Implementing a Tiered Search Strategy
A vision care company used a tiered paid search strategy to help fill open appointments at each of its 800+ locations.
Every vision care location has appointment availability that's in flux. Appointment cost also varies. The company had previously tried to tackle this by setting each search campaign with a target cost-per-acquisition (CPA) bidding strategy that aligned with each location's appointment availability and value. But adjusting bid strategy goals for over 800 campaigns was quite a manual and time-consuming process, and every time bidding was adjusted on each campaign, the bidding algorithm would go into a new learning state, which wasn't ideal.
Analyzing each location's 14-day appointment availability and the average customer spend per appointment (SPA) from the past 30 days, Goodway combined the data into nine tiers: low availability-low SPA, low availability-medium SPA, low availability-high SPA, medium availability-low SPA and so on. Then we rolled out the search campaign one to two tiers at a time, testing and optimizing along the way, with each tier launching on a Monday and running for one to two weeks.
The first month after the tiered search strategy was set, conversions increased 25% compared to the five-month average before the test started. Spending increased only 6% during this period, resulting in a 16% decrease in CPA. The second month was even better: Conversions increased 28% compared to the five-month average before the test started, spending decreased 4% and CPA decreased 26%. The combined two-month tiered paid search strategy increased conversions 27%, spending by only 1% and decreased CPA by 21%. Goodway's tiered paid search campaign drove consumers to make appointments at locations that needed them the most.
Results
27%
conversion increase
1%
spend increase
21%
CPA decrease