Applications improved by 312%. PPC case study for a photo and video shooting service in Los Angeles

All companies seeking relevant leads with search engine and social network advertising will find this case study of interest.

Service:contextual advertising
Business category: photo and video shooting service
Website: https://symboll.com/
Promotion region: USA
Promotion period: from 08.04.2021 to the present

A brief overview of the client’s company

A client who has been photographing and recording weddings and other special events in Los Angeles for five years approached us.
He launched his site four years ago.

If you look at the portfolio on the site, you will see warm, high-quality shooting of events, processed in a classic manner. Also, such photographs and videos will still be relevant in 5-10 years.

Additional service: wedding planning.
Target audience: mostly women who are planning to get married and are looking for a wedding photography contractor.
The price for client services is slightly higher than the market average.
Niche: extremely competitive.

Before applying to Inweb, not all marketing tools for attracting an audience were used in the advertising cabinet.

Client tasks

We called, asked the client in detail about his business and formulated three main tasks for our team:

1. The main task is to increase the number of applications from the site.
2. The second one is to lower the cost of attracting a client to $900. The cost before contacting Inweb was $1,200.
3. The last one is to increase the relevance of leads. It was important to figure out how to use advertising to attract people who needed the services of our client, were able to pay for these services, and were highly motivated.

Promotion strategy / project weaknesses and strengths

Following an audit of the advertising cabinet, advertising specialists developed a promotion strategy and expanded several advertising channels significantly.

As a result of evaluating the niche of the client, we found that there is a lot of competition and a high cost per click. In order to increase brand recognition and attract cheap traffic to the site, we used the following channels:

• • Google Search Ads;

• Google Display Network Ads.

After a year of work, in order to find a new audience, we launched advertising in

• TikTok;
• Pinterest.

These two channels work well where there is an emotional product or service.

How we operated

We’ve set up proper goal tracking with Google Analytics. First, we worked on the semantic core. Keywords with a lower frequency were added to the search query to increase its likelihood of appearing.

Working with Search Campaigns

The campaigns were divided into three different types, namely photography, videography, and wedding planning. Managing them this way proved much easier.

Adjusted titles and descriptions of search ads, increased the number of keywords in them.

Keyword research helped reduce the cost of clicks.

To optimize search ads, we’ve added:

• unique selling proposition for each service;
• сosts of services to cut off irrelevant audiences;
• location for each service. Example headings for Los Angeles and San Francisco: “Based in Los Angeles”, “Based in San Francisco”.

We switched to smart bidding strategies “Maximize conversions” and “Target CPA” after the campaigns had been running long enough to collect statistical data. It is a logical step, because smart strategies take into account many factors to increase efficiency.

See what ads look like in search:

Working with Google Display Network Campaigns

Such ads are placed on websites, videos, applications, news pages and resources of Google itself (Gmail, YouTube). We searched for sites based on keyword topics such as “Wedding”. But in the end, we decided to show ads on all platforms. Because over time, Google shows ads exactly where they perform best.

We also have launched remarketing display campaigns. The goal is to return users who visited the site 30, 60, 90 days ago.

Assisted conversion statistics of display campaigns from 12/01/2021 to 01/31/2022

We launched campaigns for an audience with similar interests and a special audience of users similar to those visiting competitor sites.

Launching and optimizing video campaigns

• optimized video campaigns. First, we tested audiences by interests, excluded irrelevant display places, for example, channels for children;
• added various unique selling propositions to the video description to increase CTR;
• developed targeted campaigns to attract users who were searching for wedding videos;
• analyzed the statistics to determine which alpha campaigns were the most effective. Inefficient audiences and ads were replaced.

Launching Facebook Ads Campaigns

1. First, we set up Facebook Pixel for conversion tracking.
2. Launched Reach campaigns to increase brand awareness.
3. Tested various photo and video creatives. We chose three different creative options for the test. It lasted from seven to fourteen days. Ads with less effective creatives were paused and replaced with new ones. Creatives were provided to the client on demand.

We developed a lead generation funnel. Considering a funnel of this type, we came up with three stages:

Stage 1. Finding cold audiences with campaigns with Traffic objective. After launching the campaign, Facebook learns who is more likely to click through to the site and shows them ads. In addition, we excluded the audience that was already on the site and only showed ads to new visitors.

Stage 2. Launched a campaign with a new goal Conversion. It takes Facebook a while to identify the audience most likely to convert after the launch.

Stage 3. Launched campaigns for remarketing (users who have already visited the site). The goal is to get users back to convert. The audience that has already converted was excluded.

Launching Pinterest и TikTok Ads

1. Set up Pixel for conversion tracking. The main goal: submitting a form on the site.
2. Launched traffic campaigns. Ads are shown to those who are most likely to click on the ad. The goal of the campaign is to increase site visits from ads and increase brand awareness.
3. Launched conversion campaigns. Goal: train campaigns to find an audiences most likely to convert on the site.

Pinterest audiences were divided into those interested in weddings and those who searched by keywords. Audiences on TikTok were selected based on their interests. Advertisement creatives were prepared by the client in the appropriate platform format. For TikTok and Pinterest both we used videos.

Creative examples:

Currently, it is impossible to evaluate the effectiveness of the campaign, since it is still being tested and optimized. However, you can evaluate the synthetic indicators of advertising accounts as follows:

Pinterest: results from 15.03.2022 to 13.04.2022

TikTok: results from 01.03.2022 to 31.03.2022

Promotion Results

Advertisement budgets have decreased, and the number of applications has grown significantly.

On the diagram, you can clearly see the effect of Google Ads advertising:

Indicators for the first month of work with Inweb agency May 2021 vs. January 2022

The results are as follows:

• Reduced the advertising budget by 6.25%.

1. The number of site users increased by 281%.
2. Cost per click decreased by 73%.
3. Applications increased by 312%.
4. Customer acquisition cost decreased by 90% to $120 in January 2022. Prior to contacting Inweb, this cost was at $1200 per customer.

The number of conversions in Facebook Ads increased after we disabled ineffective campaigns and worked with more effective ones:

Facebook Ads Optimization Result

We have completed all the client’s tasks, so we continue to work on the project.

Project team

Dmytryi Dudetskyi

Middle PPC IM

Dyana Kovtoniuk

Upper Junior PPC PM

Team’s comment

A very interesting project. It was one of the first projects in which we used Pinterest and saw its potential/ The client was open to our suggestions and frequently offered ideas for testing.

Another new tool we’ve used is Dynamic Number Replacement in Google Ads to track calls to search ads. This feature does not work in Ukraine. A Google forwarding number is a unique phone number that is used in ads to track calls from potential customers without going to the site.
In the Reports section, you can evaluate the statistics on calls from ads:

If you have any questions, ask them in the comments. And those who need advertising campaigns, we are waiting and ready to work! By the way, now there is an interesting offer for Ukrainian business from Inweb.