As any digital marketer knows, online advertising can be fiercely competitive – and expensive.
But, for those businesses that get it right, the benefits can be huge.
That’s why WebPT relies on experts like Josh Golden, their Digital Marketing Manager, to create campaigns that break through the noise of the competition online.
After onboarding Drift and using it to capture more web traffic from WebPT’s digital advertising campaigns, Josh not only tripled their monthly chat leads, but increased their monthly recurring revenue (MRR) from leads coming in from Google and Bing ads.
Here’s how he did it ?
Selling To The CFO
WebPT, a software provider for outpatient rehab therapy services, is in a niche market. As their digital marketing expert, Josh was tasked with making the most of the company’s online ad investments in this highly competitive space.
Prior to onboarding Drift, WebPT was using a software called Olark to manage all their incoming chat conversations. For sales, this setup proved less than ideal.
Olark lacked the kind of intuitive routing that could notify the right team members based on the questions or chat conversations coming in. As a result, sales were spending much more time fielding support questions vs. holding conversations with interested buyers.
It was this lack of customization – and a reference from a colleague – that prompted Josh and WebPT to choose Drift:
“Olark was pretty one-dimensional. Our SDR team was spending too much time answering support questions or passing things over to support…They weren’t selling much.”
Josh did some research and saw that Drift offered more dynamic routing for chat, plus the ability to change messaging based on Urchin Tracking Module (UTM).
That’s when Josh got in touch with Trent from Drift. Together, they started to create budgeting plans for WebPT’s CFO.
“Trent and I calculated the ROI of onboarding Drift based off of the website traffic to our landing pages through paid channels. We went through industry standards for leads and then looked at our lead-to-close ratio here at WebPT. From there, we put together an MRR plan based off of those lead goals and our close numbers.”
Looking at the results, the value was undeniable.
“Our CFO is usually pretty tough, but he took a look at the numbers and was just like: All right, this is a great plan,” laughs Josh.
Experimentation & Personalization
After onboarding, Josh quickly went to work using Drift as part of WebPT’s paid search campaigns.
WebPT invests heavily in digital advertising to appear as the top paid search result for a number of keywords, including “physical therapy software.” Given their niche industry, the price of these keywords can easily cost anywhere between $150 to $200 a click.
In other words, there’s little room for error.
Experimenting with different messages in both chat and on their landing pages became WebPT’s key strategy for optimizing their paid search campaigns.
“It’s very important for us to A/B test our ads and to bring in the clicks,” says Josh.
Josh started by creating specific Drift playbooks based on the ad source of the audience, including playbooks for Google, Facebook, Bing and Capterra, a big lead driver for WebPT.
He then used Unbounce, in addition to Drift, to create different landing pages based on UTM parameters.
?Using this strategy WebPT was able to provide personalized messaging via Drift and experiment with landing page copy and design via Unbounce.
Originally, Josh had concerns that adding a chatbot to their Unbounce landing pages might cannibalize leads coming in through Google. Given the amount the company was paying per click, that could be a real issue.
The reverse happened:
“We’ve seen our leads, specifically leads from our Google and Bing ads, increase since implementing Drift. And it continues to perform well every month.”
Since using Drift in online campaigns, WebPT has tripled its chat-based leads and the MRR of their Google and Bing ad-sourced leads.
Improving Buyer Experiences & The Bottom Line
Outside of the success seen in their paid search strategy, within the first three months of implementing Drift, WebPT:
- Improved overall user experience on their landing pages
- Leveraged Drift to provide their trademark quality customer service
- Added real-time customized messaging for potential customers
And they’re just getting started.
In the coming months, Josh plans on tweaking their playbooks further based on the practice type people are searching for. For example, someone coming to the site for “occupational therapy” will get a different message and options than someone coming in through the search term “physical therapy.”
This routing will make it even easier for people to navigate the site and get connected to the right sales reps – a win for both WebPT and their customers.
