Overview
USA Summer Camp recruits applicants for summer camp programmes in the United States. Peak season is when the year’s applications are won or lost, so every pound of spend in those weeks has to turn into real applicants, not just traffic.
The challenge
Going into peak season, the account had a high cost per acquisition and low lead volume. Most of the budget was going into social campaigns aimed at low-intent audiences. They produced plenty of clicks and plenty of cost, but very few applications.
What we changed
- Moved budget to intent. We shifted spend from social into Google Search, where people are actively looking for a camp to apply to.
- Cut wasted clicks. We removed clicks on competitor names and stripped out irrelevant search queries.
- Bid for the cheapest good leads. We optimised towards the search queries that produced leads at the lowest cost.
- Took manual control where it mattered. Top-performing keywords moved from Smart Bidding to manual CPA bidding.
- Matched the page to the search. The landing page was aligned with what people were actually searching for.
The results
In April, the account delivered 163 applicant leads at a cost per lead of £6.76 on £1,102 of spend. Google Ads converted at 8.86%. Lead volume was 2.8× the previous month, with a 6.5% lower CPA.
Sometimes the answer isn’t better creative. It’s to stop paying for attention from people who were never going to convert.
Results are specific to this client, budget and market, and are historical. They don’t guarantee future outcomes.