About Rackspace
At Rackspace, we accelerate the value of the cloud during every phase of digital transformation. By managing apps, data, security and multiple clouds, we are the best choice to help customers get to the cloud, innovate with new technologies and maximize their IT investments. As a recognized Gartner Magic Quadrant leader, we are uniquely positioned to close the gap between the complex reality of today and the promise of tomorrow. Passionate about customer success, we provide unbiased expertise, based on proven results, across all the leading technologies. And across every interaction worldwide, we deliver Fanatical Experience TM — the best customer service experience in the industry. Rackspace has been honored by Fortune, Forbes, Glassdoor and others as one of the best places to work. Learn more at www.rackspace.com.
What was Rackspace looking to achieve?
Rackspace wanted a better ROI out of its existing sizable demand generation marketing budget. At the time the account structure and budget were setup to reflect the various business units inside of the company, which were organized around products.
How We Exceeded Rackspace’s Expectations
The first step taken was to declutter the existing account, which had over 1.5 million search terms. After conducting an analysis on which search terms were generating impressions, clicks, and conversions the major purge was executed and less than 3500 search terms remained.
Since there were no existing cost per lead or cost per conversion goals to optimize towards, the next step was a CAC analysis to show a baseline for the cost of acquiring a new customer for each of the product types. We chose to the trailing 12 month-period to conduct this analysis, and after giving some predictions we were able to determine an annualized customer value based on revenue per product per customer. Our predictions were about 15% off.
Finally, with the new CPL targets as a guide, we optimized the new search term set. The next 30 days yielded a doubling of lead volume and an increase of ROI of over 300%. From there we expanded the marketing effort beyond paid search alone into display, content syndication, paid social, and webinars.
Financial Impact
The financial impact of our marketing optimization efforts was dramatic. By doubling the number of leads, which led to a 300% increase in marketing ROI, we were able to add millions of dollars to the bottom line without increasing ad spend or resources.