Digital Marketing Case Study: 98% Increased Conversion Rate

The Client

In today’s digital-first world of instant conveniences, success requires more than just visibility; it requires strategic precision across every marketing channel. This digital marketing case study showcases how a local business partnered with our team at Orchard Marketing to completely transform not just their online performance but also the way they do business. By delivering a tailored combination of SEM, social media advertising, and programmatic display ads, we helped the client achieve a staggering 98% increase in conversion rate, more qualified leads, and significantly more efficient ad spend. Read further to learn how it all came together. The client is a locally operated business in a rather competitive service-based industry that came to us looking for real, measurable results. While they already had an established online presence, their traffic wasn’t converting into actual leads at the rate they needed for sustainable growth and operation. They were also especially interested in boosting form fills and increasing phone inquiries. With a clear focus on improving conversions, we implemented a blended strategy using search engine marketing, targeted social campaigns, and programmatic display ads, all designed to reach users at multiple points of the customer journey.

The Challenge

All of this wasn’t without challenges, and the client’s previously established digital presence clearly lacked optimization across key lead generation touchpoints. They wanted to increase total website traffic, but more importantly, they wanted that traffic to convert. That meant boosting the client’s form fills and encouraging more direct phone calls from potential customers. As a locally focused business, they were also competing with a smaller, tightly contested geographic area, where coming on top wasn’t as easy. This made the cost-effectiveness and targeting precision of their campaigns even more important.

The Work

Our approach began with a full overhaul of their existing SEM campaign. SEM stands for search engine marketing, and it’s a very broad term that implies various marketing services under paid search services, most commonly known as pay-per-click (PPC). With PPC, the search engines return the content you own and update it as organic responses to user inquiries. In other words, they put your website at the very top of the search engine results page (SERPs). SEM allows you to better reach your target audience, control your budget, and measure the effectiveness of your SEM digital marketing strategy. With this particular client, this involved restructuring the Google Ads account to separate campaigns more effectively and give Google the data it needs to prioritize high-value action. By assigning specific values to conversions, the platform would then optimize for outcomes that mattered the most to the client. We also implemented A/B testing across campaigns to continually refine ad messaging and identify the highest-performing creatives. We also adjusted the social media marketing strategy as part of a broader multi-channel digital approach. While our Search Engine Optimization (SEO) marketing efforts focused on improving organic visibility, our social media strategy operated independently to drive paid and organic engagement. We re-engineered the client’s META (Facebook and Instagram campaign, and instead of running broad traffic campaigns with loosely defined objectives, we pivoted to lead generation campaigns optimized for conversions. These ads were directly linked to custom landing pages designed to capture form fills, ensuring every click had a measurable impact on the client’s sales pipelines. All of this ensured that every ad served had a clear, actionable goal that resulted in measurable results. However, for added reach and upper-funnel engagement, we incorporated programmatic display ads, which used AI- and data-driven targeting to serve over a million impressions to highly relevant audiences, including the lookalike segments from the client’s best-performing leads. This approach supported the overall brand visibility and brand awareness while laying the foundation for increased organic and direct traffic through different marketing channels.

The Results

Within the first month following the implementation of the new digital strategy, the numbers told a clear story, and the SEM implementations reduced the ad spend by 14%, while total conversions increased by 179%. The conversion rate skyrocketed by 236%, and the cost per acquisition dropped by nearly 40%. Admittedly, the raw traffic from SEM did drop by 38%, but that drop was offset by the higher quality of website visitors, which led to an increase in form fills by 117%, and the overall conversion rate from the SEM ads ended up climbing by 98%. The impact on social media platforms was even more dramatic; month-over-month metrics showed that form fills from META campaigns increased by 2600%. This increase was made possible by shifting to direct lead-gen objectives and using server-side tracking, which allowed us to tap into a more responsive audience base and significantly improve ROI. Last but not least were the programmatic display ads, which laid the groundwork for the long-term success of the client’s marketing strategy and business. Though typically a slower-burning channel, it has been known to produce immediate growth when done adequately. Following implementation, we saw an immediate growth in organic traffic by 75% and direct traffic by 65%. In fact, a total of 1.1 million impressions were served with a strong CTR of 0.13%, which has validated both the creative and targeting strategies we employed. To Sum it up:

Reduced the ad spend by 14%
Conversions increased by 179%
Conversion rate skyrocketed by 236%
Cost per acquisition dropped by nearly 40%
Increase in form fills by 117%
SEM ads ended up climbing by 98%
META form fills increased by 2600%

The Future

With all the systems that are both scalable and efficient, now in place, the client is in a strong position to continue building their momentum. They’ve expressed confidence in the process, satisfaction with the results, and excitement about what comes next. With plans already forming to scale up campaigns and expand reach, this partnership is just getting started, and the future looks bright.

Summary

If you’re looking to learn more about digital marketing, audit your current optimization and data use, or simply invest in more effective marketing, don’t hesitate to contact Orchard Marketing. We are a digital marketing agency that provides the best, data-driven marketing solutions and strategies that will increase rankings, lead generation, and conversion rate, allowing you to focus on other areas of your business that drive sales and promote growth.