After noticing a decrease in non-desktop visitors to its website, Fox Symes, one of Australia's largest providers of debt solutions, knew it needed to find new ways to target multi-screen users. Upgrading to Google Ads enhanced campaigns and opting to show ads on the Google Display Network, allowed the firm to reach potential clients across multiple devices. As a result, overall conversions increased by 227% and cost-per-action decreased by 5%.
Goals
Reach potential clients across multiple screens and extend its overall reach
Optimise bidding and maximize conversions across multiple screens
Approach
Upgraded to enhanced campaigns to reach all devices
Extended reach by using the Google Display Network
Implemented Display Conversion Optimiser to optimise bids and maximise conversions across devices
Results
Increased overall conversions by 227% and decreased CPA by 5%
Increased desktop conversions by 1,500% and decreased CPA by 43%
Increased tablet conversions by 1,000% and decreased CPA by 88%
Established in February 2000, Fox Symes is the largest provider of debt solutions to individuals and businesses in Australia. It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of FSA Group Limited, a public company listed on the Australian Securities Exchange.
Fox Symes offers a range of debt consolidation solutions, which include budgeting assistance, informal creditor arrangements, arrangement of third-party debt consolidation loans and mortgage finance, debt agreements, personal insolvency agreements, and bankruptcy assistance. Fox Symes helps over 100,000 Australians each year resolve their debt and take back financial control.
The marketing team at Fox Symes uses multiple marketing channels and started using Google Ads1 in the early 2000s. The firm's main advertising goal is to maximise conversions while maintaining or decreasing cost-per-action (CPA). For Fox Symes, a conversion occurs when a potential client contacts the firm, either by phone or by filling out its online form.
Reaching multi-screen users with enhanced campaigns
Over the past three years, Fox Symes noticed a dramatic increase in non-desktop visitors to its website. The company's marketers knew that enhanced campaigns could help them reach potential clients across screens, so they upgraded the firm's campaigns in April 2013. Enhanced campaigns are designed for today's multi-screen world, offering the ability to manage bids across devices, locations, and times of day, all from a single campaign. By upgrading to enhanced campaigns, Fox Symes's ads would automatically show on desktop computers, smartphones, and tablets, with no additional effort required on the part of the firm. To complement the firm's multi-screen ads, the team opted into showing ads on the Google Display Network (GDN). Fox Symes wanted to extend its reach and knew the GDN would help to get the firm's ads in front of potential customers who were browsing on news sites, blogs, and other relevant sites across the internet.
With continual growth in visitors from mobile devices, the ability to efficiently capitalise on this traffic is vital, and enhanced campaigns makes this possible.
Launch and iterate
After a first round of tests with its new advertising setup, Fox Symes realised its results were not optimal: The firm's tablet ads were receiving a high volume of clicks, but a low number of conversions, which resulted in a higher CPA. Based on these results, Fox Symes made two key changes. First, the firm's marketers focused its efforts on only the best performing Google Display Network placements. Then they implemented Display Conversion Optimizer to help optimize bids and maximize conversions across devices. The Display Conversion Optimiser is a feature within Google Ads that uses historical conversion data and a wide range of auction-level variables such as users location, operating system, browser, time zone, site content, creative, time since visit, and device to improve campaign results.
Second time's a charm
Fox Symes started a four-week trial with this new setup and saw promising results during the first week. By week three, results were so good that the firm decided to fully implement the trial setup. Between the first and second trial, conversions increased by 227% and CPA decreased by 5%. Segmenting performance by device also yielded compelling results: desktop conversions increased by 1,500% and CPA decreased by 43% and tablet conversions, which were lower in the initial test, increased by 1000% with a CPA decrease of 88%. Richard Metzger, head of marketing for Fox Symes says of the firm's results, "Through detailed analysis on original campaign performance across devices and a clear understanding on how enhanced campaigns operate, we were able to create new campaigns which take full advantage of enhanced campaigns' features. The results have been more than impressive."
