Are you a new eCommerce business learning how to stake your claim on the market? Then read on, and you’ll find applicable tips in this case study that can bring you to the forefront of the competition and increase revenue.
For this case study, we are focusing on Good Work Republic*, a company that was fresh in the competitive eCommerce market when they first came to us.
Good Work Republic’s revenue has been increased in seven months by 399% while working with Search Scientists. How did we make it happen?
*The client’s name has been changed to protect their business strategies.
About the client
Industry
eCommerce (office furniture)
Services
Advertising platforms
- Google Ads: Search, Display, and Shopping Campaigns
- Bing Ads: Search and Display
- Facebook Ads
THE INITIAL AUDIT
Looking through Good Work Republic’s advertising account, we were able to pinpoint immediate areas for improvement.
The issues found on their particular account were not unique. You’ve heard us talking about these issues before – it is common for companies to make similar PPC mistakes with keyword control, conversion rate optimization, and retargeting.
Utilizing a range of PPC techniques along with consistent communication and insight from Good Work Republic, the account started seeing great returns soon, getting to numbers like a ROAS of over 1,000% in Bing Ads.
Yeah, you heard that right. Over 1,000% ROAS in Bing Ads!
Good Work Republic: "Nerds" About Productivity While Working
Good Work Republic is an office furniture company, founded on the principle of giving people comfort and reliability while working. Add in a fantastic customer service, and you have a winning formula.
They put time and energy into making sure their clients get the best product for their needs. However, this doesn’t leave much room to maintain a well structured and high performing PPC strategy. They wanted to improve upon their PPC efforts, but they needed support.
I've decided that it would be better to have someone else handle it for me - someone more proficient than me - so I could spend more time on CRO, email marketing, sales, and new projects.
I also knew that if I continued to manage ads myself, scaling was likely to take much longer, as I had a lot of learning ahead of me, and I'm not nearly as comfortable in AdWords as the Search Scientists team."
Verdict: PPC Expectations Exceeded
“Working with Search Scientists helped us reach (and surpass) our goals within 3 months! So, our needs/expectations have been met and exceeded.” – Brian, when we asked him why he reached out initially.
But why has Brian chosen Search Scientists?
I also liked that the arrangement was relatively low risk. That gave me a sense that Michael was confident with his team, and that I could always cancel if things didn't work.
But of course things worked, we know our stuff.
How exactly did we help? Well, we started by looking at what needed improvement!
Early Issues Get Cleared Up Fast
All of our client relationships start with a campaign audit. A campaign audit adds a level of context to the discussion that is extremely valuable. When a prospect approaches us, being able to evaluate their current campaigns is a great barometer to determine if and how much we can help.
The most significant issues with Good Work Republic’s campaigns were common ones. They primarily involved keyword control and bid optimization.
Bid Optimization
This is often one of the most common issues we see when it comes to most accounts. Having optimized bids allows you to make sure poor performing keywords are not losing you money. This means cutting the fat and putting some budget behind the terms and ads that are ranking well and bringing in return.
- Optimize bids consistently by raising or lowering them based on how your ads and terms are performing.
- Don’t lose money on poor performing terms: using the right strategies to make sure you are getting a return and maintaining a high Quality Score.
Always bid more on the good performing keywords
Retargeting
Not using tools such as RLSA’s (Remarketing List for Search Ads) or Display Retargeting to help customize your ads and bids for people that have interacted with your site is a huge missed opportunity. Knowing this would help Good Work Republic, we made sure to set up tailored retargeting ads to website visitors who had a high chance of converting.
- A higher conversion rate is seen for individuals who interacted with your website beforehand. With Good Work Republic, we saw the conversion rate was 4x higher for this group.
- Setting retargeting ads up across multiple platforms is a plus, so we built the abandoned cart campaigns for Good Work Republic with AdWords, Facebook Ads, and Bing.
The Improvement: GROWTH!
Almost 400% revenue increase!
How Do You Get To A 400% Revenue Increase?
A major goal was seeing growth in the account not just in terms of spikes and dips, but continuous upward mobility. Many agencies will promise the moon without bringing anything perpetually. We made sure through proper campaign management and back and forth communication that Good Work Republic would have an excellent PPC funnel.
Eliminating wasted spend and dead weight was a chief concern. Plus, successful tests were given resources and were expanded.
We made sure to treat Good Work Republic’s account as if our own dollars were being invested.
☞ 21x ROI on Remarketing
☞ 7x ROI on Search campaigns in AdWords
But still, what was the breakdown of getting these results? Read on!
The platforms and ad types we used:
- Google Ads: Search, Display, and Shopping Campaigns
- Bing Ads: Search and Display
- Facebook Ads
Winning On Google Ads By Improving Quality Score And Keyword Management
One of the biggest ways in which Good Work Republic’s revenue was maximized was by improving keyword management, especially when it came to Quality Score.
Quality Score is how Google determines your ad rank and CPC. The way to improve Quality Score is by writing relevant ads for the search terms the user submits. Those ads should also be matched to the right landing page content. One of our previous blog posts expands more on this topic, check it out here.
The search terms report is a treasure chest.
But only if you analyze it consistently and do optimization work in your account every week based on it.
We were able to see what terms we wanted to appear for and for which ones we didn’t. This allowed for optimized bidding on high performing keywords. Which is what increases quality score, relevancy, and CTR. All of this allowed for a cheaper CPC, which helped maximize daily budget, lower cost, and increase conversions and see month-over-month revenue increase.
Add Bing Ads to Your PPC Recipe if You Want 360 Degrees of Success
Bing is an often underestimated platform with huge potential. If you’re profitable on AdWords, it’s very likely you’ll be profitable on Bing Ads, too.
For Good Work Republic, Bing Ads proved to be a valuable source of paid traffic, bringing in over 40% of the total paid traffic. And what can we say, the ROAS of over 1,000% is not to be overlooked either.
Bing Ads' huge potential - a ROAS of over 1,000%
The Other Half of the Equation: Client Relationship Success
We like our clients… a lot! That’s why we are keeping them in the loop and let them know what’s going on.
At Search Scientists, we want you to know that you are in great hands, and we believe that when the client is aware of what is going on under the hood, everyone benefits from this.
These types of communication flow with Good Work Republic led to excellent results:
- Two times a day email check-ins
- Video meetings, lasting up to an hour and a half
- Seeing inside the business on how things are run
- Understanding the needs of the client to create ads that have their brand voice
We make PPC simple
Our clients have the feeling of control while trusting us to get the job done. We make PPC simple enough for you to know that you are getting results. These results come from being able to rely on a relationship that is impactful and actionable. That is at the heart of what makes the Good Work Republic PPC campaigns a success.
At Search Scientists we do what we say, don’t forget.
However, don’t take our word for it, see what Brian, the owner of the company, says about us:
As Brian himself says, he's "obviously a very happy customer"
2 - Working with Adi has been great. He's such a technician with paid search, and he needs very little guidance from us.
3 - Michael has been great when we've needed him. He's given us a lot of great insight, and helped talk me off the ledge a few times when I've been a bit stressed about things.
My feeling is that Search Scientists is more technical and practical than other agencies out there, and they are very cautious with our ad spend. Strategy is informed by simple math, and success is judged in the same way. I know with Adi particularly, he seems almost obsessed with minimizing ad spend, and maximizing ROI. That's my kind of partner! (Even though it's not always easy. Conversion tracking and analytics have been our biggest challenges.)
Brian has decided to also give us his feedback face-to-face. More like face-to-screen, but our digital meetup was a productive and full of insights one. So we’re leaving you with the story of:
- How it’s like to work with an agency
- How does a growth ramp of 399% feels like
- Attribution challenges and other bumps in the road
- What’s next and where we find untapped potential
- The true value of PPC – 75% of Brian’s total traffic comes from PPC
We look forward to continued success with Good Work Republic. After all, striving for the best results is the Search Scientists way!
