SEO + Content Case Study

Google Ads strategy cuts wasteful ad spend 44%

Paid Media strategy remedied issues from a Google-created Ads account, eliminating thousands in wasteful ad expenditures and increasing qualified leads over a six-month period.

Results

  • 100%

    increase in conversions

  • 44%

    reduction in ad spend

The Client

StandFast TRAM produces fall protection equipment and railing systems for trucks, tankers, cranes and other high-risk industrial equipment. They came to Digital Third Coast looking for assistance with their Paid Media strategy.

They had been using a Google-created Google Ads account to run paid advertisements for about two years, but felt they weren’t seeing adequate results given their ad spend.

The Objective

The primary objective was to help StandFast TRAM get more bang for their buck. We needed to start from scratch and implement sweeping, account-level changes to better define and track their conversions and make strategic advertising decisions based on data.

Our ultimate goals were to generate more qualified leads, place their ads in front of curated audiences, and eliminate wasteful ad spend.

“The value of Digital Third Coast’s lead is astronomically better; we’re converting at a much higher clip than we were before. The numbers are consistent month over month”

Ted O’Brien, Owner & President
StandFast TRAM


Paid Media Strategy

Remedy the problems of a Google-created account

  •  

    The Problem

  • By opting for a Google-created Google Ads account, the client relied on the platform’s automated conversion tracking to establish and define their conversions. Given their large PPC budget, they were spending money for a high volume of conversions which, at first glance, seemed like positive metrics. However, fewer than 1% of those conversions were meaningful.

  •  

    The Solution

  • To remedy the high conversion fallacy, we needed to clearly define conversions that were meaningful to StandFast TRAM’s business, and then set up appropriate tracking to closely monitor those conversions.

  •  

    Why it Works

  • One of the issues with Google-created accounts is that they use automation to dictate a company’s paid ad strategy. This can prove problematic, as it did for StandFast TRAM, when the conversions are ill-defined or irrelevant to a company’s business goals.

    On the surface Google-created accounts can look like they’re performing well and producing a high volume of conversions. But in reality, those conversions won’t translate to sales if they’re poorly defined. In this case, the account was essentially set up to spend a lot of money for clicks, but not assure that those clicks generated real leads.

Strengthen negative keyword strategy to better target qualified audiences.

  •  

    The Problem

  • The account was set up to target a wide audience by bidding on a broad range of keywords. In doing so, they spent a lot of money serving a high volume of ads which failed to reach qualified potential customers.

    For example, we found that broad keywords targeting prevention of industrial truck falls were serving ads to irrelevant queries for Niagara Falls and other waterfalls.

  •  

    The Solution

  • We created a comprehensive negative keywords list to avoid serving ads to unqualified customers, and in turn, eliminated wasteful ad expenditures. We further narrowed their bidding strategy to better target audiences inclined to convert using phrases like “tanker truck safety” etc.

  •  

    Why it Matters

  • When a company relies on the automated account created by Google, there isn’t always nuanced audience targeting. As a result, businesses can spend much more than they need to because Google serves their ads to unnecessarily broad and unqualified audiences based on generalized keywords. The more focused a keyword strategy, and the more comprehensive a negative keywords strategy, the better targeted and effective a campaign will be.

“I’m very impressed with their knowledge of effective business tools. Additionally, as an entrepreneur myself, I respect that they’re a small business and understand what it’s like to be in our shoes. That reliability is big for me.”

Ted O’Brien, Owner & President
StandFast TRAM




During Q1 and Q2 we implemented account-level changes to track and monitor conversions. During Q3 and Q4 we watched the negative keyword strategy and nuanced audience targeting do its magic, increasing meaningful conversions by 100%.

44%

reduction in ad spend, year-over-year.

Prior to our engagement, StandFast TRAM was spending a lot of money on paid ads that weren’t generating leads. By better targeting their customers and better defining and tracking conversions we were able to serve advertisements to the right audiences and dramatically reduce their ad spend without sacrificing business.

Another key component in this strategy was awareness building. At the start of our engagement, the top sites for their display ads were irrelevant to their niche business focus.

Our paid media analysts remedied the automation of the Google-created account and excluded their ads from all mobile app traffic. We also reduced their ad spend on image advertisements, which are more expensive, by retargeting image ads only to users who visited their website and indicated an interest in their products.

This strategy, combined with keyword targeting, optimized their paid media budget and focused paid efforts only on the most qualified of digital audiences.

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Lyndsey Maddox

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