Case study: How Smartsupp achieved more trials with lower costs
Smartsupp is a popular customer support and live chat software that’s been on the market since 2013. In July 2023, Smartsupp partnered with Tomatoes with a request to help them up their paid search game.
For SaaS companies, advertising on Google Ads has become significantly more expensive than it was just a few years ago. This increase is due to intensified competition across various niches and a constantly growing demand for advertising space.
In 2023, advertisers spent an astonishing $237 billion on the Google Ads platform, doubling the expenditure from five years prior. This shift has forced SaaS companies to continually increase their marketing budgets to maintain the same volume of trial sign-ups and demo requests as in previous years.
Against this backdrop, our team at Tomatoes have successfully managed to boost Smartsupp’s software trials from paid search campaigns, achieving this milestone while reducing their overall advertising spend.
Focusing primarily on activations, our core conversion metric, we embarked on enhancing Smartsupp’s inbound demand generation through targeted campaigns in Google Ads and Bing Ads, while providing consulting on their marketing strategy and go-to-market strategy.
This case study outlines the outcomes of the first 8 months of collaboration between Smartsupp and Tomatoes (our collaboration is ongoing to this day), spanning from July 2023 to February 2024. The numbers are compared to the performance metrics from the previous 8 months (November 2022 to June 2023).
Overall results
+19.81%
+24.44%
-28.98%
-11.86%
How did we achieve the results?
Here’s an overview of the strategic initiatives we implemented:
1/ Comprehensive audit and data-driven analysis
In the initial stages, we conducted a thorough audit of Smartsupp’s Google Ads (GAds) account and prepared an exhaustive data foundation that allowed us to make subsequent changes in the Google Ads account.
Thanks to these analyses we have identified the most and the least performing elements of the Google Ads campaigns (keywords, locations, ad groups…) and prepared a plan for eliminating those that underperformed.
We also refined geo-targeting strategies by excluding locations that generated lower-quality conversions.
2/ Account restructuring & optimization based on ARPA
We restructured Smartsupp’s GAds account, focusing on Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA). With this approach, we grouped together campaigns that were targeting similar markets, thus improving the targeting and providing Google’s algorithms with better data.
For example, we grouped several markets (geo-locations) with very similar ARPA and similar average cost-per-acquisition (CPA). As the data were aggregated into a single campaign, Google’s bidding mechanism had more information to learn from, achieving better overall results than what would have been possible if the markets had been segmented into individual campaigns.
3/ Advanced pivot analysis
After the initial restructuring, we proceeded with continuous pivot analysis, which involved regular optimization. This analysis was conducted on multiple levels, including the creation of logical market clusters, campaign clusters, product clustering, optimization of ad group segments, refinement of keyword targeting, and exclusion of irrelevant keywords.
This granular approach allowed us to tailor Smartsupp’s campaigns more closely to market demand and product fit, maximizing relevance and engagement across different geographies.
4/ Strategic budget allocation and bid management
Our strategy also included recommendations for the effective allocation of ad budgets, optimizing across various geo-regions and campaign types (including Paid Search, Performance Max (Pmax), and Display Ads).
By leveraging insights into the average cost-per-click (CPC) and auction insights, we ensured that Smartsupp’s advertising budget was directed towards the most efficient channels, thereby maximizing their return on ad spend (ROAS).
„In just 8 months, Tomatoes increased our software trials by 24% while reducing CPA by 29%. All this with ad costs reduced by 12%. Their proactivity is always present at the right time and the right place. Originally we started our relationship with inbound demand gen and PPC campaigns. However, as time passed, Tomatoes became our partner helping us with our go-to-market strategy. I recommend their SaaS marketing expertise.“
Patrik Chalupa, CMO Smartsupp
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