The third installment in our Merchant Spotlight series, where we look at before-and-after results of local search campaigns.
THE MERCHANT: A residential fencing company in Richmond, Virginia.
THE SERVICES: Fence design, installation and repair for homes in and around Richmond in a variety of styles and materials, including wood, aluminum, vinyl and chain link.
THE PROBLEM: Too much money for too few calls. “Before we started working with this advertiser, the business was spending more than $1,500 per month on search ads and not even getting a dozen calls,” says MatchCraft campaign manager Justin Brooks. The fencing company was also seeing close to 150 clicks per month, but the cost per click was high for the category (more than $10), and the cost per lead topped $135.
THE SOLUTION: When the fencing company’s campaign came to MatchCraft, “everything was very generic,” says Brooks. He started by building separate ad groups for the different kinds of fencing the company offers, with specific keywords and ad copy for each category. MatchCraft also suggested that the merchant update its website with different sections for each fence type: aluminum, wood, chain link, vinyl, etc. “We were able to link the merchant’s ads to more relevant landing pages, which brought up their quality scores,” Brooks explains.
THE RESULTS: The fencing company moved its campaign to MatchCraft’s AdVantage platform in August 2014. Within three months, the fencing company was getting double the number of calls at less than half the cost per call. And the numbers have continued to improve. While seasonality may play a factor (search volume on fence repair and replacement picks up once the ground starts to thaw), the changes Brooks made, combined with MatchCraft’s automated bidding and pacing algorithms, have had a lasting effect. In March 2015, the business got 329 clicks and 48 calls at a CPC of $3.43 and CPL of $23.51. “With a few smart optimizations, we’ve been able to lower this advertiser’s cost per lead 82.9%,” notes Brooks.