An effective strategy in Google Ads to increase conversions

Realization

We will be looking at the operation of the Google Ads advertising system for property sales.

Previously the focus has been on search campaigns targeting the cities where the client’s company is represented, with separate segments for different property types. The top performing campaign acted as a tool to expand reach, but was used exclusively for Cyprus.

All these campaigns were bringing conversions on the website, but to improve results we suggested changing the approach and testing a new tool for the client — Google Merchant Centre.

Google Merchant Centre (hereinafter GMC) — is a platform that allows you to upload property data and use it for display on various Google services: Google Search, Google Images, Google Shopping, Maps and YouTube.

You can use data from GMC in various formats of advertising campaigns in Google Ads — shopping campaigns, Demand Gen campaigns, Performance Max campaigns.

Phase 1: April-July
Since for the client it was important not only to increase the number of conversions on the website, but also to maintain brand awareness and reach the maximum number of target audience, the choice was made in favour of Performance Max campaigns as the format most suitable for our tasks. Ads in this type of campaigns are shown in all Google Ads locations and allow you to get conversions beyond standard search campaigns.

The main performance indicators for future advertising campaigns were the number of submissions of various forms on the website — property booking form, consultation request, newsletter subscription, request for more information and others.

In mid-April, new Performance campaigns with property data from GMC were launched to replace the search campaigns. It is important to note that there was no increase in the advertising budget.

Phase 2. July-October
Analysing the results of already active Performance campaigns, it was noted that we get most of our conversions from the cities with the largest reach of target users — in our case it was Larnaca, Limassol, Nicosia, and Paphos. The larger audience size in these cities implied a larger spend. Because of this, smaller cities (e.g. Famagusta, Ayia Napa, Paralimni, etc.) were left with a smaller budget, and as a consequence we saw a small number of conversions that we were able to get.

In order to increase the number of conversions in cities with smaller audience sizes, we decided to abandon the division of campaigns by property type (flats / houses) in favour of dividing advertising campaigns by city of presence.

During this period, we also worked on optimizing active campaigns:

• reallocated budget between advertising campaigns to get the most conversions;
• tested different strategies to identify the most effective ones;
• diagnosed adverts and property data used in advertising campaigns on the GMC platform, tracing the reasons for rejection of a number of properties for prompt correction of errors;
• increased the size of the target audience by analysing already accumulated statistics, by adding as many signals as possible in the campaign settings — search topics, interests, audience of site users.
•  Thanks to this, the system managed to select the most relevant audience.

It is important to note, however, that there has been constant work on all components of the advert along with this:

• headlines and texts with low quality and clickability were replaced;
• different creative options were tested to identify the most attractive ones;
• promotional offers in the ad components were regularly updated — new properties and improved conditions for buyers were added.

Results

During the period April-September we have achieved the following results:

• The total number of forms submitted on the website during the period under review was 4,468. These include, but are not limited to, property booking forms, requests for online advice, newsletter subscriptions, requests for more information about offers, and purchases of online certificates for buyers. 

• The average conversion price (CPA) was no more than $2.25 per month. The minimum CPA value was obtained in September and amounted to $1.80.

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Using Google Merchant Centre in conjunction with Performance Max campaigns proved to be effective, delivering a significant increase in conversions and reach. The GMC platform proved to be an essential tool for real estate agencies with an extensive catalogue of properties. Combined with careful optimisation and constant analysis of ongoing campaigns, this has resulted in high application rates and lower cost per conversion. Regularly updating creatives and adapting strategies depending on the data received helped maximise the effectiveness of campaigns.