Case Study on Business Coaching - Tradescoach.co.nz

Intro

In 2018, we were contacted by Andy Burrows, a business coach from New Zealand. His area of ​​expertise is coaching and business assistance in the construction industry 🏗️. Andy has 25 years of experience in managing a large company, a guide book he wrote, and testimonials from successful clients. He helps his clients to better utilize their resources and reach a new level of business and increase profits. We had to do the same for Andy with our experience in internet marketing.

Initial Data

• Client’s website – tradescoach.co.nz
• Advertising system – Google Ads

The work was carried out gradually:

The first thing that was important for us to understand was the makeup of the target audience. In our case, this was clearly limited to representatives in the construction industry in New Zealand, namely the top management of construction companies, freelance builders, and owners of commercial enterprises.

It was important for us to attract the maximum targeted conversions. Their further interaction with Andy consisted either in contacting him for his services or in downloading a free guide, which also acted as the beginning of a sales funnel. To reach the maximum target users, we used both search advertising and the Google Display Network. In doing so, we tested various hypotheses about general and more accurate keywords to improve ad performance.

Objectives

Our goal was to provide a stable influx of clients who are ready to learn further for the sake of developing their business. At the same time, our client does not sell the same service all the time. Aside from coaching, he conducts various master classes, and is the author of the book 📙 ‘5 KEY STRATEGIES TO A PROFITABLE CONTRACTING BUSINESS’ which is free to download.

Taking all this into account, we set the following objectives:

• Running search advertising campaigns and GDN on different client landing pages: home page, current masterclass pages, and the page with his book.
• Setting up search remarketing and GDN remarketing to bring people who didn’t take the targeted action back to the site.
• Launching smart campaigns on the smart Google Display Network to reach a wider audience.

Plan of Action

It was important for us to carefully aim and show ads only to those who would be interested in it. To do this, a few actions were taken:

• The essence of the service was reflected as much as possible in the ads’ text.
• Ad texts reflected the essence of the service in as much detail as possible.
• Throughout the work, we tested different theories and pages for leads and used different content and different landing pages.
• We also tested different smart strategies: Target CPA and Maximize conversions, because some campaigns didn’t generate conversions and it was important to attain them even at a high price.

One of the key factors in piquing the interests of the target audience is the ongoing and continuous work with negative keywords. In the process of work, we decided to:

• Eliminate sites with poor performance on GDN.
• Add negative keywords to search campaigns, some of which are related to searches for free information (free, torrent), searches for work or employees (job, jobs, hr, resume), with large platforms (YouTube, Craiglist).

In total, more than 100 negative keywords were added.

Implementation

Search Ads and GDN

We launched a search campaign with general queries for people looking for a mentor for their business (for example ‘construction marketing’, ‘business mentor NZ’, ‘grow your business, business grow’).

In a separate campaign, we used keywords that were targeted at builders and construction workers 👷.

We set up responsive ads, all extensions led not only to the main page but also to download Andy’s book.

A regular search engine with common keywords turned out to be more effective, and we left it as it was.

Bids were set manually for each request, and after receiving the first conversions, the Target CPA strategy was connected. After that, Google Ads already determined which requests to raise rates for.

The following were considered conversions:

• Calls to the number on the site (call tracking)
• Sending in an e-mail
• Filling out a form on the site
• Subscription to the newsletter

The GDN campaign was set up with 3 types of targeting:

• Key queries
• Audiences
• Sites’ topics

Necessary conversions were brought only by targeting audiences related to construction and renovation 🔨. They also helped train Google for the Target CPA strategy.

Remarketing

We used two types of campaigns for getting visitors back to the site.

1. Search Remarketing. The objective was to catch up with the more common keys of those who were on the site. For example, a visitor came to the site through the query ‘business mentor nz’ but didn’t take any targeted action. In this case, they were considered to be part of our audience, and will see our ad the next time he types any requests with the word ‘mentor.’
2. GDN remarketing to attract an interested audience with a free book ‘5 KEY STRATEGIES TO A PROFITABLE CONTRACTING BUSINESS’ 🆓. Those who were already on the site were led to a page where they can download it. The only condition for free download is filling out the contact form.

Subsequently, GDN remarketing was abandoned due to its low effectiveness.

Smart GDN

We decided to use Google to search for new customers with the help of display advertising by launching a Smart GDN campaign. After that, advertising started to generate a lot of cheap leads. However, after connecting CRM, we found out that these conversions were not targeted, and we had to discontinue Smart GDN.

Results

The partnership with Andy Burrows lasted 2 years and ended only when the New Zealand government began to sponsor business expenses for mentors and coaches. Our client automatically received 100% workload without any need to advertise.

✔During our work we reached an average conversion price of $20-30 depending on the season. Since there are fewer construction projects in winter, the demand regularly decreases during this period.

The combination of regular search advertising and GDN proved to be the most effective for an audience in construction.

Conclusion

While working on this project, we were convinced once again of the importance of flexibility in advertising setups, tracking their effectiveness, and the readiness to respond to audience actions. Setting up PPC advertising is just the first step. But it’s important for us to improve the quality of the leads and reduce the cost of conversion. By trying different paths, cutting out ineffective traffic, and leaving only working strategies, we provide the customer with what they need – website visitors who are ready to buy.