Case Study - Isaacs - OpenMoves - Digital Marketing Agency NY

Client ISAAC’S MOVING

Doubling Leads in a Cut-Throat Local Search Market

OVERVIEW

Isaac’s Moving is a leading moving company with offices across the USA and a strong presence in markets including Boston, Philadelphia, and Houston. Isaac’s offers a comprehensive range of moving services including local, international, corporate and more. With more than 30 years of history, Isaac’s has built a strong reputation on quality work, customer service, and great customer reviews.

Isaac’s Moving has been an OpenMoves client for several years, working with us on both local SEO and local PPC services. The moving industry of course is well known to be a highly competitive vertical for search engine marketing, with lots of competition, high CPC prices, and a tricky local SEO landscape.

125%

YOY session growth

75%

Cost per lead decline

110%

Increase in PPC
lead volume

100%

Growth in SEO traffic

CLIENT TESTIMONIAL

We are in a tough industry, and OpenMoves made a big difference in increasing our paid and organic leads in multiple locations! COVID really changed the landscape for moving companies this year, but OpenMoves has been a great partner helping us thrive in challenging and dynamic conditions.

Ron Hefez, Director of Sales, Isaac’s Moving

THE CHALLENGE

The moving industry is highly competitive and offers complex challenges for local marketing. From a local SEO perspective, movers are a service-area business, meaning that the movers typically visit the user’s home rather than the user actually going to the moving company location. This makes local SEO both complex and often filled with black-hat strategies and competitors.

In terms of PPC, the moving market is very competitive, with cost per click prices for Google Ads often very high. This is a very mature market, with most moving companies having been in the Google Ads market for many years fighting head to head. There is not much room for innovation in this landscape – it’s a dog fight.

Primary Goals

Improve rankings and leads for key SEO terms

Reduce cost per lead from PPC ads and drive profitability

Reach users across the different locations served by Isaac’s

Improve conversion rate on all traffic sources Analyze results through the full-funnel from click to sale using HubSpot

OPENMOVES PPC TEAM

The moving industry is one of those local SEM markets that can be really tough to get traction in and see growth. To find success you have to be willing to really get into the trenches and fight for every incremental advantage. Working with the Isaac’s team for several years, the progress and results we’ve seen recently has shown us that this effort has been worth it!

Alex, VP Paid Media Services, OpenMoves

The Solution

Our Local SEO Strategy

Multi-Platform Citation Management Effort. Citations and overall local listings management is key to success in local SEO for movers. This is a complex concept because moving companies are typically service area businesses that also typically reach many locations where they are not physically located. This issue was especially complex for Isaac’s which had a long past history of old locations, moved locations, and more. The effort to audit, organize, and optimize all local listings is still ongoing and includes platforms like Yext, BrightLocal, our own SEO platform, and more.

A New Website with Good Fundamentals. When OpenMoves started working with Isaac’s the website was dated and lacked key features such as a secure domain and strong mobile website. Working with excellent partners including Mass Digital Marketing, a new WordPress website was launched and further refined that hit all the important SEO targets and helped to lift the Isaac’s brand in traffic and conversion rate.

Generating SEO Value Through Blogging. In an industry where most players are basically all saying the same things on their websites, adding further content value through blogging was key for Isaac’s. An ongoing content marketing effort was developed to help expand website keyword targeting, inform users, and lift overall organic results. Through greatly expanded content marketing, the website has seen continued content freshness and relevance.

Our Local PPC Strategy

CRM Integration + Analytics Success. Isaac’s deployed HubSpot to manage customer contact information. HubSpot is a powerful CRM platform with a strong native integration with Google Ads, which allowed OpenMoves to get significant data not just on leads in general, but specific outcomes and sales made by specific users. This allows the OM team and Isaac’s to track true ROI on PPC and make campaign management decisions grounded in real data.

Landing Page Optimization. OpenMoves worked with the Isaac’s development team to plan and launch a full set of new PPC landing pages, customized to each market. We saw an immediate success with these pages, helping to improve conversion rate and reduce cost per lead. These pages were also built directly on the HubSpot platform allowing native CRM integration and strong conversion features like Live Chat.

Automated Bidding Launch. We tested a number of bidding strategies on Google Ads for Isaac’s before settling on CPA bidding as being the most efficient choice. Over time, as we deployed the CPA strategy fully and it collected data, we found consistent improvements in lead cost. This was one case where Google’s automation was clearly effective at reaching high-converting clicks.

Focus on Mechanics and Tactical Wins. In this industry, you need to look for every opportunity to create minor wins and efficiencies. It’s a mature, zero-sum industry with lots of players. To win in a market like this you need to focus on every small optimization: aggressive focus on negative keywords, match type optimization, layered bidding by location and demographics, dayparting, audience layering, and more.