How Cortina saved 64% on branded campaign spend while boosting traffic

Meet Cortina, a top Dutch bike company that is selling products both in stores and online. They've become very well-known among their customers, ranging from 12 to 60 years old. This popularity leads to a lot of people searching for "Cortina" on Google.

But there's a problem: in the first half of 2022, these "Cortina" searches took up 78% of their Google Ads budget.

The Challenge

In 2022, Cortina hit a roadblock. They found that 29% of their paid search terms already ranked at the top of Google's search results. So, the big question was: how could they spend less on their branded PPC campaigns but keep the same amount of traffic and orders?

The solution came after partnering with Fingerspitz, a digital marketing company known for using data, as well as Channable, and fresh ideas to solve problems.

Finding a blend between SEO and SEA

Cortina had two main goals. First, they wanted to spend 20% less on ads. Second, they wanted to use the money they saved to attract new customers.

To meet these goals, they made a plan. They would find the best balance between Search Engine Advertising (SEA) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This meant they would change their approach depending on how easy it was to find each search word in paid and free search results.

Organic ranking data and PPC automation

Guy Schepers, Head of Paid at Fingerspitz, the person in charge of this project, said, "Our goal was to find the best mix of paid and non-paid search results, helping Cortina gain more market share and spend less money."

Schepers hypothesized that if they spent 20% less on Google Ads for search terms that already ranked well organically, it would lead to more sales and market share.

They needed a tool that could automatically adjust brand ad campaigns based on data showing real-time organic results.

Channable’s feed management and PPC solution were critical for the success of this project. As Schepers stressed, "We didn't have the time to constantly adjust the ads ourselves, especially since paid competition and the rankings of search terms can change quickly."

Generating dynamic campaigns with Channable

The team used Google Search Console data to funnel organic search terms into Channable. With this comprehensive data at their fingertips, they called on Channable’s master rules to filter out all the non-branded terms.

During this process, they discovered some terms ranking organically multiple times or in different sequences. To tackle this, they smartly deployed Channable rules to remove duplicates, allowing only the term with the best organic position to remain.

Crafting tailored ads with smart bid adjustments

By combining data from Google Ads and Google Search Console into Channable, Fingerspitz harnessed the power of Channable to launch dynamic campaigns built on shifting data. Here's what that looked like:

• Campaigns targeted the top 10 non-paid search positions, creating a total of 60 unique ad groups for Cortina.

• Each of these campaign groups was built using real-time data, ensuring the ads were always relevant and effective.

• Campaign ads and bids for each campaign would automatically change based on the latest ranking data of the keywords. For example, if a search term was already at the top of the list, the bid for that term would be decreased by 20%.

Leveraging Channable's automation rules

Guy from Fingerspitz said, "Channable's rules for automation were very important. They helped us create campaigns that were targeted and effective. We could manage keywords and bids automatically and accurately, helping us get relevant traffic and keep costs low."

With Channable's dynamic campaigns and ranking data, the cost per click (CPC) dropped quickly, while the market share stayed the same. This meant that they could get the same amount of traffic for less money.

Impressive results

Cortina's campaign did better than they hoped, saving €38,593 in a year (a 64% reduction) instead of the targeted 20%.

Although there was a 20% drop in paid clicks, they experienced a 38% increase in organic traffic. This kept the overall traffic the same. In fact, the total number of sessions increased by 7.6%, and revenue by 3.69%.

With this new setup, Cortina saved €4,453 in six weeks. This money was extra profit and could be used for more campaigns.

Final takeaways

By leveraging Channable and working with Fingerspitz, Cortina successfully optimized its marketing strategy, achieving impressive cost savings and increased market share, proving the value of embracing eCommerce automation and digital marketing expertise.

Channable helped Fingerspitz and Cortina in:

• Consolidating data for effective and relevant ads : Channable’s feed management features and real-time data collection made it possible for Fingerspitz and Cortina to launch dynamic campaigns tailored to the latest organic ranking and bid data.

• Saving time with automation: Automation rules in Channable were applied to manage keywords, filter out non-branded terms, remove duplicates, and adjust bids automatically – saving valuable time to be utilized for other campaigns.

• Saving on ad spend and enhancing traffic: With tailored and effective campaigns in Channable, Cortina maintained its overall brand traffic despite a decrease in paid clicks, and even increased organic traffic by 38%.

By using Channable and working with Fingerspitz, Cortina was able to improve its marketing strategy. "Channable and Fingerspitz's approach has helped us save a lot on our branded campaign spend. We kept, and even increased our market share. We are very happy with the results," Erik Terpstra from Cortina said.

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