Medius is a leading provider of cloud-based spend management solutions, helping businesses automate and optimize their accounts payable (AP) processes. In 2024, Medius set out to refine its digital advertising strategy, shifting its focus from high-volume lead generation to quality over quantity - ensuring that every lead had real revenue potential.
Why did we start the project?
The Challenge
At the beginning of 2024, Medius faced a critical issue in its paid search campaigns:
- Search Partners Were Driving Low-Quality Leads: While search partners delivered high volumes of traffic, most leads were unqualified or unreachable.
- Broad Match Keywords Led to Irrelevant Clicks: While broad match keywords generated high click-through rates and conversion volume, they failed to attract decision-makers actively seeking an AP automation solution.
- Lead-to-Sale Conversion Rates Were Low: Despite strong initial metrics (low CPCs, high conversion rates), these leads were not converting into sales.
How Marcel Digital Helped
The Strategy: A Shift Toward Precision
To improve lead quality, Medius took a data-driven approach to optimize its paid search campaigns:
1. Eliminating Search Partners
- Search partners had previously accounted for a significant share of total clicks and conversions, but internal sales data revealed that Medius could not even contact many of these leads.
- In early 2024, Medius paused all search partners—a move that immediately filtered out low-intent and unresponsive leads.
2. Restricting Keyword Match Types
- Medius shifted away from broad match keywords, which had been attracting non-relevant searches.
- The new strategy prioritized phrase and exact match keywords, ensuring ads were only served to users demonstrating clear purchase intent.
3. Focused Investment in High-Intent Traffic
- With search partners removed and keyword targeting refined, Medius reinvested its budget into Google’s core search network, targeting decision-makers with high-converting queries.
The team also re-allocated spend to campaigns with historically high lead-to-sale ratios.
What Happened After Launch?
The Results: Medius’ Best Year Yet for Digital
While clicks and conversions decreased, the lead quality and revenue impact skyrocketed:
- Lead-to-Sale Conversion Rate Increased: By removing low-quality leads, the percentage of leads turning into customers grew significantly.
- Sales-Qualified Leads (SQLs) Improved: The Medius sales team saw a higher response rate and stronger engagement from prospects.
- Revenue Surpassed Targets: Despite generating fewer conversions, digital exceeded revenue goals, proving that a targeted approach beats volume.
Key Results and Takeaways
The Conclusion
Medius discovered that not all clicks are created equal—while high-volume, low-cost clicks may seem beneficial, they often fail to convert and end up wasting budget. Similarly, search partners, though capable of driving cheap conversions, frequently deliver low-quality leads that dilute overall performance. Broad match keywords also proved less effective than precise targeting, as phrase and exact match keywords led to higher-quality inquiries and better conversion rates. By shifting focus from quantity to conversion efficiency, Medius achieved its most successful digital performance to date.
Ultimately, pausing search partners and eliminating broad match keywords resulted in fewer but far more valuable leads, driving revenue growth and making 2024 its best year yet.
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