Competitor Conquesting: How Bidding on the Competition Delivered High-Intent Leads at a Low Cost

3 regional plumbing companies increased leads with Gemini’s paid search competitor conquesting strategy.

Overview

The number of businesses advertising on Google grows every single year, which means the cost of getting in front of potential customers grows, too. For 3 of our regional plumbing clients, the increased competition compressed their paid search profit margins—so, the Gemini team needed to come up with alternative ways to generate leads.

Leads from paid search campaigns are commonly generated from two groups: customers who are actively searching for your brand or customers who are searching for your product or service. However, for our plumbing clients, we saw a third, cost-effective, lead-generating opportunity: competitor conquesting.

What is Competitor Conquesting?

Competitor conquesting is the strategy of bidding on your top competitors’ brand terms in an effort to present an alternative service to the customer in Google search results.

The Challenge

The challenges with executing a competitor conquesting strategy for our plumbing clients included:

Differentiating our clients’ brands from their competitors
Capturing new lead volume at an effective cost per acquisition

Our Strategy

1. Determine Brand Differentiators

The first step was figuring out what factors made our clients’ brands stand out. Luckily, all 3 of our plumbing clients have great brand recognition in their service areas as well as distinct brand differentiators (promotions and discounts, 24/7 availability, superior level of service, and more).

2. Identify Top Competitors

The success of a competitor conquesting campaign is dependent on the amount of search traffic the competitors generate. All 3 of our plumbing clients service large regions and have dozens of competitors; we started by focusing on 15 to 20 competitors and expanded as the strategy went on.

3. Bid to 2nd or 3rd Position

We positioned our plumbing clients as alternatives to the competitor’s brand in the search results (not conquerors). To do this, we had to take a personalized and manual approach to keyword bidding to appear in the 2nd or 3rd position, allowing the competitor to continue occupying the first ad position.

The Results

Lower Cost Per Acquisition with Higher Quality Leads

Competitor conquesting was a strong addition to all 3 of our plumbing clients’ paid search programs. They acquired competitor conquesting leads at an average cost per acquisition of $70, which was significantly lower than their traditional non-brand efforts. Additionally, the quality of competitor conquesting leads improved.

Competitor Conquesting: Helping Strong Brands Get Even Stronger

Businesses with quality brands that can hold their own against the competition are likely to see success with a competitor conquesting strategy. When a superior brand is combined with a thoughtful paid search strategy, leads are practically a given! Plus, putting a client up against their competition can help identify strengths as well as areas of improvement.

At Gemini, we can identify what makes your brand different from your competitors. We take that information and turn it into a customized paid search strategy that’ll put your brand to work, delivering results and fueling your lead pipeline. Ready to get started? Contact Gemini today!

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