Local SSDI Firm Overhaul

Capitalizing on Internal Data

"External change is made possible by looking inward" - Gandhi, probably

One thing about niches is that if you aren't running an account with pre-existing high quality data, you don't have as many external resources to rely on. Long-tail keyword data within niche verticals is often scant and occasionally non-existent. You can use a range of tools to start gathering data, but it will take a long time to have enough reliable data to work with. 

In this case, I had to use data from a previous period that provided unsatisfactory results for the client. Workarounds made this problem tertiary; but from beginning to end, research started with looking inward. Successful long-term strategies rely on utilizing internal data as much as (if not more than) external data. 

Month 1   |   ACCOUNT AUDIT   |   Audit provided immediate improvements and guided roadmaps for strategy options going forward

Operation Ballin' On A Budget

Objectives

• Find enough money in the budget to experiment

• Use the audit as a source of ideas

• Prioritize the most pressing questions and generate the internal data to answer them

• Do both of the above without causing radio silence from PPC leads

This client preferred phone call leads to contact/lead form submissions, and voicemail leads had a significantly lower conversion rate at their firm. 

It was clear. The best place to save money was ad spend outside office hours. But first I needed to know what performance would look like in concrete numbers. What kind of search traffic did evening yield? Were late-night users lower intent leads? Were there differences between practice areas in this regard? 

From the existing data across the three main practice areas (Social Security, VA disability, and Railroad Retirement) the time trends were indeed wildly different for each. Ultimately, this research allowed us to save 48.6% of the budget - nearly half - without causing any noticeable damage to existing performance levels.

Month 2   |   OPTIMIZING BUDGETS   |   By cutting out low intent dates/times for each practice area, I saved half the budget for experimenting

Capitalizing on External Data

Results Analyzed

Towards the end of our year of working together, I put together a comprehensive YoY comparison of the current year and the previous one. As mentioned earlier, one of the biggest problems was that the client wasn't seeing Google Ads conversions turning into real-world leads. A lot of this was resolved through crafting a much narrower, high-intent acquisition funnel, as well as major improvements to attribution. 

However, since that tracking couldn't be applied retroactively, the best way of getting a read of the improvements to their account was by sifting through the search terms across both years.

I know what you're thinking: Auseel, that has to be an insane amount of search terms... And you're right. Somewhere around 50,000. Using my own personal time, I sifted through them, filtering out low intent queries; sometimes by rules and often by hand. Because the enclosed information is more usable than the rest of what is included in my portfolio, the details of my methodology will only be shared with serious inquirers who contact me personally. 

After I was through applying the changes equally across the data from both years, the results showed progress that further satisfied an already happy client. Below are the summary results of the YoY comparison.

Month 12   |   2021 vs 2022   |   A lot of champagne was had at a Frank Stitt restaurant the weekend after this report was shared, courtesy of the client