How Advertising Agencies Are Winning For Their Clients With Paid Search

Paid search remains the foundation of digital marketing for nearly every brand. With millions of dollars flowing through this performance-driven channel, many brands rely on specialized agencies to ensure every click delivers value. These agencies bring the expertise, agility, and strategic oversight required to keep search campaigns efficient and effective.

But succeeding in search isn’t easy. It’s the most mature and competitive channel in digital advertising, with rising CPCs, evolving user behavior, and constant platform updates. Agencies not only have to deliver performance, they have to do it faster, smarter, and at scale.

That’s where technology platforms come in. The right tools can help agencies streamline operations, adapt quickly, and uncover the insights that drive better results for their clients.

Today, we’re sharing four real-world examples of times Skai’s tools helped agencies boost clients’ reach by investing in the channels that matter. 

Tech that shaped the case studies ahead

• Custom Audits: Automates campaign quality checks across Search, Social, and Retail Media, ensuring consistent performance and compliance.
• Intent Driven Messaging: Analyzes paid search programs to identify high-intent keywords not present in ad copy and recommends their inclusion to better align with consumer search intent. 
• Skai’s Experiments: Provides advanced features for setting up, managing, and reporting on A/B and pre/post tests, enhancing the test-and-learn approach in search marketing.

135% increase in conversions with scalable paid search solutions 

Boutique advertising agencies have to be future-minded. Adopting scalable solutions that will grow with the agency is crucial. Choosing the wrong tools could mean throwing money at products that actually hinder progress. When a boutique agency in Chicago realized its native tools simply weren’t getting the job done, they turned to Skai to help streamline their strategy through the power of automation.

Skai’s team evaluated their systems and provided tools that offered value on day one. First, Custom Audits provided at-a-glance insights into ad strength and sent alerts if any ads slipped to “average” or “poor” territory, allowing the team to make on-the-fly adjustments to stay at “good” or “excellent”. Then, Skai’s Intent Driven Messaging automatically analyzed existing paid search for high-intent keywords that were not already included in ads. Adding terms like “Service” to headlines such as “Meal Plan Delivery” better reflects consumer search intent. The increases were immediate in quarter-over-quarter results:

• 39% increase in CTR
• 135% increase in Conversions
• 89% increase in Conversion Rate
• 12% decrease in CPC 

Agency tested ads for incremental conversion value

Epitaph Group is a growth-focused media planning and buying agency that maximizes campaign efficacy with a human touch. When client Wurth Canada, a leading supplier of automotive, manufacturing, industrial, construction, trucking, and MRO equipment, wanted to increase conversions and lower cost-per-conversion by utilizing Dynamic Search Ads, Epitaph turned to Skai for top-notch testing

With a long-term goal of leveraging Dynamic Search Ads to drive incremental conversion value and traffic, Epitaph got to work using Skai’s Experiments to create cross-publisher A/B and pre/post-tests on campaigns, continuously monitoring results in customized visual grids. To conduct the test, the team created five campaigns focused on specific product categories within target industries, focusing on affinity audiences in the market for auto parts. Over the course of one month, Skai’s Experiments revealed that ads were more successful after an exactly seven-day ramp-up period and that seasonal promotions were more successful when accompanied by an always-on offer. In addition, Epitaph got some valuable budget insights, finding that Dynamic Search Ads increased overall impressions by 13%, but those customers were actually less likely to convert, with a net 5% decrease compared to the previous period.

Relevant engagement for a great cause

Bringing their commitment to personalization to worthwhile causes is important for Epitaph, which also boasts Kids Phone as a client. Kids Phone is Canada’s only 24/7 e-mental health service offering free, confidential support to young people in English and French. So for Kids Phone, clicks and impressions matter for at-risk youth seeking information. Hoping for 150,000 – 170,000 total new sessions over three months as they tested campaigns, Kids Phone wanted to learn how to earn the most site visits from paid search to newly created landing pages focused on new audiences to inform budget decisions for future campaigns. 

Using Skai’s Experiments, Epitaph ran an A/B test to compare performance among three new landing pages categorized as Step 1 and Step 2. Over the course of three weeks, Epitaph mapped performance on a visual grid, starting with Step 1. After tracking data, they began testing whether the Step 2 landing page would be as successful. To do this, they created an Experiment with a test campaign that split 50% of the allocated daily spend among the Step 1 and Step 2 URLs, keeping all other aspects of the campaign unchanged. Following the experiments, Kids Phone was able to determine that its first landing page tested better with audiences, moving forward with their campaign planning, confident in the knowledge that their content offered the best possible result for Canadian youth seeking critical mental health services. 

Maximizing conversions without overspending

Getting results on a budget is top of mind for most companies, especially those that have to account for seasonal spikes in search activity. For Epitaph Group’s client FH Health, which provides in-clinic Covid 19 testing, understanding how to maximize Google Ads conversions without increasing CPA more than 15% during slower months was an ongoing challenge. Skai’s Experiments helped Epitaph and FH Health make strategic decisions that ultimately saved money. 

The team got to work creating a pre/post-bidding experiment that divided spend between generic and branded campaigns at an 80% / 20% split. During the month-long experiment, the target CPA was increased by 15% for both generic and branded campaigns. Then the split in spend was adjusted to 68% toward generic keywords and 32% toward branded. Visually tracking the results on a customizable map, Epitaph was able to spot a 29% decrease in conversions during the mid-summer months when travelers didn’t need tests as often or had already been tested earlier in the year. Armed with this data, FH Health was able to reduce spend on underperforming ads and focus media efforts on channels driving results. 

From the rise of AI to the growing popularity of voice search, the past few years have seen some major shifts in paid search for agencies. To grow at scale and to offer clients budget-friendly options that drive provable results, paid search tools have to evolve alongside the industry at large. For over two decades, Skai has anticipated and adapted to a constantly evolving industry, offering customizable testing and at-a-glance visualization to help agencies make decisions that drive results. 

If you’re ready to take your agency to the next level, schedule a quick, customized demo to see Skai’s innovative, AI-driven platform.