Dynamic search ads delivered great returns for a property investment firm

If you run search ads, chances are you spend a good chunk of change bidding on your brand terms. And why not? Brand terms convert, right? Well, sure – but are they the best use of your budget? Here at TMI, we had a client who was laser-focused on brand campaigns for their global property investment firm. But we suspected there were more cost-efficient ways to get leads.

See, how people search for investment opportunities isn’t always straightforward. We figured there were likely relevant long-tail, non-branded keywords that could attract high-intent visitors. So we proposed an experiment: implement dynamic search ads (DSAs) to uncover hidden gems. Our goal was simple: spend less on brand, more on non-brand campaigns to increase lead volume.

Here’s what happened…

Key terms

• Impressions: the number of times your ad is shown to people. If your ad is displayed on a webpage 1000 times, that equals 1000 impressions. More impressions mean more visibility for your ad.
• Leads: A lead is when a viewer engages with your ad somehow – usually by clicking on a call-to-action you’ve provided.
• Click-through-rate:  the percentage of impressions that result in a click or lead. To calculate it, you divide total clicks/leads by total impressions. A good CTR is 1% or higher.
• Cost-per-lead: how much you’re spending to acquire each lead – lower is better here.
• Conversion rate:  the percentage of leads that turn into customers. A high conversion rate means your ads are targeting the right audience.
• Dynamic search ads: These automatically optimise your search ads by pulling in relevant keywords and headlines based on website content. Dynamic search ads make it easier to manage search campaigns at scale.

Initially, our client believed that their brand campaigns would naturally convert, whether from paid or organic sources. However, we realised that allocating a significant portion of the budget to branded campaigns posed the risk of spending unnecessary money. Analysing the historic data, we gained valuable insights into the complex nature of how consumers search for investment opportunities. This prompted us to delve deeper and uncover the information they were seeking, enabling us to serve them with the most relevant ads and information from the website.

Dynamic Search Ads

To bridge the gap between consumer search behaviour and our client’s offerings, we decided to implement a dynamic search ad (DSA) campaign. The primary objective was to identify potential keywords that we might have been missing out on and increase the volume of leads generated from non-brand campaigns. By leveraging the abstract nature of consumer searches, we could gain a clearer understanding of their intent and align our ad copy accordingly.

To ensure the search terms triggered by our DSAs remained highly relevant, we segmented our dynamic ad targeting based on specific web pages and categories. This approach allowed us to tailor the ad copy to align precisely with the user’s intent and enhance the overall user experience. Additionally, we made effective use of FAQ and about pages from our client’s website, thereby engaging users at different stages of their journey.