Paid Search Growth for Lender: 200% Traffic Surge with 19% Lower Acquisition Costs
Client: Financial Services Company (Name Confidential)
Category: Paid Media & Conversion Optimization
Overview
Built a full-funnel paid acquisition system combining Google Ads, Bing PPC, Facebook campaigns, and rigorous A/B testing to dramatically scale qualified leads while reducing cost per acquisition.
Challenge
This client holds a special place in my career. After resigning from Intouch to found my own consulting agency, they became one of my first major clients, making up 60% of my original portfolio. As lead strategist and campaign manager, I built a partnership based on trust and results. Their words still resonate: "Very excellent report… it is this kind of response that confirms my decision to have you at my side." **The Challenge** The client needed consistent, scalable lead volume across competitive financial services keywords while improving conversion quality. They also brought me in to clean up paid media waste spend that had accumulated under previous management. Beyond campaign optimization, I led a full website redesign, but rather than guess at what would work, I ran aggressive A/B testing on page look and feel months in advance, letting data drive the design decisions. **My CRO Philosophy** Conversion rate optimization is a lost art at most organizations. "Always be A/B testing" is my motto, and you'd be shocked how many Director-level marketers don't get this point. They launch pages based on opinions, not data. I take the opposite approach: test everything, trust nothing until the numbers prove it. We also tested the financing application form itself. This is UX evangelist 101: improve the user experience at every touchpoint. If the form is clunky, you lose leads. Period.
Approach
**1. Website Redesign Driven by A/B Testing** Led a complete website redesign informed by months of aggressive A/B and multivariate testing. By testing page layouts, visual hierarchy, and UX elements before the rebuild, we launched with a design proven to convert—not one based on assumptions. **Key Approach:** - Ran systematic page-level tests months ahead of the redesign - Tested headline variations, form placement, trust signals, and visual flow - Used winning variants to inform final design decisions **2. Paid Media Waste Cleanup** Audited existing campaigns and eliminated wasted spend from poor targeting, irrelevant keywords, and inefficient geo distribution. Rebuilt campaign structure with cleaner segmentation. **Key Decisions:** - Market carve-outs to isolate top geos with matched bids, copy, and landing pages - Budget pacing to scale during demand surges and protect efficiency during softer periods - Aggressive negative keyword implementation to cut waste **3. PPC Architecture Built to Scale** Rebuilt campaign structure to separate high-performing markets into tighter ad groups. Used geo segmentation and budget reallocation to push efficiency while scaling volume. **4. Paid Social as a Demand Multiplier** Launched and optimized Facebook campaigns to expand reach beyond search. Tracked downstream behavior revealing that social clicks drove return direct visits that converted later. **Strategic Insight:** Time-lag analysis showed delayed conversion patterns, informing follow-up sequences and attribution modeling.
Results
**Conversion & Design Impact** - **2x conversion rate** for visitors seeking financing after data-driven redesign - A/B testing months ahead of launch eliminated guesswork from design decisions - Landing pages optimized through continuous "test → learn → iterate" cadence **Growth & Demand** - **+200%** website visitors during campaign window - **+20%** qualified leads generated - **11%** of leads converted within 2 weeks (time-lag insight used for follow-up optimization) **Paid Search Performance (6-Month Window)** - **+30%** growth in conversions month-over-month - Cost per converted click improved **~19%** - CPC remained stable while scaling volume **Efficiency Gains** - Cleaned up paid media waste from previous management - Reduced wasted spend through negative keywords and geo optimization - Market-by-market CPA stabilization - Measurement-first approach enabled data-driven budget allocation