How Layher generated qualified opportunities with a multi-million dollar lifetime value utilizing Paid Search (Google + Microsoft Ads)

The Company

Layher International is a globally regarded scaffolding manufacturer and supplier for the petrochemical, energy, manufacturing, and construction industries. Their North American subsidiary, Layher North America, maintains a substantial and comprehensive, ready-to-ship inventory of German-engineered solutions in Texas, Alabama, Maryland, Florida, Alberta, and Ontario. Known for its standards of excellence and full-service solutions, Layher invests heavily in building long-term, high-value customer relationships. 

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The Challenge

While Layher had a strong North American presence, its marketing efforts were limited to magazine ads, trade shows, and its website. They turned to Optidge to increase their potential revenue stream by generating high-value leads. Their clients are no small fry; with an average customer lifetime value in the millions, it’s no wonder the average sales cycle is over 12 months. New to digital marketing, and skeptical if it would work in their industry, Layher was not willing to wait over a year to see if investing in the channel would yield results. We needed a digital marketing campaign that showed high ROI in 6 months. 

Our goal

  • Generate high-quality, qualified leads with a total opportunity value of $400K generated by paid search campaigns over 6 months.

Our Solution: A targeted paid search campaign

With clear targets and a limited timeframe, we focused on maximizing the efficiency of our modest budget to generate the highest volume of qualified leads.

We did this by

  • Designing exquisitely targeted campaigns in high-value regions that appealed to Layher’s ideal buyer
    Our extensive keyword and competitor research highlighted keywords with the highest value. The targeted copy aimed to increase click-through rates and subsequently generate more qualified clicks and conversions. We also honed in on Layher’s high-value regions by creating duplicate campaigns, targeting the Northeast and Southeast U.S. regions. This allowed us to funnel budget to these areas and create more levers to optimize for Layher’s priorities.  Finally, we tested all campaigns on the Microsoft Ads platform in an effort to generate cheaper CPAs and maximize revenue opportunities. 
  • Developing crystal clear, compelling & cohesive messaging
    The success of this campaign hinged on attracting, and converting high-value leads. To do this, our messaging emphasized Layher’s unique value proposition as the original, innovative, industry-leading scaffolding provider with decades of experience.  In addition, we focused on long-term customer benefits such as increasing profits, safety, and efficiency for their customers. To support Layher’s desire to cultivate long-term, valuable business relationships, we used a direct, professional, and confident tone throughout.

We did this by

  • Using a variety of call-to-actions (such as downloading an informative PDF, filling out a lead form, or calling Layher directly) helped capture leads at various stages of the funnel while enhancing Layher’s emphasis on customer service. Finally, to prevent wrong-fit consumers from wasting our budget, we reiterated that Layher exclusively serves businesses in certain industries (as opposed to direct consumers shopping for scaffolding at a home improvement retailer).
  • Carrying out rigorous, ongoing optimization to squeeze the most value from the budget
    Each month we analyzed and scored leads based on quality.  We found the majority of quality leads were produced from four ad groups in the main, non-branded campaign. Since the algorithm lacked the budget to reach all targeted searchers, we pulled these high-performing groups into their own campaign and allocated 75% of this campaign’s budget to it. This enabled us to isolate and maximize the highest quality keywords to generate more leads and opportunity value, given the budgetary constraints.  Based on performance and relevancy, we bid up or down in a consistent effort to reach more targeted audiences at a lower cost.

The Results

  • 320 opportunities with a total value of $2.5+ million over 6 months. 
  • For every dollar spent by our Paid Search campaigns, we generated $100+ in qualified potential revenue. 
  • The average cost per qualified lead was $92
  • 2022 AMA Crystal Award for Best Large Paid Search Campaign

“Before Optidge, our digital campaigns did not convert.
Since this campaign, we have had a constant stream of new customers and new business.”

Before meeting Optige, our digital campaigns were everything to everybody and leads did not convert. There was no oversight and spending ad money on clicks that don’t convert is a major concern. It ended up being very expensive since there was no measurable outcome.  Optidge has saved us a lot of money because they help us to be strategic about our digital inbound marketing. Since the campaign, we have had a constant stream of new customers and new business, and we were able to measure it. It is a lot of work behind the scenes, but their constant adoption, optimization, and recommendation for opportunities is the main driver for the high return on ad spend. It makes a big difference in this competitive field of digital marketing.

Stefan Poetsch, COO, Layher