Objective:

Our client was a reseller of chemicals and equipment for the swimming pool industry. The business is B2B, and our client couldn’t sell products without a registered pool store or pool service ID. This restricted sales to only pool service professionals because our client was unable to sell to residential households due to contracts with their manufacturers, even though they received plenty of web traffic from homeowners with backyard pools.

This client had an ecommerce site, but also acquired sales from phone calls and catalog orders. Since search engine marketing was a new experience for the client, they started off with a very small budget. We began with keyword research, keeping in mind the unique challenge of generating clicks from pool professionals while avoiding terms more common to homeowners with personal pools.

Strategy:

Our strategy for capturing relevant traffic was to find keywords searched by pool professionals with minimal overlap compared to keywords searched by private pool owners, and to write ad copy that spoke to professionals while dissuading personal consumers from clicking the ad.

The client was primarily interested in advertising for the brands of the products they sold, and only secondarily interested in general professional pool service terms. We suggested running both branded and general pool professional terms, as our keyword research suggested there was acquired sales volume in both keyword markets. Given their small initial budget, they opted to run only ads targeting keywords for the brands that they sold, despite our advice. We ran only branded keywords for several months before the client increased their budget to accommodate the non-branded pool service keyword list.

Results:

After running both branded supplier terms and general pool service professional terms for several months, we saw significant differences between the 2 categories. The general pool service terms had a slightly higher CPC, but also a significantly increased conversion rate, click-through-rate as well as a lower cost per conversion. In general, the professional pool service campaigns performed 2x as well as the branded terms.

Based off the results below, we recommended allocating all available budget to the non-branded campaigns, as they were all limited by budget and significantly outperforming the branded campaigns. Good keyword research is essential for starting any new client, and in this case, it helped us find a keyword market that was outside what the client thought their customers searched for. Targeting this new market helped reduce costs and grow the business.

Case Study Highlights

Industry: Pool Supplies

Goals:

  • Target professionals only with keywords and ad copy
  • Discover top performing categories to help us allocate budget

Results:

  • 80% increase in click through rate
  • 50% decrease in cost per conversion
  • 128% increase in conversion rate