Previously, Red Cross worked with an agency that dramatically increased Google Ads media spend for brand searches by 776% (eg: “Red Cross First Aid Courses”).

These actions seemed to increase Google Ads sales (up 55%) however total revenue only increased 5.8%. Brand-name Google Ad campaigns had negatively impacted organic (unpaid) search volume and revenue.

The problem was that Red Cross were now using Google Ads to pay for sales they would have made anyway. IE: Someone Googling “Red Cross First Aid Courses” was already highly likely to book a course - and we didn’t need to show an ad.

While it looked like Google Ads was performing well (up 55%) - it was not having a huge impact on total revenue.

To increase revenue for Red Cross, we moved Google Ads spend from brand terms (“Red Cross First Aid”) to non-brand terms (“First Aid Training” “CPR Courses” etc). ‍

‍We let Organic Results (SEO) capture current customers (brand searches) and Google Ads for new customer acquisition.‍

To maximise our Google Ads impact, we got highly granular with our build - splitting our campaigns by regions, and course type. This meant we could allocate our Google Ads budget by region & course - giving us the ability to allocate budget where it was most effective. ‍

‍Beyond this, on-going bid adjustments, competitor strategy analysis, custom scripts, and a focus on SEO’s part to play in the Search Landscape allowed us to increase total revenue by 8.9% in 3 months with 75% less media spend (compared to previous period).