TPE #97: Lead Gen case study: €28K/mo → €553K/mo in 1.5 years (20x)

Read time: 7 minutes

Hey, it’s Miles here with a very special issue of The PPC Edge.

In The PPC Hub (our coaching and community platform for experienced Google Ads Specialists), we give our members the opportunity to present a case in a monthly event called “The Floors Is Yours”.

Recently, Niklas Buschner presented a case study on how his agency Radyant scaled a Lead Gen account 20x from €28K/mo to €553K/mo in spend, helping his client on track to surpassing €10M in revenue in 2024.

We helped Niklas on various parts of this journey, so today I want to share the case study with you (co-created by The PPC Hub and Radyant).

This case study is different from other case studies and is very actionable with real actions and real results — to inspire you on what’s possible with Google Ads, and to take your results to the next level.

Let’s dive right in, you’re gonna love this one!

From €28k/mo to €553K/mo in 1.5 years: the TLDR overview.

Before we dive into each step of the case study, here’s the “too long didn’t read” summary:

• Who: Niklas Buschner with his agency Radyant.
• The client: in the home renovation industry (Lead Gen).
• The client’s goal: become the market leader in their sector.
• The challenge: they were not properly utilizing Google Ads.
• The big result: scaled spend from €28K/mo to €553K/mo in 1.5 years, putting the client on track to surpass €10M in revenue in 2024.
• How: 5 phases, see below.

And a special shoutout to Marius, Radyant’s Head of SEA. Without him, this case study wouldn’t have existed.

Let’s dive into the case study, step by step!

The background and challenge.

Niklas is the founder and CEO of Radyant. He started working together with this client in September 2022. They’re active in the home renovation industry.

Their goal: become the market leader in their sector.

Their challenge: they were already spending €28K/mo on Google Ads, but weren’t properly utilizing it. While working together, Niklas encountered various problems, which he was able to solve with The PPC Hub.

He scaled the account from €28K/mo to €553K/mo in ad spend in 1.5 years through 5 phases:

1. Auditing the account.
2. Creating a solid foundation.
3. Integrating Offline Conversion Tracking to optimize towards Qualified Leads.
4. High-impact experimentation.
5. Scaling beyond Search.

Phase 1: Auditing the account.

An initial audit exposed many flaws in the account:

• The data was fragmented by 10 Search campaigns.
• 5 of them had <10 conversions per month.
• All campaigns ran on “Maximize clicks”.
• Leads were tracked through GA4.
• There were lots of duplicate conversions.
• They weren’t using any extensions/assets.
• They only used Exact Match keywords.

Phase 2: Creating a solid foundation.

The account asked for a new approach, so Niklas started off by completely rebuilding the foundation:

• Consolidating existing campaigns (Smart Bidding works better with more data per campaign).
• Switch to Target CPA instead of Maximize clicks.
• Clean up tracking: use the Google Ads Tag instead of GA4, and deduplicate conversions.
• Use Offline Conversion Tracking to see the true impact of Google Ads on “offline” sales.
• Optimizing every aspect of ads (copy, assets/extensions).

After 3 months, the spend doubled and the Cost per Lead (CPL) increased by 42%.

This might not sound like a great result, but Offline Conversion Tracking proved otherwise:

Thanks to OCT, it was possible to shift the budget to the campaign with the highest Total Deal Value (more on that below in phase 3).

Phase 3: Integrating Offline Conversion Tracking to optimize towards Qualified Leads.

The next step would be to critical to continue scaling: integrating Offline Conversion Tracking to actively optimize towards Qualified Leads.

The challenge: switching to optimizing on Qualified Leads can upset the algorithm and mess up your results. So Bob helped Niklas in The PPC Hub with a clear action plan (this is exactly why we created The PPC Hub — to not only help our members with exclusive courses, but also by creating a space where questions can get asked to get unstuck fast):

As a result, Niklas was now able to actively steer towards Qualified Leads:

Switching to optimizing towards Qualified Leads significantly increased Total Deal Value (+100%) and ROAS (+63%), while decreasing the cost per Qualified Lead (-8%).

Phase 4: High-impact experimentation.

After 6-9 months, the account was in a much better state.

Next step: implementing high-impact experiments:

• Broad Match.
• Testing new landing pages.
• Local Search.

Broad Match.

This will make some people cringe but Broad Match generated an extra +17% conversions, at a -15% lower CPL (with >€100K ad spend, this is a very trustworthy test).

Testing new landing pages.

We often stress the importance of taking control of your client’s landing pages.

Niklas proved this once again: he redesigned his client’s landing pages from the ground up and tested them against the old LPs.

The results: +30% CVR and +35% ROAS — that’s insane.

This allowed them to scale even harder.

Pro tips from Niklas: “Create mobile-first landing pages, and make sure they are lightning fast. Use reviews and social proof to let happy clients do the selling for you, clearly state the main benefits of your offer, leverage sales psychology with loss aversion, urgency, and scarcity, and make it super easy for your customers to convert”.

Local Search.

At this point, the monthly spend was around €430K. The next competitive edge came from Radyant’s Local Search Strategy: increasing conversion rate by creating hyper-relevant ads, landing pages, and keywords:

• Keywords: Insert all keywords with city themes as exact match.
• Ads: Use keyword placeholders for dynamic insertion.
• Landing page: show the city in the headline on the LP.

The results significantly improved, again: +15% CVR, +16% ROAS, and CPL dropped by -20%.

Phase 5: Scaling beyond Search.

The client is now looking into how they can scale even further by leveraging Demand Gen and Performance Max campaigns for more reach beyond Search.

The results.

And that’s how Niklas’ client grew from €28K/mo to €553K/mo in ad spend, and is now on track to surpass €10M in revenue in 2024 (pushing them closer to their goal of becoming the market leader in their industry).

The most important learning from this case study.

This is a massive 20X case study, but there’s nothing too fancy about it. It’s just a demonstration of doing the fundamentals really well:

• Starting off with an audit.
• Having an irresistible offer.
• Properly setting up conversion tracking.
• Scaling with Broad Match.
• Creating hyper-relevant ads, keywords, and landing pages.

Niklas perfectly executed what we teach in The PPC Hub:

• Focus on the fundamentals first.
• Once the foundation is laid, implement advanced tactics.

So... Do you want to take your Google Ads results to the next level?

Here’s how we can help you (Google Ads Specialists or business owners):

Are you a Google Ads Specialist?

Consider joining The PPC Hub (our coaching and community platform for experienced Google Ads Specialists like Niklas).

Inside, you’ll find everything you need to confidently drive results:

• Access to exclusive courses to deeply master Google Ads.
• Access to live advanced workshops and events.
• Access to community forum: ask questions and get unstuck.

There’s a LOT of value in here and we are committed to helping you become the best Google Ads Specialist you can possibly be, so you can confidently drive results and open yourself up to new opportunities for your career and life.

If that sounds interesting, click here to join.

But don't take it from us, here's what Niklas says about The PPC Hub:

Are you a business owner?

If you want to scale your business, consider working together with Niklas Buschner and Radyant.

Niklas is one of our most active members in The PPC Hub and a true Google Ads mastermind.

If someone can help you grow your business to new heights, it’s Niklas. Find him on LinkedIn, check out Radyant or book a call to request a free audit here.

And that’s all for today. Let’s build your success story together in The PPC Hub!

Thank you for reading and see you next week!

Cheers,

Miles (& Bob)