Case Study: Demand Beacon's Google Ads and SEO Success for LevelUp
Client overview: LevelUp is a concrete repair company serving homes and businesses in Indiana. Despite strong services and more than 100 five-star reviews on their Google Business Profile, LevelUp had low lead conversion rates, a high cost per click and flat organic traffic to their new website.
Challenge: LevelUp needed more leads at a lower cost to hit their 2024 goals. They asked Demand Beacon to overhaul their Google Ads and SEO.
Objectives
- More conversions: generate more leads.
- Lower cost per conversion: make each lead cheaper.
- More organic traffic: grow the number of new website visitors.
Approach
Google Ads
Account takeover: We took over LevelUp's Google Ads account in April 2024, starting with a full audit.
Optimizations: We fixed conversion tracking and focused it on the conversions that matter: scheduled appointments and form submissions.
The account had been running manual CPC with broad match keywords and only a few campaign-level negatives. We switched to Smart Bidding, built an extensive negative keyword list, paused weak keywords, added new ones, and excluded ZIP codes that never produced leads.
Brand awareness and retargeting: Using AI tools, we produced short 15 to 30 second video ads that reached more than 10,000 views in three months. They targeted YouTube users who had searched for concrete repair, and retargeted site visitors who hadn't converted.
SEO
Audit: In October 2023 we analyzed LevelUp's SEO performance and found content gaps and on-page and off-page opportunities.
Content: We built a content plan around the questions LevelUp's customers ask.
Schema markup: Structured data on key pages helped search engines understand and display LevelUp's content, which raised click-through rates and earned rich results.
Backlinks: We earned links from relevant, authoritative sites through outreach, content and relationship building, which lifted domain authority and rankings.
Results
Google Ads (April to August 2024)
- Leads: 152, an average of 30 a month, a 300% increase
- Cost per lead: $169, down 20%
SEO (September 2023 to August 2024)
- New users: up from 2,282 to 4,613 (+102%)
- Conversions: up from 26 to 103 (+281%)
- Domain Rating: up from 9 to 16
- Backlinks: up from 119 to 340
- Referring domains: up from 66 to 124
Analysis
What drove it: On the ads side, better conversion tracking, a thorough negative keyword list and Smart Bidding. On the SEO side, a full audit, focused content and technical fixes.
Lessons learned: Concrete repair is competitive, especially around Indianapolis, and people often treat it as optional. It takes creative thinking to get prospects to act.
Running Google Ads and SEO together paid off. Keyword data from ads sharpened the SEO plan, which lifted both paid and organic results. Ongoing testing, in ad copy and site content alike, kept the gains coming.
Client testimonial
"Jess and her team at Demand Beacon have offered a refreshing take in supporting our marketing effort. Jess takes time to understand our business, the market and layers data to support our growth strategy. Most importantly, she thinks like an owner and understands the value of operating gritty and efficient to maximize results."
What's next
Next we plan to add Meta ads, keep using LevelUp's five-star reputation in SEO, and grow their organic footprint into new markets.