A little about QualitySmith
QualitySmith provides a service that connects homeowners with reliable local contractors. By doing thorough background checks on high quality contractors and aggregating customer reviews, QualitySmith helps customers find trustworthy contractors for their home improvement needs. Most homeowners rely on QualitySmith to get started with estimates from a variety of local prescreened contractors. The company operates a large-scale paid search program, spanning more than 3.5 million keywords, which focuses on driving leads to QualitySmith’s network of local contractors.
It is not humanly possible to manually manage bids on over 3.5 million keywords. We have complete confidence in Marin’s bidding. This automation has enabled our team to focus on campaign optimization beyond bidding as well as expansion into new markets.
QualitySmith tried another vendor, it didn’t work out
In order to more efficiently manage and optimize their paid search campaigns, QualitySmith selected and licensed a third party software solution. Six months into their implementation, however, QualitySmith was still unable to realize the time savings and financial lift necessary to justify their investment. Being able to automate bidding across more than 3.5 million keywords was a critical requirement for QualitySmith, yet the tool was not bidding effectively, requiring manual monitoring. Average costs-per-lead (CPL) varied greatly day-to-day and regularly exceeded target CPL by as much as 20%. QualitySmith needed a scalable and reliable bidding solution that could adjust to the seasonal changes in their business while consistently hitting business goals.
QualitySmith was also spending more time than necessary on day to day management tasks. The team was unable to use the tool for bidding on the Content Network, requiring bid calculations to be made by hand. This blocked QualitySmith from expanding their Content Network programs, an opportunity which the team saw as a potential source of incremental revenue. The team was also frustrated with the time it took to build URLs and append tracking codes by hand for new keywords. This painful URL management process prevented them from work that could have improved campaign performance such as expanding keywords and refining match types.
QualitySmith was looking for a solution that would enable them to more efficiently manage and optimize their paid search marketing program, allowing them to expand their reach and improve overall financial performance. Given their frustrations with the current tool, the company was hesitant to commit to deploying a new platform, fearing the on-boarding process would result in additional lost time and revenue.
QualitySmith now relies on Marin’s predictive automated bidding solution
After a thoughtful review, QualitySmith chose to implement Marin Software, in part because the on-boarding process would be quick and wouldn’t disrupt their marketing programs. Marin’s professional services teams delivered a seamless implementation, ensuring that QualitySmith did not have to rely on internal development resources. Moreover, Marin’s automated integration with Omniture made it possible for QualitySmith to start using the platform without making changes to their existing analytics systems or URLs. Additionally, the cleaner, more intuitive interface allowed marketers to get up to speed quickly without any loss in productivity.
Marin’s powerful and easy to use bidding solution allowed QualitySmith to set simple cost-per-lead goals for their campaigns, maximizing volume while consistently hitting business targets. With Marin’s proven bidding solution QualitySmith is now able to rely on automated bidding across publishers and networks, including the content networks.
Led by a 600% increase in lead volume, QualitySmith’s numbers improved across the board
The transition to Marin Software provided QualitySmith with both time savings and financial lift. Marketers are spending at least 25% less time with daily campaign management and reporting tasks and now have more time to focus on campaign expansion and optimization activities. The automated bidding solution has helped QualitySmith increase their lead volume while staying below their maximum CPL. Marin’s bidding has provided a decrease in cost-per-lead of as much as 43% in one vertical and an average decrease of 20% overall, while maintaining or increasing lead volumes. Furthermore, automated bid optimization on the content networks has increased QualitySmith’s lead volume from content ads by over 600%.
With the URL Builder, QualitySmith can now efficiently optimize for campaign quality using Marin Software’s integrated keyword expansion. Leveraging keyword suggestions from sources such as raw query reports, QualitySmith can now add keywords and negatives with a single click, instead of the painful URL generation and manual upload process they were using before. QualitySmith also uses Marin’s bulk-upload features to deploy new campaigns, relying on Marin to generate URLs and check for tracking code integrity.
