Industry: Dental Office

Objective: Decrease cost-per-conversion (CPA), defend brand terms

Background: A family-owned dental practice wanted to assert more control over the SERP on branded searches. After the entrance of new competitors within the brand auction, the practice's impression share declined. As a result, conversions had been in a steady decline and cost/conversion was increasing.

Challenges:

• High Competition: There were a number of rival dental offices that were active in Google Ads, especially within the office’s brand auction

• High CPC: Competitive keywords in the dental industry often result in high CPCs, affecting the overall budget

• Decreased appointment volume: As the Google Ads auction became more competitive, appointment volume had been consistently declining over a period of months

• Increased CPA: The high CPC, plus low conversion volume, drove the CPA into unprofitable levels

Strategy:

To address these challenges, we implemented a Google Ads strategy to focus on defending brand terms to regain control:

• Category Selection: Shifting investment away from low conversion-volume non-brand and competitive campaigns, Vanin SEM was able to increase brand budget allocation

• Keyword Match Type: Keyword match types were switched to exact to maintain more control over search term mapping

• Ad Copy Optimization: New ad copy was launched that spoke more specifically to the intent of branded searchers

Results:

The above Google Ads strategy lead to a significant improvement in office appointment bookings and brand SOV:

• Improved SOV: Impression share increased 17% on brand keywords despite even more competitors entering the auction in the proceeding months

• More appointments: Conversions jumped by 32% across the account with the majority coming from brand

• Lower Costs: The more focused keyword assortment and effective campaigns drove a 7% reduction in CPA