PPC for an Online Electrical Supplies Store
The client’s starting point
Elektrovoz originally worked offline and focused exclusively on active sales. Most customers came from the Lviv Oblast, where the company’s office was based. The client later decided to grow online, created a website with a no-code builder, and approached Livepage to bring in new customers and generate more orders through the store.
Business specifics
Electrical supplies serve a broad market. Elektrovoz meets needs ranging from replacing a single outlet to installing an underfloor heating system. Thus, its customers can be divided into two groups: people buying individual items for repairs or replacements and customers purchasing in bulk under special wholesale terms.
Our first steps
We initially launched campaigns for product categories with the strongest margins. As the project developed, we added more categories in line with the website structure. This helped us send users to landing pages that closely matched their searches. Different tools and campaign settings were first tested in the Lviv Oblast.
At the beginning of 2019, we began working with the client to grow the business and scale sales from the Lviv region across Ukraine. The main goal was to increase revenue without raising the advertising budget. For us, this meant continuously reducing the average customer acquisition cost.
The rest of this case study explains how we used Google Ads to scale sales throughout Ukraine.
How We Increased Sales by 6.5 Times
Preparation
The main challenge in scaling the campaigns was the limited advertising budget.
The client wanted to expand sales from Lviv and the surrounding region to the whole of Ukraine without increasing ad spend. To achieve this, we reduced spending on search campaigns and redirected more of the budget toward Google Shopping campaigns.
To improve the efficiency of search advertising, we:
- Reduced the number of campaigns and kept only those promoting the most profitable products. These campaigns mainly targeted keywords containing product codes or SKUs, allowing us to reach users with clear purchase intent who were ready to place an order.
- Adjusted geographic targeting and increased bids within a radius around the physical store. This made the ads more likely to appear to users who were close to the store or warehouse and actively searching for similar products. We decided not to run search campaigns across all of Ukraine because intense competition and high cost per click would have reduced advertising profitability and conflicted with the client’s business goals.
- Improved the quality and relevance of the ads by adding responsive search ads. These provided users with more information by combining multiple headlines and descriptions that were unavailable in standard text ads.
These changes reduced search campaign spend by 64.75% while increasing conversions by 67.06%. The cost per conversion, or order, decreased by 78.85%.
Search campaign performance before and after optimization (2018–2019)
We started scaling into new regions with Smart Google Shopping campaigns, as the standard Shopping campaigns we had previously launched were delivering the best results in terms of profitability and cost per conversion. Unlike regular Google Shopping campaigns, Smart Shopping also made it possible to reach remarketing audiences across the Google Display Network, Gmail, and YouTube.
After analyzing the existing shopping campaigns, we:
- Identified ad groups with low traffic and moved them into separate campaigns for more flexible budget management.
- Analyzed search terms and improved product names by updating Merchant Center Titles through feed transformation rules. This allowed products to appear for simpler, more natural searches. For instance, many users searched for “underfloor heating.”
Example:
Before:
Extherm ET ECO 1500-180 Twin-Conductor Heating Mat, 15 m², 2700 W
After:
Underfloor Heating — Extherm Twin-Conductor Heating Mat, 15 m², 2700 W, ET ECO 1500-180
This allowed us to:
- Use more visually appealing ads featuring a product image, current price, and product name.
- Lower the average CPC compared with paid search and standard Shopping campaigns.
- Simplify campaign management and improve overall performance.
Optimization
We regularly optimized the Smart Shopping campaign to maintain strong performance:
- Disabled product groups and individual SKUs with high conversion costs, as well as products with low revenue and disproportionately high spend.
- Adjusted budgets gradually to avoid disrupting the machine learning algorithm.
We also improved the dynamic remarketing campaigns used to re-engage previous website visitors:
- Users who had viewed product information.
- Users who had started but not completed a purchase.
In addition, we created a branded search campaign to track brand growth and customer loyalty. Over time, more returning customers began finding the store through branded searches when making another purchase.
Results
The right approach to scaling and promoting the Elektrovoz online electrical supplies store helped the owner open a dedicated warehouse and become an official representative of international electrical brands in Ukraine.
Clicks and conversions before and after scaling
Without increasing the advertising budget, we were able to grow paid traffic and significantly increase sales.
Key results:
- Traffic increased by 68.7%.
- Cost per click decreased by 49.85%.
- Orders increased by 539.93%.
- Average cost per order decreased by 86.78%.
Brand awareness growth
The brand also became more recognizable during the campaign period, which was reflected in the branded search campaign.
Key results:
- Traffic increased by 109%.
- Orders increased by 13,233%.
- Average cost per order decreased by 96%.
Conclusion
A strong marketing strategy and close collaboration have helped us build a successful 5-year partnership with the client. Throughout this period, we have continued to deliver results while generating enough return to cover both advertising costs and our service fees. With Livepage’s support, the client increased sales and became one of the leading players in Ukraine’s electrical goods market.
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