MCS Cleaning is a family-run business providing domestic and commercial cleaning services in Leicester and the East Midlands.

Our Objective

When MCS Cleaning came to Thinkplus, they were generating 0-2 leads per day across all marketing channels. Our target was to increase the number of leads over time to a consistent 15 leads per month from PPC and generally help them find a consistent stream of revenue and new high-value contracts.

How We Achieved It

The Package

Our client started on a small Google Ads campaign with a limited ad spend. Once we demonstrated that lead volume was increasing due to our work, the client increased their ad spend to scale the results.

The Strategy

Given the limited campaign budget, we knew we would need to keep the targeting and structure of the campaigns extremely tight. With CPCs for some commercial cleaning terms we wanted to test at over £3, with a <£20/day total account budget, we knew we would have to be laser-focused.

Before our campaign setup, we had no previous data for how users would interact with the website and our ads, so we conducted some competitor analysis and benchmark research as a basis for setting up the initial campaigns. We focused on writing some strong ad copy that demonstrated the client’s unique selling points and strengths of the business.

We identified that their most profitable keywords were around cleaning companies, window cleaning, and other bottom-of-the-funnel terms searched for by potential customers looking for professional cleaning. We spotted that their website lacked content around these highly commercial terms, so our content team increased the amount of information about their services while also increasing their website conversion rate.

We ran PPC campaigns targeting these terms. Clicks in this market have a high cost, so we monitored conversions closely and prioritised the terms likely to bring higher-value conversions while reducing or eliminating the phrases driving traffic but minimal conversions.

The Results

When the client first joined us in November 2020, their website had a very high bounce rate of 70.50% across all channels. After a year, we had decreased the bounce rate by 43.61%, down to 45.28%.

While this happened, we also increased the monthly website visitors from 390 in November 2020 to 794 by November 2021, an increase of 68.24%. At that point, our client had higher website traffic, and the quality was much better.

Our Google Ads increased leads to an average of 20-40 leads per month by month three, quickly beating our target of 15 leads per month! The PPC campaigns were profitable from month one of our management, and we have managed to maintain these results each month after that for a full year.

These leads have included large and highly lucrative, long-term cleaning contracts that have strengthened the company’s position within its local area. We helped them attract such a large commercial client that they can no longer continue servicing new customers.

The post 100% ROI from Month 1 for PPC Ads for MCS Cleaning appeared first on Thinkplus.

Black History Walks have been operating fascinating tours around London for 14 years and have over 20 years of experience delivering brilliant talks and film exhibitions on Black History and culture.

Championed by Condé Nast Traveler, the BBC and The Guardian and a raft of other huge names, the tours have acclaimed success and have won awards.

Despite the 2020 pandemic, lockdown allowed Black History Walks to expand their offering to online talks and events, so the existing site was now brimming with information. But while it was full of interesting content, the site was difficult to navigate and looked out of date and uninspiring — a far cry from the dynamic and passionate events on offer.

Users were finding the site, but their high bounce rate told a story: people just could not find what they were looking for.

Following the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, it felt important to give such a big part of London’s black history scene an impressive online presence. So, Thinkplus offered to gift Black History Walks a website that showed off their remarkable accolades and allowed their users to navigate the many online events on offer easily.

The Objective

Black History Walks already had a dedicated and passionate following across London and beyond. Their brand was strong, with a knowledgeable tone of voice and a growing online presence. Now they needed a website that would make that brand proud. One that would keep users on the site and converting in one of several ways:

• Booking an event through Eventbrite
• Signing up for the newsletter
• Getting in touch to book a personal tour.

As with all of our clients, we spoke at length with Black History Walks about everything they had going on with their business, and believe us, it was a lot! The number of talks, walks, tours, and exhibitions — not to mention film screenings — Black History Walks offer is both astonishing and inspiring.

Our objective was to answer this question: how can we feature all the amazing content of the old site but in a way that was easy for users to understand, navigate and ultimately make a booking?

How We Achieved It

The Strategy

The owner of Black History Walks is a published author, so we applied his passionate tone of voice to the new site. In true Ninja fashion, we ensured that we fully optimised all copy for SEO.

With such a wealth of content on the old site, we needed to get organised and remove any obstacles that might stop a user from booking an event. For clarity, we decided to add more structure to the content, separating the key information and breaking up the copy with imagery. Not only this, but the website had to answer some frequently asked questions up-front and allow users plenty of opportunities to convert with strategically placed CTAs.

Importing old content and categories directly into the new site meant a risk of some pages not displaying properly. The best solution was to rebuild the site from scratch, with some clear categories in place and a neat template that allowed all vital information to be displayed clearly. Choosing not to import old data in this way has implications on the site’s rankings, but naturally, we had a plan of action to counter this.

The old Black History Walks website housed all of their new events — and served as an archive for older events. Copying across some of this archived material would preserve the Google ranking of the site. We decided to move the event pages that ranked best to the new site manually to ensure they followed the fresh look and feel.

Finally, the design was important. While the old site was brimming with information, it felt cluttered and the right information was tricky to find. We opted for a bright, clean design with some gorgeous imagery from the walks and talks, so users would have a sense of what to expect.

The Results

Clearly displayed information, a bright, fresh look, and easy-to-navigate categories are all plain to see within the new site. All calls to action are relevant and plentiful, allowing users to book or get in touch without having to search through piles of information.

Back in July 2020, the old site had a bounce rate of 72.6%. We knew that Black History Walks was widely loved, so it was realistic to assume that users just weren’t finding what they were looking for on the site.

Fast forward to September 2020, following the launch of the new site, the bounce rate fell to 56%, a drop of almost 20%, where it has remained stable.

As of March 2021, Black History Walks converts at a spectacular 9.73% — an industry-beating average taken from September up to March 2021.

It’s fair to say that our client is as delighted with the new Black History Walks site as we are. His review certainly brought a smile to all our faces.

“Thinkplus gave our tired and outdated website a thorough review, clean up and renovation. It was like taking your clapped out Ford Escort to the garage, asking them to tune it up, and when you go back three weeks later, they give you a brand new, customised Aston Martin with your initials sewn into the front leather seats. The service was quick, comprehensive, detailed, fully explained before, during and after, and the Ninjas gave daily and sometimes hourly updates. Plus a six week warranty period.”

A website packed with great information but tricky to navigate.

Organised and user-friendly and ready to make some conversions.

The post 9.3% Conversion Rate for Black History Walks Website Redesign appeared first on Thinkplus.

The client specialises in booking wedding bands in the UK.

The client came to Thinkplus through a recommendation and was quite eager to commence the campaigns through Facebook. The client had already tested this out and found they were registering an average cost of £40 per enquiry.

We began our Facebook Ads campaign by creating a new campaign structure and tailored ads for this client. The ads were mostly videos, as we know video ads are one of the top-performing formats on this channel.

2. Objective

The cost per acquisition (CPA) was fairly high at £40 per lead, so we aimed to lower this, as well as incrementally increase the volume of leads. The challenge was to target only the relevant audience for the client’s niche through Facebook Ads and to increase the amount of leads by approximately 50%,  lowering the CPA by the same percentage.

3. Strategy

The first step was to build the ads. As the client has direct competitors, we made the ads distinguishable, illustrating the competitive advantages of our client over these competitors.

The first step was making the creatives. As the client has a lot of real client testimonials, we chose to have user-generated content for the active ads, so we made testimonial ads. Each ad contained real client feedback, all with a clear CTA and with emojis to make the ads even more appealing on Facebook.

As soon as we began our Facebook Ads campaign, it started delivering leads. But we continued to A/B test different variations of ad copy, all using the client testimonial format.

As we gathered more data from the active campaign, we closely monitored ad performance and kept only the best delivering ads active. We also tested different audience targeting —  from lookalike past converters from Facebook pixel audience to remarketing and interest targeting. All had a healthy user journey and constantly improved results.

4. Package

This campaign was managed on a two-actions per month Facebook Ads package.

5. Results

Within five months, campaigns have reached an average of 50-70 leads per month. We’ve managed to slash CPA from £40 to between £14 and £26 — depending on the time of year, as this is a seasonal niche.

The post Facebook Ads CPA Slashed by 50% appeared first on Thinkplus.