Google Ads Strategy (2024)

Key stats:

• 4,754 clicks

• 201,362 impressions

• 22 conversions

• $137.8 cost per conversion

• $3,032 cost

We are pleased to report that, following a slight decline last May, June has delivered outstanding results across key metrics. Impressions spiked by an impressive 109%, and clicks rose by 21%. This surge in engagement has positively impacted our conversion rates, with conversions shooting up by 67% and CPA decreasing by 39%.

On another positive note, as expected, the quarterly comparison reveals encouraging results across key metrics. Impressions rose by 21% while clicks surged by 120%. This substantial rise in engagement has also led to a 29% increase in conversions, contributing to an impressive 81% boost in click-through rate.

Discussion Points

Conversion Breakdown

In terms of breakdown of conversions:

• 15 Contact Form Submissions

• 1 Calendly Form Submissions

• 1 Conversion from Email Clicks

• 5 Click to Calls

Overview of Campaigns

This month, the campaign set to raise awareness on James as an MC recorded 2 click to call conversion actions. It also secured 29.4k impressions, resulting in 322 clicks.

Apart from this, the winning campaigns were:

• Teambuilding Outdoor 

• Demand Generation, which was set up at the start of the year to build top of the funnel awareness by serving visually-appealing, multi-format ads on Google’s most impactful platforms like YouTube.

LinkedIn Free Webinar Campaign

New campaigns were set up to promote the free webinar, these include:

• A New Performance Max campaign to raise awareness and drive people to the landing page. This campaign uses a cross channel strategy covering all google networks (search, shopping, youtube, gmail, and so on) from a single campaign.

• A video sequence campaign on YouTube with all the videos provided (testimonials, voiceover, webinar promo, etc.)

These campaigns have been set to run till the 13th of August.

Key stats:

• 4,764 clicks

• 320,814 impressions

• 29 conversions

• $107.6 cost per conversion

• $3,121 cost

Following on from last month, July recorded yet another upward trajectory across all key metrics. Overall visibility of the ads (impressions) have increased by 59%, and conversions have spiked by 32%, leading to a 22% decrease in cost per conversion. 

Discussion Points

Conversion Breakdown

In terms of breakdown of conversions:

• 12 Contact Form Submissions

• 4 Free Webinar Form Submissions

• 9 Click to Call

• 3 Email Link Clicks

• 1 Calendly Form Submissions

Overview of Campaigns

The PMax: Free Webinar (Aug 2024) campaign, launched in the last week of June, has emerged as the top converter this month. It has recorded 9,328 impressions, 168 clicks, and 9 conversions, with a cost per conversion of $27.

Conversions from this campaign are as follows:

• 4 Free Webinar Form Submissions

• 2 Contact Form Submissions

• 2 Click to Call

• 1 Email Link Clicks

Furthermore, the Search - Brand campaign has recorded 5 conversions, reflecting a 150% increase. Additionally, the PMax: Teambuilding Outdoor campaign has recorded 5 conversions, representing a 25% increase.

New Landing Pages

The two new landing pages for A/B Testing purposes have now been added to the ad account.

Keynote:

• Landing page: https://www.myadventuregroup.com.au/keynote-speaker-james-castrission/

• The top performing asset group under Keynote is the one directing users to the Free Consult booking page as opposed to the main Keynote page. The winning asset group has been duplicated with the new landing page.

• Feedback: 

  • Could you consider adding the logo to the main header so that users can visit the homepage with one click?

  • Consider a stronger CTA such as "Inspire your team to explore their potential with adventures and insights from James Castrission" instead of “James Castrission inspires audiences to explore their potential.”

Team Building:

• Landing page:

https://www.myadventuregroup.com.au/team-building-with-james-castrission/

• The top performing asset group under Team building is the one using the following video assets - this has been duplicated with the new landing page.

Key stats:

• 4,605 clicks

• 332,683 impressions

• 17 conversions (14 Contact Form Submissions, 3 Clicks to Call)

• $166.5 cost per conversion

• $2,830 cost

With the free webinar campaign paused in September, conversion rates have slowed (compared to previous months). However, the good news is that the account still achieved a 64% growth in conversions over the past quarter.

Overview of Campaigns

This month, the PMax Team Building campaign using assets from 2024 was the top performer, followed by the PMax using assets from 2023. Once we receive new assets for 2025, the 2023 campaign can be retired. Furthermore, these assets can be updated in the Demand Gen campaign which recorded 3 conversions in September.

The PMax One Day Offsite campaign is also consistently recording conversions since August, contributing to the overall success of the account. If you have new assets (e.g. testimonials) specifically talking about this offer, please share them as we are currently using generic offsite teambuilding videos. 

New Campaigns

As confirmed last month, we have launched a revised competitor campaign targeting the below speakers (name - monthly search volume) at a $5/day budget. Though this campaign is unlikely to generate any conversions, we will continue to monitor it for visibility and traffic. 

1. Samantha Gash - 480

2. Mark Matthews - 320

3. Daniel Bull - 210

4. Matthew Formston - 480

5. Michael Crossland - 880

Key stats:

• 7,703 clicks

• 284,184 impressions

• 13.78 conversions

• $143.08 cost per conversion

• $1,971.92 cost

There has been an overall decrease of conversions compared to September (-23%) due to reduction of the overall spend but October has seen improvement in cost efficiency with cost per lead reduced by 10%. Compared to the same period last year we are tracking well ahead with a 25% increase in conversions and close to 50% reduction in cost per lead. The reduced ad spend was planned based on last year's performance as October was a quiet month. In that regard the account has certainly outperformed expectations. Budgets have returned to normal this month and we are tracking well for a strong end to the year.

Conversion Breakdown

In terms of breakdown of conversions:

• 8 Contact Form Submissions

• 7 Click to Call

Overview of Campaigns

PMax Teambuilding Outdoor (2023 Assets):

• Impressions: 112,916 (+52.07%)

• Clicks: 684 (0.61% CTR, -36.11%)

• Cost: A$255.19 (+6.49%)

• Conversions: 9 (1.32% conversion rate, +208.77%)

• The 2023 assets campaign delivered strong engagement and cost efficiency, outperforming the newer 2024 assets. This campaign remains the top performer in October.

Search - Brand:

• Impressions: 11,928 (+33.87%)

• Clicks: 255 (2.14% CTR, +12.05%)

• Cost: A$201.16 (-15.92%)

• This campaign showed positive growth in both impressions and clicks, reflecting stronger brand interest and awareness with efficient spending.

Competitor Campaign:

• Impressions: 75 (-29.25%)

• Clicks: 5 (6.67% CTR, -69.28%)

• Cost per Click: A$9.69 (+36.45%)

• Although it has yet to generate conversions, this campaign remains useful for visibility and tracking competitor positioning.

Campaign Updates & Optimizations: Asset Management:

• New video assets were added to the Keynote and Teambuilding campaigns, replacing low-performing videos with content better aligned to current audience preferences.

• The lowest-performing video in these campaigns was paused, reallocating budget to higher-engaging assets.

Key stats:

• 5,741 clicks

• 507,940 impressions

• 20 conversions

• $140.24 cost per conversion

• $2,804.72 cost

Budgets returned to normal in November after a planned decrease in spending during October and as expected we saw large increases across key metrics as a result. Conversions increased by 45% and clicks by 63%. Perhaps most pleasing was that CPA remained steady which is always at risk of rising when ad spend increases.

Our best performing campaigns were the PMax: Teambuilding Outdoor (2024 Assets) (+200% conversions) and Demand Gen – 2024 (+155%). 

We expect that December will be a slower month but in a positive sign of year on year growth we have already had as many conversions this month to date as the entire Dec 2023 from roughly half the ad spend. So all in all it is looking like a strong finish to the year and we look forward to resetting and going again in 2025!

Discussion Points

Budget Planning

We also discussed budget planning for 2025. Overall shaping budgets to the high and low points of the year has proved to be successful in 2024. However, the peaks and troughs in a calendar year do change and we need to revisit this yearly. A recent example was October which significantly outperformed October in previous years.

Bing Ads

We briefly discussed Bing/Microsoft Ads on the call as well and I (Matt) have now had a chance to look into this further. Organic performance is a good indicator for how well ads may perform and performance on Bing organically is comparable to Google which indicates it may be an untapped opportunity. While the market share is still not close to Google it is increasing and is still the default web browser for Microsoft Windows. 

The setup and management of Microsoft ads is quite straightforward and aligned with Google so there are some efficiencies when managing both. It may give us an extra 10-15% boost and reach audiences that we are not currently tapping into with our existing ads. 

I will put together some more information for you and we can discuss further in Jan.

Key stats:

• Impressions: 156,201

• Clicks: 2,039

• Cost: $1,589.35 

• Conversions: 10

• Cost/Conversion: $158.94

As expected, December was a slower than usual month with most businesses winding down activities by mid month. This was reflective of performance across the month with results reasonably strong to start the month before substantially slowing down in the third week onwards. Ad spend was also greatly reduced along with demand leading to a 43% reduction in cost compared to November. On a positive note, cost/conversion held up quite well and was only up 13% from November and 66% reduced compared with December 2023.

Agenda:

1. LinkedIn Webinar Campaign

2. Google Ads Performance 2024 H1

Summary:

1. LinkedIn Webinar:

   • Recommended timing of next webinar (I think we have 2 options here). Given that leads are not cheap on Linkedin, option 1 would be doing it in November but for that I would suggest to first have in place: new experience based footage for content, clear sales follow up strategy and email marketing. 

   • Option 2 would be doing it in early February as we could create a 'new year resolution' type of campaign where people will be in the mindset to set goals in the new year) and after holidays. Goals are to see a higher volume of new leads and attendees.

   • We can also have more data when it comes to testing the sales process, email marketing, open rates, etc.

   • Total investment inc. our time/management fee vs returns: Matt will send you an email with these details. (TBC)

   • Recommendations for next webinar: less formal content, white big visuals, new content ideas, updating James profile on LinkedIn, robust CTA/offer/follow-up from MAG, etc.

2. Google Ads:

   • Action Item: Review and update list of competitors/speakers

   • Action Item: Nicki to send new video assets (YouTube URLs) based on recommendations on slide 12 - when they are ready to be uploaded.