THE CHALLENGE
IMPROVE PAID SEARCH PERFORMANCE FOR CONSTRUCTION COMPANY MILTONCAT
MiltonCAT is a construction equipment sales and rental company serving the Northeast. Think: bulldozers, lifts, safety equipment, and the like for medium and large construction firms. When they partnered with 5 Horizons, one of the first initiatives we dug into (pun intended) was their paid Google advertising. Our goal was to set up their accounts to deliver the most relevant user experience and maximize conversions.
THE STRATEGY
GET HYPER GRANULAR TO TELL GOOGLE EXACTLY WHAT TO DO
When it comes to Google, the more information you provide, the more personalized the ad it will show to the end user. For MiltonCAT, this is great news. With so many product lines, it’s easy for a search experience to become frustrating. If a job manager searches for a boom lift, we want to be able to serve them an ad showing the boom lift options, not all the aerial lifts. And even better, we want to point them to the sales or rental store closest to them.
In order to set up the kind of user experience that would create the highest number of leads, 5 Horizons set out to generate a detailed matrix of ad campaigns. First, we created unique ad accounts for the three lines of business: sales, rentals, and service, so that we could be more specific about the types of purchases the end user would be making.
Within each account, we built in layers for location (30 locations across 6 states), product family, product category, and budget. The copy and creative for each ad was relevant to the user’s search terms and location, rather than a generic MiltonCAT ad. This strategy requires more ad campaigns—in this case, 83 between sales, rentals, and service—and subsequent ad sets and ads within those campaigns. The result is a more custom and personalized user experience.
We also set conversion values based on business line and search intent. For the sales division, the most important action users can take is to fill out a lead form. But for the rental division or product support, it’s more likely that the customer needs assistance right away and the desired action is to call or visit the store. We gave ranked values to each conversion type based on the account (sales vs. rents vs. product support) so that Google knows which actions to prioritize. This ensures that MiltonCAT’s budget dollars are working as hard as they can and continuously optimize toward the desired actions.
DON’T SET IT AND FORGET IT
Once the detailed ad campaigns were in market, it became incredibly important to monitor and optimize them for the best performance. We started to see which ad sets were performing better in which region. We could direct more budget toward the higher performing campaigns and pause some of the lesser performing ones, testing out different creative or learning that a certain area may not have a need for a particular product during certain times of year.
We were also able to monitor search terms and build a robust negative keyword list. This tells Google that the users entering certain keywords are not likely to take action, and therefore we do not want to prioritize serving them MiltonCAT or Milton Rents ads.
KEY STRATEGY TAKEAWAYS
- Get organized from the outset
- More specific ad groups and ads = higher relevance for the user and higher likelihood of conversion
- Constantly monitor and optimize for high-quality traffic
THE RESULTS
102%
increase in leads
2.62x
return on investment
The number of leads for MiltonCAT sales doubled in the same time period year over year, leaping from 96 to 194. The backend work to set up the ad accounts in the best format, and create all the unique campaigns, paid off, with a return on investment of 2.62x.
An accompanying benefit to setting up paid search in this granular way allows for similarly granular reporting. When we look at reports year over year, month over month, or at a glance, we’re now able to determine which specific element might be over or underperforming. This helps hone in on the messaging that resonates best, helps us recommend where MiltonCAT should spend more or less of their budget, and ultimately helps determine the return on investment for any marketing spend. The more detailed a report can be, the more information a client can learn.
MiltonCAT now has the data at their fingertips to make more insightful, informed decisions. And at 5 Horizons, we take that very seriously as good stewards of your budget.
WORK WITH US
Overwhelmed by Google ads? Let us guide you through it and capture more relevant leads for your business.