Managed Services Provider – Google Search Ads Case Study
At the beginning of 2023, I got a new client, 400+ employees managed services provider based in Poland.
March 2023 – Start of the collaboration
To start, I did detailed keyword research and mapped out the Google Ads account structure.
While picking keywords I focused on specific services rather than going wide.
For example, instead of using keywords like “MSP outsourcing” I decided to focus on “AWS consulting” or “Azure MSP”.
I 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, I set up the campaigns. I initially set up 10 new campaigns. I used a new campaign for each service group and location group (EU, North America, etc.) combination. For example, one of the campaigns was focused on AWS-managed services in the US, while another was on AWS-managed services in the EU, then Azure-managed services in the US, then Azure UK, etc.
On the initial setup, I used the Max Clicks bid strategy with no cap to test the field and see what kind of CPC I’d get.
I made sure that advanced location settings are set to “Presence: People in or regularly in your targeted locations”
I disabled Google networks.
I set the language to English.
The daily budget for all campaigns combined was approximately 200$.
Since we are targeting CTOs, on the ad group level for the US and Canada I disabled the audience with a lower household income.
Initially, I didn’t set up any other optimizations.
Next, I created the ads and ad extensions.
Before hitting the enable button I fixed the conversion tracking in Google Tag Manager. I made sure there is no micro conversions tracking (website scrolls, page visits, etc.), only real conversions – contact form submitted.
1st of April – Starting the campaigns.
Usually before starting I don’t set up too many negative keywords, just obvious ones, so that I don’t waste my time figuring out what users might search for.
In the first few days, I focused on polishing out the search terms, adding negative keywords, or pausing the keywords that were attracting the audience with the wrong kind of search intent.
During the first few weeks of running ads I also regularly check Google Analytics, Clarity/HotJar, and other analytics tools to make sure everything is working fine.
For example, I 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, I felt like we were on the right track and switched the bid strategy of most of the campaigns to Max Conversions.
The reason why I didn’t go for Max Conversions from the beginning was that I 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 $900.
4 out of 5 were sales-qualified leads.
On optimization, I was just focusing on refining the keywords, making sure 90% of my search terms report are relatable search intent.
31st of May – End of second month
I didn’t change the budget. Usually, I tend to change my budget once per month so as not I don’t mess up Google’s Algorithm with too many changes.
So, with the same daily budget, I also had 5 conversions, coming to a similar CPA.
30th of June – End of the third month
Same budget. We got 8 conversions. CPA: 570$.
July
After 3 months of running ads and optimizing keywords, my keywords were in good shape.
I was quite happy with the terms in the search terms report.
I 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, I would rate them 3.6. 🙂
Since my spouse is a senior UI/UX designer 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 I 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 my client to this day.