How We Increased Sales by 30% in 30 Days Using Optimized Google

Data Analyst

Search Engine Marketing

Digital Marketing Specialist

Google Ads

Google Analytics

Google Tag Manager

Google Ads Case Study For Local Businesses. How we increased sales by 30% in 30 days.

How We Increased Sales For a Local Business by 30% in 30-days Using Strategic Google Advertising

This case study will outline how we increased year over year sales for a local business by 30%, in 30-days, with a custom optimized Google Ads search campaign strategy.

It will also illustrate our expertise with Google Ads management for local businesses, including CBD and marijuana dispensaries or other local B2C businesses just like your local business.

Client Background Section. Google Ads Case Study. How we increased sales by 30% in 30-days for a local business.

Client Background

Due to an existing NDA between our agency and the client, we will not be using the client’s name or the name of their business in this Google Ads case study.

This business is a new, local business in Ontario, Canada with less than 25 employees. They target locals in a 50-mile radius of their business location.

The client has limited experience with Google Ads management but had been running AdWords Express ads on the Google search network, and was getting a few low-quality leads & conversions, however, needed help “taking it to the next level”.

They needed more high-quality leads but also needed to maximize their media spend by lowering their CPC and CPM costs.

They needed help optimizing and managing their Google Ads account so they reached out to a local, reputable digital marketing agency for assistance. This agency was one of our competitors.

After a few months of working with this local agency, the client was unimpressed with the customer service and results they were receiving from the agency because they were getting more leads when they was managing the ads themselves.

He called me personally requesting a consultation for me to provide a brief overview of the account and see if there were any tactics to improve the current results.

Within the first 5-15 minutes of our meeting, it became obvious that the Google Ads account wasn’t set up properly, or by a professional.

Frankly, it looked like it was set up by someone who really didn’t have much experience with what they were doing.

We identified major issues with the Google Ads account setup.

Major Issues Identified Immediately

I finished reviewing the account during our 60+ minute consultation and made some recommendations to the client.

Here are just some of the high-level issues that stuck to me at first glance:

1. Only 1 campaign with just one 1 ad group

This setup is way too basic and pedestrian.

An effectively optimized Google Ads account should have 1 ad group for each keyword.

Or, at the very least, an account should have unique ad groups and ads for your most profitable keywords in order to achieve maximum ROI.

2. Only 17 keywords in the campaign

17 keywords are not bad, but 17 keywords in one ad group are ridiculous.

This makes your ad targeting way too generalized (poor quality leads) as opposed to very specific to the intent of your prospects search query (higher quality leads).

Therefore, as the quality of your leads decreases, your ad costs (CPC) increases.

3. Each and every one of the keywords was set as broad match.

It’s borderline insanity to have 17 broad match keywords in a campaign, but to have 17 broad match keywords in one ad group? Not a good look at all.

It’s important to optimize your campaign by using the different keyword match types that are provided with Google Ads.

For maximum ROI from Google Ads, we recommend a hyper-targeted campaign set up using 1 unique ad group for each keyword using 3 differen match types for each keyword in each ad group.

4. The account didn’t have any negative keywords set up.

This was the icing on the cake!

Zero negative keywords, with 17 broad match keywords in one ad group is an absolute sh!t show.

We dug deeper and found that due to the lack of negative keywords in the client’s account, the agency responsible wasted $1,402.61 of the client’s advertising budget on keywords that were absolutely irrelevant for their business.

5. We checked the client’s Google Analytics set up and found that the audience demographics hadn’t even been turned on.

This meant that while the agency was running Google Ads and sending “qualified” leads to the client website, they were not tracking the immense amount of audience demographics and interest behaviors that Google stores in a website’s analytics.

Without that data, how will the agency know if they are driving the right people to the client’s website? How will they know what type of people to target if they can’t track what type of people visit the client’s site, and use that data to better target their Google Ads campaigns, to lower ad costs?

So What Happened Next?

The client fired the agency responsible within 7-days of our meeting and hired VPDM to take over the Google Ads management right away.

comparing our work with google ads management to that of one of our competitors.

Our Work & Our Results Compared To Our Client’s Old Agency

We took over managing the client’s Google Ads account and implemented our digital advertising process.

Our SEM strategy goals include using Google Ads search advertising to:

Increase online visibility.

Increase search engine impressions for hyper-targeted, profitable keywords.

Increase the number of qualified traffic to the client website each day.

Increase the number of website conversions per day.

Comparing the old agency's results with our results from Google Ads Management for a local business.

Campaign Comparison: Old Agency vs Our Agency

We’ll go in-depth and cover our 4-month ongoing SEO & SEM campaign further below, but first, we’ll attempt to compare apples to apples in this section.

Below is a direct comparison of key performance indicators for a 30-day campaign period, comparing the client’s old agency’s results with our results for the same time period.

Side by side comparason of key performance indicators over a 30-day period of Google Advertising - ColaDigital.ca vs a competing local Google Ads management agency.

Analysis of Both Campaigns – Old Agency vs Our Agency

The KPIs above report on a 30-day Google search campaign by our agency as compared to the previous agency our client was using.

Our total clicks & impressions are lower than the previous agency, and our CPC is much higher, but this is NOT a bad thing.

While clicks are down, and cost per click is up, check out the significant increase in our click-through rate, the total number of conversions, and total average conversion rate, you’ll see that the increase in CPC is worth it.

You’ll also see we managed to decrease the cost per conversion/acquisition (CPA) by $314, while increasing the number of conversions by 6, in only 30-days.

How we improved the ROI from Google Ads for our client's local business.

How We Improved Client ROI

Here’s how we break down our success with our work:

1. Fewer Impressions But More Conversions:

We received fewer impressions over a much longer period of time, but we view this as less traffic, but much more highly qualified visitors, at less of a cost.

The conversion rate supports our claim as well as our account optimization and management skills.

2. Fewer Clicks, More Conversions, Lower Costs

With fewer impressions comes fewer clicks.

But at a lower cost and higher conversion rate, who cares!?

This again shows our ad copywriting and audience targeting was much more on point than the previous results.

3. Better Account Management, Better Results:

We also improved on the following KPIs:

Now let’s share how the campaign has progressed from the first 30-days to a period of 4-months.

Campaign performance over 4-months.

4-Month Campaign Analysis

The above showcases our first 30-days. Let’s look at a longer period for more insight.

The following are the results of our Google Ads Management for this client over a period of 4-months.

Campaign results for our Google Ads Management for local business over a 4-month period.

Highlights of Our 4-Month Campaign To Date

As you can see by looking at the results from our 30-day campaign and comparing to how the campaign has been performing over 4-months, all key performance indicators have increased!

Some highlights include:

Our click-through rate has increased to 2.44% from 2.16%.

The average cost per click has decreased to $10.74 from $11.80.

The average cost per conversion/cost per acquisition also decreased to $113.26 from $162.89.

The client has been super happy with our work!

What the client has to say about our Google ads management.

What The Client Has To Say

Google Ads management services.

We Can Help You Manage Your Google Advertising

If you operate a cannabis or CBD company or are running an online marijuana dispensary or a retail cannabis store, we can help you craft and manage your Google Ads Strategy.

The reality is that Google does have advertising restrictions when it comes to cannabis and CBD products but we all have seen paid Google PPC ads for CBD in search results.

So it is possible to advertise cannabis and CBD on Google but it is a challenge to get ads approved.

If you’d like to try to advertise your CBD products on Google, please reach out for a free consultation or to request a quote.