Case Study on Selling Boats and Trailers - Aakron Xpress

Intro

The company Aakron Xpress is based in Auckland, New Zealand, and focuses on selling boats, trailers for boats, tiny homes, and related products 🛥️. The company’s product line has dozen of models, with different features, technical specifications, and prices. Finding an interested buyer for each product was possible with well-configured PPC advertising. Aakron Xpress contacted us in September 2019 to set things up.

Initial Data

• Client’s website – aakronxpress.co.nz
• Advertising account – Google Ads

Our main goal was to set up advertising that would sell the products. To accomplish this, it was important for us to understand the client’s products and their target audience. After getting all the necessary information, we moved on to creating an advertising account and working out the structure for advertising campaigns. 📍 GEO was set up for Auckland and a 60 km radius around it where the client operates. Advertising campaigns were created on the search network GDN, while search and GDN remarketing was also launched. In the process of working on the project, these campaigns were monitored, discontinuing those that didn’t bring in results and keeping the most effective ones.

Objectives

We needed to provide the client with sales, so we set the following objectives:

• Setting up search advertising for the main product categories
• Connecting GDN banner ads to attract potential customers interested in outdoor activities 🚣
• Launching remarketing for people who had been on the site, but hadn’t made a purchase yet

Course of Action

Effective advertising isn’t determined just by the number of customers brought in but also by the cost. To make it profitable for the customer, we worked to increase the CTR, decrease the cost per click and reduce the cost of conversion.

To do this, in the process of working with an advertising account Aakron Xpress we did the following:

• Each group had dynamic search ads consisting of 15 headings and 5 descriptions. For us, this was a kind of A/B testing, which showed which combinations were the most effective.
• All ad extensions were used to increase CTR: quick links, phone numbers, specifics, promotions and a structured snippet.
• For advertising, GDN used 2 banners for A/B testing.
• Subsequently, we turned off campaigns that brought in conversions that were too expensive, reallocating the budget in favour of more profitable campaigns.

Implementation

Search Advertising

We worked out the structure for search advertising, based on the range of customer products and search queries. As such, we created the following campaigns:

⚓ Boat trailers

Search campaigns for ‘Boat trailers’ are divided into different groups:

• Groups by boat length (in feet): 10-12, 13-15, 16-18, 19-21, 22-24, 25-27, 28-30, 31-33.
• A group for common queries
• A group for other dimensions
• Single Axle
• Tandem Axle

⚓Tiny home trailers

This included 2 groups:

• Tiny home trailers
• Tiny house trailers

⚓Inflatable boats

This includes four 4 specifics:

• A group with common queries
• Highfield
• RIB Inflatables
• Rollup Inflatables

⚓Brand Queries

This includes one ad group for queries related to the company name.

⚓Competitors

We created one ad group with keywords that include the names of our client’s competitors. As in other campaigns, we use dynamic search ads here, while eliminating keyword substitution in the headline and in the ad text.

⚓Search Remarketing

We used broader keywords. We showed ads to an audience that has already been to the site.

After we finished working on the advertising structure, we launched impressions at the average rate in order to get the first data for calculating the bid for impressions at the 2nd-3rd place of the search results. After that, we manually set bids and started getting the first conversions. Then we switched to the smart Target CPA strategy.

These were the pre-established conversions:

• Submitting a form on the site from any page
• Clicking on or copying the e-mail address
• Calling from the site (call tracking)

We used the following ad extensions:

• Quick Links: to the different product categories (Single Axle Boat Trailers, Tandem Axle Boat trailers, Boat trailer Parts) and the 5-year warranty page.
• Phone number.
• Specifics and Qualifications: Best Prices in New Zealand, Free Consultation, Durable and Reliable, Affordable Prices, Fast Returns, Wear Resistant Galvanized Steel, 5 Years Warranty, Countrywide Shipping, etc.
• Promotions: 100% free consultation.
• Structured snippet.

GDN

We launched GDN remarketing, as well as a banner GDN campaign, which was divided into 3 groups:

• Audiences who fit the client’s business demographic, namely people who have an interest in boats and watercraft, fishing, water sports, etc.
• Keywords: using the same keywords, as in search campaigns.
• Themes of sites where our ads would be displayed: fishing, water activities, outdoor activities, hiking, etc.

Results

While working on the project, we tried different advertising campaigns. We discontinued those for which we observed a small margin or for products the client had stopped selling. The following campaigns are currently active: Boat trailers, Tiny home trailers, and the brand campaign.

Over the entire period of work, we got the following campaign results:

• Boat trailers generated 136 conversions at $27.5 NZD.
• Tiny home trailers: 43 conversions at $43 NZD.
• Inflatable boats: 30 conversions at $65 NZD.
• Brand Campaign: 2 conversions at $4 NZD.
• Search Remarketing: 3 conversions at $80 NZD.
• GDN Remarketing: 9 conversions at 135 NZD $. This turned out to be expensive and was discontinued.
• GDN: 5 conversions at $73 NZD. Among these, 2 were for keywords ($132 NZD) and 3 were for audiences ($33 NZD).

Conclusion

For any client, advertising is always an expense. And although it depends on us how soon it will pay off, the customer will receive the expected sales. Therefore, when working on a project, consistency, constant monitoring of campaigns, as well as customer feedback are important for us. Working with Aakron Xpress, we used our proprietary strategy, periodically adjusting settings on Google Ads. As a result, we attained more than 200 conversions, plenty of sales growth, and a long-term partnership with the client.