Five Google Ads Success Stories: How We Improved Cost per Acquisition

Google Ads is one of the fast-acting ways to win customers that a great many companies use.

But

“We put the budget in but the results do not follow”
“CPA is stuck high”
“It is not reaching the people we want”

Plenty of companies have worries of that kind.

So in this article we have picked out five Google search advertising projects we ran ourselves and which produced substantial results.
Each industry, business and audience brought different problems, and we explain the strategy and the improvements we made in each case, together with the results.

If you feel something is not right with your own advertising, or you are looking for ideas that work, do have a read.

Summary
・Google search advertising is a fast-acting method that lets you make your case directly to people who are searching
・For the different problems each industry brings, results were maximised through bid strategy, landing page improvements, comparison against other platforms and more
・Five projects that cut CPA and raised conversion counts (SaaS, healthcare, recruitment, insurance and others)

▽Recommended for
・Anyone running ads whose results have plateaued
・Anyone considering Google search advertising but unsure whether it will work for their own business
・Anyone who wants to use other companies’ successes to improve their own advertising

1. What Google Ads is

Google Ads is Google’s internet advertising platform, which places ads on the search engine, on Google services such as YouTube and Gmail, and on partner sites across the Google advertising network。

Within it, “ search advertising” is advertising shown in response to the keywords a user searches for, and its great distinction is that it reaches people whose need has already surfaced, directly

2. The types of Google Ads

Google Ads offers several delivery formats.
What matters is choosing and combining the ad types that suit your objective and what you are selling.
The main types are set out in the table below.

Ad type	Where it appears	Main purpose
Search advertising	Google search results	Making your case directly to people in-market, winning enquiries and document requests
Display advertising	Banner slots on Google partner sites	Building awareness among people not yet in-market, bringing visitors back
Video advertising	Video ads on YouTube	Making the case for a product or service, branding
Shopping advertising	Google Shopping slots	Promoting e-commerce products, winning conversions
Demand Gen campaigns (formerly Discovery ads）	YouTube／Gmail／Discover	Broadening your reach with interest-based targeting
Smart campaigns	Automatically optimised	For smaller companies wanting results with minimal set-up
Local advertising	Google Maps and similar	Driving footfall to physical shops (with store visit measurement)
Call advertising	Ads that drive phone calls	Prompting enquiries by phone directly (for mobile)
App advertising	App install ads	Driving app downloads and use

Google Ads comes in many forms, as above, but this article focuses on search advertising, which makes your case directly to the intent behind a search, and sets out specific success stories.

The great strength of search advertising is that because it appears in response to the keywords a user types into the search box, it reaches people already in-market, with strong intent to buy or to gather information. It can be an important way to make a limited ad budget work harder and produce results more effectively.

Related article:
What search advertising is
The essential guide to bid strategy in search advertising

3. Google search advertising: five success stories

Here are five projects from the search campaigns we have run that produced particularly strong results.
Designing the right strategy for each industry and audience produced substantial results.

3.1 Case 1 [SaaS] CPA from 30,000 yen to 20,000 yen, at three times the conversion target

Industry	An AI service (SaaS)
Target	26 conversions (CPA 30,150 yen)
Result	82 conversions (CPA 21,951 yen)
What we changed	We accepted a high cost per click (CPC) and adopted a bid strategy focused on absolute top impression share, so the ads appeared at the very top of the search results. We also analysed competitors’ bidding weekly and adjusted the strategy flexibly. On top of that we prepared several calls to action, giving users more options and easing the psychological burden of converting.

3.2 Case 2 [SaaS] More than 200 conversions a month

Industry	Platform sales
Target	CPA 20,000 yen
Result	CPA 10,000 yen, 200 conversions a month
What we changed	We redesigned the case made by the landing pages and the ads, and reviewed the site structure to improve conversion rate. We also tested the effect of the case made on Meta as well as on Google Ads, repeating the PDCA cycle to find the best combination of channel and creative. Conversions rose and CPA came in well under target.

3.3 Case 3 [Healthcare and clinics] Aiming for 300 new patients, with CPA in the 5,000 yen range

Industry	A mental health clinic
Target	300 new patients
Result	300 conversions, CPA 5,000 yen
What we changed	To prepare for the new patients, we maximised the number of appointment slots and broke the time slots down more finely in advance. Weekly meetings also let us feed the appointment position back into ad delivery, working closely with the clinic’s own operations. While observing the restrictions on medical advertising in Google Ads policy, we worked through which keywords could run and improved delivery steadily.

3.4 Case 4 [Recruitment and staffing] CPA from 24,000 yen to 2,000 yen after introducing a landing page

Industry	Recruitment and staffing for customer-facing and sales roles
Target	CPA 10,000 yen
Result	CPA 2,000 yen, 195 conversions
What we changed	Switching from ads that sent people to a job board to ads that sent them straight to a bespoke landing page raised the conversion rate substantially. Matching each keyword to its own list of vacancies brought what was shown closer to the intent behind the search. CPA improved by more than 90% as a result, but the interview rate was low at 10%, which made the next thing to improve clear.

3.5 Case 5 [Our own recruitment] 70 conversions, with data joined up for measurement

Industry	Insurance
Target	150,000 yen per qualified application, 1,000,000 yen per hire
Result	CPA 40,000 to 50,000 yen, 70 conversions
What we changed	We rebuilt the landing page completely and introduced a step form and parameters by traffic source, making the numbers visible at every stage from application to hire. A team member with recruitment experience took charge of the case the page makes, choosing words that resonate with applicants and designing the path through.

4. Talk to NowVillage about Google search advertising

We hope that was useful.
Results from advertising change a great deal with “ understanding of the industry and strategic improvement“.

On the same budget, what decides the outcome is whether the case you make fits the audience, whether the landing page is designed well, and whether you can keep a cycle of improvement turning.

At NowVillage we support advertising that pays for itself, through

• ad design specific to your industry and roles
• proposals for improving landing pages and creative
• weekly reports and flexible changes of strategy

.

“We want to improve the CPA we have now”
“Enquiries and revenue are not growing”
“We want to look at the whole picture, not just the ads but the landing pages and the drop-off as well”

If any of that sounds familiar, do get in touch.

Talk to NowVillage about advertising management