CPD are a leading organisation for businesses looking to become CPD certified for training courses and events.
Objectives
The Goals
CPD, following a rocky 2023 where they saw extremely high CPL (cost-per-lead), wanted to work with a specialist PPC provider to improve their paid search performance and its impact on business. They wanted to focus on both driving lead volume, as well as reducing CPL to a more profitable amount.
Implementation
The Activity
Upon beginning to work together in February 2024, we immediately looked at creating more control in the account through a new account structure, which included launching new activity to drive performance, focusing on strengthening the Bing account, and generally stabilising PPC activity.
By focusing on stabilising the account with additional and improved activity, this allowed us to gain better control over how much budget is spent on each type of keyword – both removing spend from lower-performing keywords, and maximising performance with the best performing keywords in the account.
During the account restructure and stabilisation, we saw market volatility as competitors pushed budget into PPC, which in turn, impacted CPC and CPL. Rather than scaling back, we optimised the account by improving target audiences with the addition of negative keywords and becoming more aggressive with spend ourselves.
Seasonality plays a key part in our client’s strategy, with June/July/August having seen a drop off in search volume in 2023. Despite historical data leading us to the expect a weaker few months, we saw a strong July, with increased investment in PPC. We remained cautious throughout this historically ‘weaker’ period, focusing on what we knew was working in the account, and saving any testing for stable periods.
From September – a time when performance historically picks up in the account – we began to work on areas that aren’t performing as well, alongside keeping CPL as stable as possible.
Success
The Results
Since beginning to work together this year, CPD have seen significant improvements in their paid search performance and its impact on business.
In the first 6 months of working together, we saw a drastic improvement in CPL, which dropped – on average – by 84%.
During the same 6-month period, we saw a 412% increase YOY, which also meant us comfortably hitting the desired leads-per-month target.
As a result of the positive performance we’ve seen in the account since beginning to work together, CPD have expressed an interest in expanding on an international scale next year.