Case Study: Lowering the Cost per Qualified Lead
Connecting the Sales Team Performance and PPC Ad Campaigns
About Journeys Through Search:
Journeys Through Search helps companies advertise in search.
We can help you set up new search campaigns in Google and Bing, drive leads to your sales team, and connect all your sales systems.
We are experienced in connecting advertising platforms (Google Ads, Bing Ads, etc) to your CRM (Salesforce, Zoho, Pipedrive, etc) and contact center's systems (phone, email, chat, SMS). When all of your systems are connected, your company's actions are directed from the data, allowing for optimal performance of the campaigns and contact center or sales team.
Unlike other agencies, our work doesn't stop at generating a lead, we also make sure to help you qualify, nurture, and close more sales. At Journeys Through Search, we are a true partner to your team.
Problem:
There was a lack of awareness knowing which campaigns are bringing in the most qualified leads & deals.
The client had traffic to their website from multiple campaigns within both Google Ads & Bing Ads. That traffic was creating a number of leads every day, and the company was closing a number of those leads into closed deals. They knew which of the channels were the most profitable (Google vs Bing), but they didn’t know within each of the channels which campaigns were most profitable. For example, one of the campaigns, had brought in 17% of total leads at a lower than average cost per lead. And the call center thought these leads were good as there were a few that did convert. However, when we looked at the cost per qualified lead and cost per closed deal, the individual campaign saw that it was more expensive than smaller, more profitable campaigns.
Our Solution:
Connect all systems (ad platforms, phone system, & CRM) and share the data between all systems.
When your sales reps are answering leads, they are qualifying and disqualifying each lead that comes in. Taking that information back into Google Ads, Bing Ads, or Facebook Ads will allow you to optimize for qualified leads vs all leads (qualified & unqualified).
Common Setup for Tracking We’ve Seen
We have seen that companies will typically have their setup as the above in a lead generation/sales campaign. Not every company is tracking their leads fully, and so this is the first step in tracking.
This particular client took phone calls, web forms, and live chats on their website. We needed to break apart all channels (Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, organic SEO, Social Media, and other ad campaigns (Quora Ads, Taboola, etc).
Tracking Setup We Recommend for Best Performance
Implementation:
What we needed to do was organize the leads in the CRM (Salesforce in this case) into the following:
- Leads
- Qualified Leads
- Sales
For all leads (calls, chats, and web forms), we had to transfer 3 pieces of data from the ads/user into the CRM:
- Landing Page URL
- Referring URL
- Time of Conversion
Tracking the campaigns into the CRM:
➢ 100% of the ads had a tracking URL similar to this:YourWebsite.com/?utm_source=google&utm_campaign=Campaign1&ad_group=AdGroup1&ad copy=1&gclid={UniqueID}
➢ We pass this URL onto the CRM when the lead is created. We then take Google’s unique click ID (GCLID) that was in the Landing Page URL, and uploaded all the Qualified Leads with that GCLID back into Google. (You can do similar offline conversion uploads in Bing Ads, Facebook Ads, and other platforms.)
➢ We then used Google’s Smart Bidding strategies eCPC and Target CPA and had them working to optimize more Qualified Leads
Results:
Once we integrated all systems, we saw a 37% drop in our Cost per Qualified Lead.
Method:
You would upload it in the Bulk Actions section. See the links below to understand the data needed for the upload file.
We use that data for various bidding strategies, such as eCPC, Target CPA, & Target ROAS.
Many businesses break down the sales cycle as:
- Leads- Qualified Leads
- Sales
So when you import the Qualified Leads and Sales into Google Ads, Bing Ads, FB, etc, you can then see in the interface what keywords, campaigns, ads, etc triggered the conversion and use the automated bidding strategies to improve campaigns. They will now optimize for qualified leads vs just leads.
We've seen this strategy work great, but of course test everything, as it may not work for all campaigns. And other than eCPC, there are monthly conversion minimum amounts needed for the different bid strategies. And you may find that classic Manual CPC works best in some cases. So test, test, test.
More info on Offline Conversions: https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2998031?hl=en
More info on the Upload File & Data Needed: https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7014069
