Effective Context: Achieving 305 Leads
Yuri
Marketing Analyst
Victor
Senior Media Buyer
Mariya
Senior Project Manager
What were the client's contributions?
In August 2021, a domestic manufacturer of highly specialized equipment approached us. The client mentioned that their campaigns had stopped performing. Until 2019, both leads and sales were pouring in steadily. However, after that, algorithms changed, and only low-quality leads were coming from the advertising.
Before this, the client had been managing their advertising campaigns independently and had not sought help from specialists. They conducted tests and worked with data:
- Created a separate website with prices lower than the market rates to test demand and ensure that the problem was not related to pricing. However, the advertising campaigns to the test website still did not generate leads.
- Tested automatic strategies with conversion optimization, but they did not yield results.
The likely reason for this situation was the highly specialized and narrow target audience, making it difficult for algorithms to find relevant leads.
Expert Comment:
Mariya
Senior Project Manager
“Crypto is a machine learning technology that helps improve the effectiveness of advertising campaigns.
Based on user behavior data on the internet, Crypto identifies their characteristics, such as age, income, interests, and more. Advertisers use these characteristics for more precise targeting.”
Results
305
Unique leads
1142
Cost per lead
1,394
Million dollars. Brought in by context advertising
4
Months of collaboration
How We Did It
1.We conducted an audit
During the audit, we found the following:
1. Ineffective keywords:
– A large number of keywords were consuming a significant portion of the budget but were not generating conversions. Such phrases should be disabled, as they will not yield results.
2. Audience too narrow for automatic strategies:
– The audience was heavily restricted by various bid adjustments, exclusion of placements, and operators. This should not be done—automatic strategies naturally narrow down the reach, but they require data for training. If the audience is too narrow, automatic campaigns may not perform well even with high bids.
3. Limited advertising campaign formats:
– There are formats like smart banners and dynamic ads in advertising. Our client did not use them, resulting in a loss of a significant portion of the traffic.
– The company offers a wide range of products, and engineers may search for them by SKU or exact name. In this case, dynamic ads in search work very well as they generate ad headlines precisely for the query. Smart banners work in networks and target those who visited a specific product page or similar users.
4. Many duplicate campaigns with similar settings:
– Such campaigns can compete with each other and show inaccurate results if used for testing settings.
Expert Comment:
Mariya
Senior Project Manager
“For A/B testing of advertising campaigns, it is advisable to use Experiments—a service that automatically divides the audience into non-overlapping segments and ensures the purity of the research.”
2.We developed an action plan:
Register a new account and create campaigns from scratch. After a period of inactivity, the account quality dropped to 5 (with a maximum score of 10). Indirectly, this rating affects the position of ads in search results.
Create a composite goal in Metrica from all equivalent goals, including all calls, emails, and inquiries. This goal will have only one step, but a maximum of conditions with the ‘or’ operator. This way, all leads will be counted in a single goal. Subsequently, you can optimize advertising based on this goal.
Test automatic advertising campaigns without narrowing the audience for them and provide algorithms with full freedom for learning.
Create a product feed on the website in the form of an XML file to launch dynamic search ads and smart banners in networks.
Launch advertising campaigns on look-alike audiences based on high-quality leads from CRM.
As a result, a preliminary media plan was developed, which included Google Ads. However, in March, adjustments had to be made, and the budget for the advertising system was allocated.
Preparation for Launch
Set up call tracking and email tracking, updated goals
Registered a new account.
Received a database of leads and customers from the client’s CRM. Uploaded the data and created look-alike audiences.
Initial Results of Advertising Campaigns
In the first 3 weeks:
The look-alike campaign performed the best, generating 8 phone calls, 3 form submissions, and 1 email from the website, totaling 12 leads with a CPA of $600.
Keyword-based campaigns brought in 7 emails, 9 phone calls, and 1 form submission, totaling 17 leads with a CPA of $595.
Dynamic ads in Search resulted in 9 emails and 1 phone call, totaling 10 leads with a CPA of $545.
The Master campaigns initially didn’t generate any leads until they were switched to a conversion-based payment model rather than clicks. Then, we received 1 phone call and 2 emails from the website with a CPA of $945.
Smart banners turned out to be the only format that didn’t work. Over 14 days, the campaign only produced micro-conversions. Instead of trying to optimize the underperforming campaign, we focused on a new hypothesis: a combination of Autotargeting and conversion-based payment in Search.
The target conversion chosen was a unique phone call, with a target price of $1000. This resulted in only one target conversion and two additional emails from the website. Since payment was only made for the target conversion, the two leads essentially came for free. In total, 3 leads at $333 each.
Leads from the keyword-based campaign generated sales worth over $185,000, with deals (worth approximately $40,000) in the final stages of negotiation.
In the first 3 testing weeks, we spent $31,511 and received 45 leads at a cost of $700 each. The client categorized 23 of these leads as qualified leads (compared to the expected 18).
The cost per lead turned out to be 2.5 times lower than planned – $700 instead of the expected $1,781. The cost per qualified lead was 4.5 times lower than expected – $1,370 compared to the expected $6,304.
Continuation of collaboration
Initially, we had planned to conduct a one-month test campaign. However, thanks to the positive performance in the context, the campaigns have been ongoing to date. In the four months of our collaboration, we have managed to obtain 159 qualified leads and close successful deals totaling $1.394 million.
Conclusions:
1. Thorough preparation for the launch yielded positive results. Within the first three weeks, we managed to surpass the monthly lead generation target, demonstrating the effectiveness of the channel both in the short term and for future prospects.
2. We successfully convinced the client of the channel’s effectiveness and gained valuable insights into the power of contextual advertising even in the current unstable market conditions.
3. Seize every opportunity to utilize suitable campaign formats, as this increases the likelihood of success.
4. Sometimes, it’s more effective to start campaigns from scratch rather than attempting to revive them through endless optimization, especially if the campaigns have been idle for more than 28 days, as statistics reset, and algorithm learning starts anew.
Customer Feedback:
Representative of the company
“We operate in a “complex” B2B market. By “complex,” we mean a highly specialized market with several key stakeholders and significant resource investments required for equipment and solution replacements. Prior to partnering with XBRIDER Digital, we had collaborated with four agencies, all without achieving positive results. They did not attempt to delve into the market and its specific characteristics, instead applying standard marketing methods borrowed from the mass market.
The experts at XBRIDER Digital understand that the B2B market has its own unique intricacies, and these nuances must be thoroughly researched. Various B2B markets can vary greatly from one another. Our collaboration with XBRIDER Digital commenced with an analysis phase and the development of a tailored strategy. Additionally, we receive weekly reports detailing the achieved milestones.
As for drawbacks, there are employees who grasp the objectives and diligently adhere to them, but there are also individuals who tend to carry out their tasks merely as a formality. Often, employees in their reports and strategy discussions focus on actions rather than outcomes. Nonetheless, in my opinion, XBRIDER Digital stands out as the best company among those we have worked with. While there are areas for improvement, there is already significant potential for developing and executing a comprehensive marketing strategy tailored for complex B2B markets.”