Case Study
Franklin Park
Digital Ads
Overview
Franklin Park Senior Living communities, operated by Franklin Companies, is a family of communities in and around San Antonio, Texas. Since 2016, it has leveraged Markentum’s full suite of marketing services to promote its high-end, resort-style communities. By 2023, Franklin Park was receiving a disproportionate number of phone calls through its lead channels, many of which were not leads at all.
THE GOAL
30% improvement in leads from form fills or chat, which are much more qualified.
Obstacles
By Q4 of 2023, Franklin Park saw its Google Ads lead mix shift to 70% phone calls. While phone calls were valuable, this mix was no longer providing the best return on its marketing investment. The number of more valuable form fills had decreased to 167 from a high of 313 the previous quarter.
While useful at first, the popular automatic bidding strategy Markentum used initially to manage the operator’s Google Ads was suddenly generating a disproportionate number of less expensive phone calls rather than form fill leads.
Solution
In January of 2024, Markentum implemented an advanced bidding strategy designed to encourage form and chat conversions. Through experimentation, we identified the optimal values Google needed to optimize the lead mix. In essence, we changed the inputs to get better outputs.
The strategy did not turn off or stop phone calls; it signaled Google that we prefer users likely to complete a form or use the chatbot. By the end of Q1 of 2024, the number of phone calls decreased 26% while the number of form fills and chats completed increased 105% in the same timeframe.
Results.
In Q124, phone calls as a percentage of total leads dropped to 43%. Total overall lead conversions improved 15% and leads from chats or form completions increased 2x to 344 (from 167 the previous quarter).