We get it! Paid digital advertising can be daunting for small businesses.
Not knowing how or where your marketing dollars are being spent is a massive challenge we see many small businesses face. That’s why we’re here to help you transparently see and understand what works for your business (and what doesn’t!) and recommend how you should strategically invest your marketing budget online.
The Client
Eyewear on Pako is a local small business optometrist and eyewear retailer located in Geelong. Eyewear on Pako has been in business for over 20+ years and is proud to have a knowledgeable and experienced team of eyewear specialists and optometrists providing exceptional customer experiences to all customers.
The Challenge
Being a small business often sees resources being utilised across multiple roles, and for Eyewear on Pako this was no exception. Previously engaging with impersonal, country-wide ‘agencies’, the team were unsettled with the lack of transparency and understanding they were given about how their marketing dollars were being spent or the results they were getting through their Google Search Ads.
Eyewear on Pako approached us in June 2022 to take over. They had the goal of increasing the number of online bookings. Being a small business, Eyewear on Pako’s marketing budget for the campaign was only small, however we were happy to work with the team to see what results we could achieve.
Our Approach
Our extensive experience in running digital advertising campaigns for small businesses gave us the knowledge to execute a strategic and purposeful campaign for Eyewear on Pako.
We proposed a strategic platform testing campaign, where we would test and learn two months of Google Search Ads against two months of Meta Ads in the following months. Meta advertising is something that the client had never actually considered, and without seeing any previous results from Google campaigns, we found it best to start with a clean testing slate.
The Google Search Ad campaign was created with the intention of targeting people with brand and search intent. We wanted our ads to be shown to people who were actively searching for keywords such as ‘Eyewear on Pako’, ‘eye optometrist’ and ‘eyewear geelong’. The campaign was set up with a Website Traffic marketing objective, using broad match keywords and a responsive search ad structure.
As Eyewear on Pako had never done any Meta advertising before, we assisted their team with the setup of a Meta Business Manager and Ad Account.
As part of our strategy for Meta, we recommended beginning with a low-spend Brand Awareness campaign in the lead-up to the official two-month testing period. This had the intention of ‘warming up’ the audience, and getting Eyewear on Pako top-of-mind before actively engaging with them to encourage them to ‘Book an Appointment’.
Upon completion of the two-month Goole Ads testing period, we commenced our Traffic campaigns on Meta. We created a suite of Story and Feed ad creative for the ads using images from their Instagram account. This campaign utilised dynamic creative ads as well as static feed ads. Throughout the campaign period, we tested different ad placements, creative types and audiences.
The Results
What a result! It was very interesting to see that not only did the Meta ads outperform Google Search…but they achieved almost four times the traffic results than that of Google.
Throughout the two-month campaign period on Meta, more than 2.7K link clicks resulted from an ad spend of just $1,400. Alongside this, a $0.52 cost per click (CPC) and more than 175K ad impressions were achieved across Facebook and Instagram platforms.
CPC
Google
$1.89
Meta
$0.52
Throughout the two-month campaign period on Meta, more than 2.7K link clicks resulted from an ad spend of just $1,400. Alongside this, a $0.52 cost per click (CPC) and more than 175K ad impressions were achieved across Facebook and Instagram platforms.
CTR
Google
4.43%
Meta
2.94%
Clicks
Meta
2,719
Google
734
Impressions
Meta
175,813
Google
16,584
Despite being less successful than Meta, our Google search ads still performed well, achieving 734 clicks and a solid click-through rate of 4.43%.
These positive results indicate that even small businesses with small marketing budgets can achieve quality results when implementing a strategic approach to online advertising.
Moving forward with our assistance, Eyewear on Pako is now able to transparently see where their marketing dollar is best spent, and how they should be strategically advertising online. We continue to work closely with the Eyewear on Pako team, optimising, testing and implementing new strategies continually in order to get the best results.
