0 %

Increase in Facebook Impressions over an 8 month period.

1

Over 900 leads have been generated from our Facebook/Instagram Advertising.

1 %

Increase in conversion rates from 1% to 2.4% – a 140% increase.

The Challenge

Skills Training Group is the leading heating and utilities training provider in Scotland. With state of the art facilities located in Paisley and Dalgety Bay, Fife, Skills Training Group specialise in preparing their students in real-world situations to give them a competitive edge when it comes to being hired and staying gainfully employed. 

Mark McShane, Owner and Managing Director of Skills Training Group, wanted a lead Digital Marketing Agency in London to drive more leads (brochure downloads) for his Gas MLP course. His previous paid social efforts were driving high volumes of leads, but the quality of these leads was low, leading to a very high cost per sale and an average of four conversions for every one thousand leads generated.

The main challenge during our partnership was increasing the sales on the Dalgety Bay centre gas courses and improving the quality of the leads coming through to generate more conversations.

Solution

Following an extensive audit of the Skills Training Group Facebook ad account, we made numerous optimisations to improve performance. First, we noticed that the lead generation campaigns Skills Training Group were running weren’t achieving the desired results. The existing campaigns generated a high volume of leads, with a low average cost of £7-£10 per lead, but the conversion rate for these leads was very low, averaging around 1%, with an average of four conversions for every one thousand leads generated.

To improve these results, we switched the campaign objective to conversions and optimised the campaigns for leads, with the aim being to bring in leads that were a better fit for the Gas MLP course. Making these campaign switches resulted in the campaigns bringing in higher quality leads that had stronger purchasing intent, which led to an increase in course brochure downloads and course sales. 

Before working with The Good Marketer, Skills Training Group were targeting males in the age range of 21-55 in specific areas such as Edinburgh, Glasgow and Fife. To expand this audience, we decided to start targeting males within the same age range who had an interest in apprenticeships and excluded anyone who already works as a Gas Engineer and who already have doctorate degrees. 

Secondly, we improved the adverts by designing ads with text displayed on the graphic; this enhanced the clarity of the offer and improved click through rate. The previous copy on the ads lacked context, making it difficult for our audience to understand what we were offering and why they should care. In addition, we also tested different marketing angles, such as why the gas boiler ban has a positive impact on the industry, to help make the ads more relevant and more engaging to our target audience. This was an important angle to take and spread awareness of as our target audience had been concerned that the banning of gas boilers would have a negative effect on the industry and that jobs would be at risk when this wasn’t the case. 

We also leveraged custom audiences and lookalike audiences to scale the account; something Mark had not experimented with previously. This included uploading a customer and lead list and creating other lookalike audiences that included people who had visited the Skills Training Group website and people who had engaged with the brand’s social media posts. 

In the last six months, these audience campaigns have produced 918 leads for a very low cost of £8.68 per lead. Scaling the account with interest-based targeting, such as targeting audiences interested in apprenticeships, job fairs and job sites such as careerbuilder.co.uk and jobsite.co.uk, also combatted ad fatigue that had occurred previously when the account was under the client’s control.

Lastly, we devised a strategy to target people only in the Dalgety Bay area. We rewrote the ad copy to make it more compelling. We decided to tailor our ads towards specific courses, particularly those that still had available spaces, and built intrigue by opening our ads with the question “Thinking of becoming a Gas Engineer?”. This question caught the attention of people interested in making a career change and led to many of the courses advertised selling out within a few weeks. 

Overall, our changes to the existing campaigns drove a higher volume of quality leads and increased the number of course sales.

The Results

Throughout our partnership, we have;

Testimonials

GET YOUR FREE ACCOUNT AUDIT