Hanapin Marketing is an award-winning paid search agency that manages and optimizes clients’ paid search programs. From ad copy composition to keyword research to landing page optimization, Hanapin’s core objective is to maximize their clients’ return on investment.

Acquisio’s bid and budget optimization solution helps Hanapin Marketing boost conversions for one of their top client campaigns by 450%!

The Challenge

The goal of all digital advertisers, when running pay per click campaigns, is to significantly increase conversions. For industry leading paid search agency, Hanapin Marketing, these goals are of paramount concern for all their accounts, especially for their large scale clients. For massive accounts, with up to $500,000 in ad spend a month, it is vital for Hanapin to deliver results, quickly, and to maintain performance long term.

One client, a for-profit school with 45 locations throughout the United States, wanted to acquire as many leads as possible at $200 per lead and $2,500 per start (when a lead turns into a student). Hanapin was tasked with maximizing their $300-$400K budget and asked to generate as many conversions as possible.

“Almost from the minute we launched the bid and budget optimization tool the campaign results started heading in the right direction.” – Jeff Baum, Associate Director of Paid Search, Hanapin Marketing 

The Solution

Hanapin x-graph

The initial strategy Hanapin used was to:

  • Aggressively bid for the #1 position using AdWords bid rules
  • Push volume through keyword expansion & search remarketing
  • Pause non converting ad groups & keywords
  • If necessary, go over CPL target to push volume

The revised strategy, based on new business conditions, involved:

  • CPL targets by program, not by campus
  • Adhering more strictly to target CPL
  • Reducing volatility of program and campus CPLs across locations 
  • Bidding for lower positions to test the conversion rate of leads driven from those positions.

With the revised strategy in place, Hanapin launched Acquisio’s automated Bid & Budget Management solution to help better taregt CPLs, reduce volatility and bid more effectively.

the bid optimization tool updates campaigns every 30 minutes, about 50 times more than average, and uses the most recent auction information to set and adjust bids to hit target CPLs and generate more leads.

Average CPC decreased 12.8% per click

With CPC originally at $21.50, Acquisio’s bid tool shaved off $2.75 from each click, bringing the CPC down to $18.75. Best of all, Hanapin’s client was able to reduce their CPC without decreasing their average position.

Clicks increased 30%

The 30% increase in clicks generated from the bid and budget tool translated to about 100 more ad clicks and roughly 11,000 more ad impressions.

Conversions increased 450%

As traffic rose and CPC decreased, there was a massive increase in conversions. Before using the bid optimizer the campaign only generated four conversions. That number was unacceptable and Hanapin was considering shutting down advertising in this market altogether, until they tried BBM.

CPL decreased 81%

With the same budget, more clicks coming in and the optimization tool better allocating the budget, Hanapin’s client saw more conversions for the same cost, effectively reducing CPL by 81%.

“Acquisio’s optimization tool probably saved us 6 months of hard testing and optimiziation to get to that number so the results have been tremendous for us,” says Jeff Baum, Associate Director of Paid Search at Hanapin Marketing.

About Acquisio’s Bid & Budget Management

Constant access to near-real-time data helps you maximize as well as reduce the cost of each click or conversion, while optimizing your fixed PPC budget so that you know it’s being spent accurately and efficiently.

With this solution you can bid farewell to over-bidding for clicks or over-paying for conversions. Its budget management is so precise across all campaigns that you’ll never have to worry about running out of budget early or overspending again.

Download the Success Story