The Client

Parallaxx is a New Zealand-based client that specialises in temporary on-road traffic management–from plans and designs down to equipment. They also offer training courses and workshops for supervisors, project planners, and auditors responsible for a worksite’s temporary traffic management.

The client began offshoring to the Philippines a couple of years ago. With the decision to redesign their website also came the decision to hire their own digital marketer. This is where ShoreMarketing entered the picture.

The Challenge

Prior to May 2018, the client has not been doing any digital marketing efforts. They were not tracking website traffic and user engagement with any tracking tool, hence the lack of data for comparison with previous periods.

ShoreMarketing understands that knowing the trends and demands in an industry is critical when it comes to structuring a marketing strategy. To do so, it’s important to conduct an analysis of the website’s monthly performance and compare the results to its performance in the previous years.

Our Recommendation

Parallaxx hired Veronica not as a project or part-time freelancer but as a full-time digital marketer. Upon the client’s initial onboarding mid-May 2018, a Google Analytics account was set up for them. This is not just to track visitors and conversions but also use the delivered data to make informed business decisions that would lead to the coveted conversions.

With the support of our coaches, Veronica was then put in charge of the optimisation and advertising deliverables for the client. High-level strategies tailored to the client’s needs were created. Nevertheless, the client’s stamp of approval was still sought for before any strategy was executed.

• Set key performance indicators (KPI)

It is important to identify KPIs before making any decisions or taking any actions. This is because KPIs are the metrics that would help you identify how effective a process or your overall performance is when aligned with your business goals.

With the client’s approval, metrics such as traffic and leads were identified so that they can be tracked moving forward. The benchmark figures were determined by holding a week-long observation period (May 29, 2018 to June 3, 2018).

• Build off-page and on-page SEO

For on-page optimisation, Veronica assigned a focus keyword and wrote Google guidelines-compliant meta descriptions for each page on the website. She also optimised the pages for mobile browsers.

In terms of off-page optimisation, improving a website’s trust and overall backlink score is critical. Veronica reached out to different websites with the aim of generating 1 inbound link per 1 high authority domain.

• Set up Google Ads campaigns

Pay-per-click campaigns started running on July 10, 2018. From Leads, the campaign goal on Google Ads was eventually set to Sales on October 05, 2018. Ad testing was continuously done to further maximise the ad budget.

We also suggested that the client increase their budget during the peak season to not get outbid by their competitors and reach more quality traffic. As for the offseason when interest in and consideration of Parallaxx’s services is still somewhat strong though with a lack of readiness for conversion, ShoreMarketing recommended employing remarketing strategies to help urge users down the sales funnel.

• Launch Facebook ads

Social media marketing helps you connect to your audience at a more personal level. Investing in social media platforms help boost your visibility, build brand awareness, and eventually drive more conversions and sales.

Parallaxx’s Facebook ads started running on November 20, 2018. However, in January 2019, all campaigns have been cancelled. With the lack of running campaigns, Social traffic waned.

• Fix website speed errors

It is critical to fix the website’s speed as it may cause friction and compromise user experience. Veronica coordinated with Shore Digital, our sister company, regarding the compression of files and codes on the backend of the client’s website. This includes eliminating render-blocking JavaScript and CSS in the above-the-fold content.

The Results

As aforementioned, once the KPIs were identified and approved by the client, benchmark figures were determined for each KPI. In June 2018, a month into the onset of our digital marketing efforts, Parallaxx’s website score improved by 8 points (from 44 to 52). Overall traffic also increased by 1,215% (from 26 to 342), with Organic Search and Direct being the main drivers of the traffic. At the same time, registrants for training courses and Contact Us form sign-ups also started coming in.

Note: Since the Google Analytics account was only set up upon the client’s onboarding, we are restricted to data that was recorded on May 22 onwards. Nevertheless, we were able to extract significant takeaways about Parallaxx’s digital performance during the observation period.

Once the website loading speed issues were resolved with the help of Shore Digital, sessions and new users started showing an upward trend. Beginning June 2018, there has been a recorded improvement in sessions and new users on desktop and mobile. Bounce rate also went up; however, when it is placed in conjunction with the higher number of conversions, we can conclude that website visitors have gotten what they came for without the need to navigate to other pages.

Nevertheless, we are constantly looking for ways to improve the bounce rates, either by further improving website loading speed or adding more valuable content on-page. As of November 2019, bounce rate has gone down to 41.20%, which is 21.04% lower than the previous month and 11.73% lower than November 2018’s.

Parallaxx’s average website position also started picking up, with the highest rank to date being 9.1 in August 2018. However, this wasn’t sustained in the succeeding months, possibly due to a drop in search volume.

Nevertheless, the client’s website started recovering its organic search ranking in December 2018. Throughout 2019, Parallaxx has been shifting between the 9th and 10th position in search results: this is significantly better considering how the website’s 2018 average position was dragged down by its average position of 21.7 during the last quarter of the year.

Comparison of Parallaxx’s Search Console figures on November 2018 and November 2019

Veronica is still regularly optimising Parallaxx both on-page and off-page. Included in her on-page optimisation tasks is regularly publishing posts on the website’s Blog section to maximise Google’s preference for timely and high-quality content. As for off-page optimisation, Veronica is generating high-quality backlinks through guest posts and business listings. She is also managing Parallaxx’s organic social media posts regularly, as well as their campaigns if there are any.

Moving on to pay-per-click advertising, Parallaxx’s ongoing Search campaigns were launched in July 2018 and August 2018 respectively. Consequently in the succeeding months, Analytics recorded Paid Search as the top driver of traffic to the Parallaxx website.

In September 2018, Veronica, with the guidance of our PPC coach, ran a Search-based split test (variables including old and new landing pages) in Google Ads. Based on the test results, the team was able to identify opportunities for improvement and give recommendations to better maximise the paid search channel. Initially, the goal of the Search campaigns was set as Leads; the goal was eventually set to Sales on October 05, 2018.

At the launch of the campaign, the average cost-per-click (CPC) was NZD2.43 and increased up to NZD5. Come March 2019, average CPC hit an all-time high of NZD10.18 mainly because ads were still undergoing optimisation and restructuring to expand Parallaxx’s ad reach. Following the implementation of ad changes, we started seeing much better results, which includes the CPC decreasing to as low as NZD2.71 last October.

During August to October 2018, cost per conversion was NZD78.40. During the same period the following year, cost per conversion decreased to NZD36.02. The significant improvement can be attributed to the optimisation of the ads.

Since the client’s onboarding, the February 2019 revenue has the highest recorded monthly value. While the number of transactions is only a point higher than the transactions in January, February’s average order value per transaction is higher by 23.73%.

As best practice, Veronica is regularly monitoring and nurturing the Parallaxx ads account’s overall health. Included in her tasks are observation and analysis of Parallaxx’s market’s search behaviour, manual exclusion of irrelevant placements and search queries, and refinement of keyword match types and ad copies.

The Client’s Testimonial

Here’s what Dave Tilton, Parallaxx’s chief executive, has to say about Veronica and ShoreMarketing:

“Hi there! I’m Dave Tilton. I’m the chief executive of the company called Parallaxx. We do temporary traffic management design, engineering, and a whole lot of support functions and professional services based in New Zealand.

Since 2017, we’ve been using ShoreMarketing as our kind of marketing partner, and one of our staff members based in the Philippines is a digital marketer that is fully engaged with ShoreMarketing. Since we first sort of started our relationship with ShoreMarketing, we’ve had really excellent support from them in areas that I know nothing about so…

I’m a traffic guy and in order to have [a] more prominent presence digitally and have a lot more expertise in how we undertake all of those things that [are] such a critical component of a business’ footprint and brand, we needed someone, a partner, effectively, that knows a lot more about it than we do and that was ShoreMarketing.

So we took on one of their staff and she’s [Veronica] been fantastic. She’s embedded within our team. She’s done all of the training that our team has done. We’ve shaped her understanding of our business, our trade, what’s important to us, and what’s important to our customers. And she’s used that information along with the support and guidance of ShoreMarketing team to have a really profound impact on our digital presence and that’s meant some pretty cool things that we’ve never done or seen before. It’s had a huge impact on [how] our business is fronted and how our customers see us and how they see our brand and we’re really thankful for the support and guidance we have received from ShoreMarketing since we started our relationship so we definitely intend to continue that along Into the future. Thanks, team!”