The task
This is a fairly common request: advertise a service on a small budget while still getting results. Two KPIs mattered to the client: UAH 300–400 in daily spend and a cost per lead of no more than UAH 100. For that budget, the client wanted roughly 10 leads a day, which is exactly what we achieved.
Promotion strategy for the printing house
Aside from campaign types, at the very start of any ad campaign I see two main strategies for budget and bidding: 1. Small to large: we start with a relatively small budget and low bids and gradually scale them up, which lets us keep control over spend and performance. This strategy suits clients with a limited budget or who are very sensitive about spending. 2. Large to small: we set the budget to medium or maximum right away and don’t cap bids. This way we can gauge performance and optimize campaigns much faster. This strategy suits clients who urgently need conversions right now, to reach breakeven sooner. In this case, I chose the first strategy, and it paid off — even with limited bids and budget, the cost per conversion turned out to be three times lower than the client wanted. As for campaign types: because the budget was limited, I decided not to experiment with Performance Max and went with good old-fashioned Search instead. Everything followed the standard playbook: I collected the keyword set, added negative keywords, segmented it, wrote the ads — the whole process, as it should be. Even at the very start, the campaign delivered strong results right away, which happens when you work carefully with keywords and do it by hand in spreadsheets. Just as important is the landing page. In this case I got lucky — the page was solid, the service was well explained, and the site was reasonably well optimized.
Optimizing and growing the printing house’s ads
The search campaigns went through the usual set of optimizations:
- negative keyword work;
- further segmentation;
- testing ads and headlines;
- adding audiences;
- bid adjustments.
All fairly standard, but effective — which is why I called this case “…easy result.” As for what’s next, I’m planning to add display remarketing, and if I can talk the client into a bigger budget, I’d like to test Performance Max. I’ll keep working on negative keywords for the search campaigns and keep testing headlines — hopefully the client and I can come up with an offer, since an offer always performs better than just words. What’s interesting is that in some cases it’s better not to do something than to do it, as in this one. It’s important not to invent extra work here, because unnecessary experiments can do harm — if you’ve read the book “Essentialism,” you might remember the effectiveness graph: anything overdone becomes ineffective. It’s important to keep a finger on the pulse here and not miss shifts in demand, spend, or competitors’ strategies, since all of that always affects the auction. I hope this case was useful to you — if you offer similar services, you’re welcome to book a free audit or consultation with me.
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