The Problem

Triangle Moving Service Inc. is a local moving company based in Hillsborough, North Carolina, serving the Raleigh/Durham area. For quite a while they ran their own paid search advertising on Google AdWords, but their cost per lead was so high that they were often doing jobs for only minimal profit.

The moving industry is very competitive and keywords are increasingly expensive in the AdWords bidding auctions; so despite having a website that converts well, the company’s cost per lead was just too high. Attempting to overcome this challenge, Triangle engaged a third party ppc manager. Unfortunately, the manager made several mistakes in the account structure, management and targeting that actually increased Triangle’s cost per lead and reduced lead volume. Without transparent reporting, the problem persisted but eventually the lack of performance became clear. Triangle started looking for a new manager.   

The Action 

Triangle engaged SmartClick to revamp and relaunch their AdWords campaigns in mid-November 2014. SmartClick overhauled the account with about 3,700 exact match keywords in a new structure and wrote ads in a granular manner proven to improve quality scores.

With this new account structure, SmartClick actually bid more aggressively on the most relevant keywords, attacking top positions in search results to capture the highest quality traffic possible and increase conversion rates. SmartClick was also very diligent and attentive to this account in its early stages to make sure money wasn’t wasted and that optimizations were made as quickly as data allowed so as not to miss opportunities.

The Result

Comparing campaign results in Triangle’s AdWords account since launching in mid-November to the previous 3 month period (keep in mind that the winter months are usually the worst season of the year in the moving industry), SmartClick drove 55% more lead conversions while reducing cost per lead by 24%. SmartClick also drove 133% more phone calls from AdWords all while spending only 19% more in media dollars. Overall, cost per lead conversion since SmartClick took over management is $72 and trending lower every month, nearly reaching $50 in the month of February. Triangle has also seen a 70% lift in conversion rate as a result of SmartClick’s work.

Given these results, Triangle will soon expand advertising to Bing Ads paid search (also managed by the SmartClick team) where we expect to see similar, if not better, results.