SITUATION

In an effort to increase both its website traffic and the number of qualified leads, Cbeyond, a leading provider of business-grade IT and communications services, decided to focus its online marketing tactics on paid search. The voice and data services company chose Medium Blue to assume management of its existing PPC campaign after a careful review of vendors, assured that the SEM firm could turn the tide and improve bottom line business results. Medium Blue initially inherited three markets – Denver, Dallas, and Chicago – before getting the green light for a full rollout across all markets. At that point, Cbeyond, then engaged with another SEM firm, was interested in seeing which firm offered the best return on its pay per click marketing spend. After delivering a dramatically higher ROI than the competition, Medium Blue was given control of each PPC campaign for all of Cbeyond.net’s markets just one month later.

PROGRESS

Medium Blue began by performing extensive research on Cbeyond’s marketplace, developing a campaign that considered the various ways a prospect found the company. Medium Blue outlined a roadmap of strategies for the pay per click marketing campaign, focusing on both geographic and IP-targeted keyphrases. The overall strategy for the Cbeyond PPC campaign was centered on delivering the most relevant experience for the searcher and PPC visitor. Medium Blue developed geographically targeted ad copy for each local market to improve relevancy and increase conversion rates. Further, each local market was optimized continuously using its own set of bidding strategies, based on business rules for optimal lead generation, conversion rate, cost per lead, and ROI.

RESULTS

Within just three months of assuming the PPC campaign, Medium Blue achieved a record high level of leads and a record low Cost Per Lead. Overall, the campaign saw a 72% increase in Lead Volume in one month (September 2009) compared to the best month from the previous SEM firm. Furthermore, Cost Per Lead in September was 46% lower than the previous agency’s record low Cost Per Lead. Much of this gain resulted from a huge increase in overall Conversion Rate in September, which was 180% greater than the record high of the previous agency. The continuous management and optimization of the pay per click marketing campaign led to a staggering 87% increase in Conversion Rate, which completely reshaped the account. Despite working in a competitive space with soaring costs per click and an industry faced with reduction of budgets due to the slow economic condition, Medium Blue improved the efficiency of the Cbeyond campaign. Cbeyond no longer has to sacrifice potential lead flow to optimize its PPC spends. Medium Blue transformed the PPC campaign, keeping budgets the same, while driving a substantial increase of new monthly prospects to the Cbeyond site.

ADVICE

“After a three month head-to-head competition with the previous vendor, Medium Blue proved they were managing our SEM campaigns more effectively, securing more leads per dollar and making a significant impact on our bottom line. When we brought Medium Blue in, we knew they had a strong reputation for results and were curious if the work matched the hype. We are pleased that they have exceeded our expectations and look forward to our continued partnership with Medium Blue,” said Karl Mueller, Web Properties for Cbeyond.

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