed the conversion tracking in Google Tag Manager.
We made sure there was no micro conversions tracking (website scrolls, page visits, etc.), only real conversions – contact form submitted.
1st of April – Starting the campaigns.
Usually before starting we don’t set up too many negative keywords, just obvious ones, so that we don’t waste our time figuring out what users might search for.
In the first few days, we focused on polishing out the search terms and building up extensive negative keyword lists, or pausing the keywords that were attracting the audience with the wrong kind of search intent.
During the first few weeks of running ads we also regularly check Google Analytics, Clarity/HotJar, and other analytics tools to make sure everything is working fine.
For example, we want to be 100% sure that UTMs are set up properly and that ads are linking to the appropriate landing pages and stuff like this.
Results
First conversions
In the second week of running the campaigns we already got 2 conversions.
After that, we felt like we were on the right track and switched the bid strategy of most of the campaigns to Max Conversions.
The reason why we didn’t go for Max Conversions from the beginning was that we wanted to give Google Algorithm some knowledge about conversion before going for Max Conversions.
30th of April – End of first month
We received a total of 5 conversions.
The CPA was around $900.
4 out of 5 were sales-qualified leads.
On optimization, we were just focusing on refining the keywords, making sure 90% of my search terms report are relatable search intent.
31st of May – End of second month
We didn’t change the budget. Usually, we tend to change our budget once per month so as not we don’t stir up Google’s Algorithm by making too many changes.
So, with the same daily budget, we also had 5 conversions, coming to a similar CPA.
30th of June – End of the third month
Same budget. We got 8 conversions. CPA: 570$.
July
After 3 months of running ads and optimizing keywords, my keywords were in good shape.
We were quite happy with the terms in the search terms report.
We refined ads and set up different options.
6 conversions. Cost per conversion 700$.
End of July and August – Conversion rate optimization
The client’s landing pages were not great, not terrible, we would rate them 3.6. 🙂
Next, we focused on conversion rate optimization.
We were able to identify a lot of places for improvements.
We created new landing pages and directed traffic to them.
We didn’t do A/B testing because improvements were quite obvious.
In August we created a few new campaigns and created a great guide to use as a lead magnet and it worked well.
We raised the daily budget to $250.
We received a total of 10 conversions.
CPA: $550.
First Sale
At this point, we had 2 hot leads at the end of the pipeline that were very close to closing.
At the beginning of September one deal finally closed, resulting in awesome ROI. The deal value was $60,000 a year. At this point, our ad spent was at $ 30,000.
Next steps – September
Since we published new landing pages in the second half of August I’ll let the ads run with minor optimizations in September to see the impact of the new landing pages.
Then I’m going to create experiments and I’ll test out if we can lower the cost per conversion with Manual CPC.
End of the year
By the end of the year, the sales team was able to close 2 new deals that came from Google Ads. Resulting in two yearly contracts. On top of that their pipeline was filled with potential customers.
The company is our client to this day.