Achieving Success in a Highly Competitive Self Storage Market
Goal
Our client runs a Self Storage facility in Mississippi that offers multiple services including Climate Controlled Storage, RV Storage, Boat Storage and Vehicle Storage. Self storage facilities always have a lot of competition in the US market, this was especially the case for this client. Some of their competitors are willing to pay as high as $30 per click, which would result in really high Cost Per Acquisition (CPA). Our goal was to get above their competitors, while keeping tCPA below $50.
Strategy
Write Effective Ad Copy
As our client offers different storage options, we had to make sure that the ad copy was relevant to each option. We had to have separate ads for Climate Controlled Storage, Vehicle and RV & Boat storage.We are frequently A/B testing different ad copy so that we are always using the best performing ads and they never go stale.
Keyword Management
High level of keyword research is just the first step. With this account, each facility offers different storage options. So, we needed to make sure we were bidding on the highest intent storage options. We are constantly combing through the search term reports to remove poor performing keywords, and maximizing our budget's potential.
Ad Group Level Changes
We found that General/Climate Controlled storage terms were performing better than RV & Boat storage, or Vehicle storage. So we broke each of these into their own ad groups, and increased the amount we were willing to bid for general storage terms. This way, we were bidding more on the keywords that were going to get us the most conversions, while still getting clicks for the other storage services at a low cost.
Campaign Level Changes
We also noticed that there were alot of branded search terms coming through. This can be as a result of the nature of the storage business, and how they are found by their customers. A lot of business comes from drive-by customers. So, as locals drove past the facility, they would notice our client and search for them. Or they might already be a customer! Branded keywords can lead to a waste of budget, as we are bidding keywords that we show up organically for. To fix this issue, we broke these branded keywords into their own campaign with a really low max cost per click and its own dedicated budget. This was to ensure that we were still showing up over our competitors when our client's name was searched. Due to the amount of competition in the area, it would be a risk to cut these branded keywords completely, as a competitor could start bidding at a really low price. This allows us to use our budget more efficiently on high intent storage keywords.
Results
In the first twelve months we have:
Maintained a high conversion rate of 11%.
Achieved a cost per acquisition <$40 overall.
Kept cost per click down below $5 in a highly competitive market where some competitors are willing to pay as high as $30 for clicks.
Screenshots
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