224% Growth in Lifetime PPC Conversions and 63% Lower Cost Per Conversion
HR Compliance SaaS Platform (client identity anonymized)
The Background
The client is an HR compliance SaaS platform offering self-service solutions for HR professionals, lawyers, and compliance teams, serving both B2B and B2C audience segments. The acquisition challenge was not simply reaching more people — campaigns needed to reach relevant professional audiences while reducing low-quality traffic and improving the efficiency of paid acquisition.
The company approached Foreignerds while its paid acquisition program was still developing, facing several challenges at once: bot and spam traffic degrading lead quality, underperforming Google Ads campaigns, and an organic search program with unrealized technical, content, and authority opportunities.
| Volume | 97,979 Total Paid Clicks |
|---|
The Challenge
The paid acquisition system was generating activity without consistently generating the right kind of traffic. More paid traffic was not the answer — better traffic and better campaign structure were.
- Bot and spam interference: Google Ads were generating low-quality leads from spam and bots.
- PMAX underperformance: Performance Max campaigns were not producing sufficient value — a distinct problem from the bot/spam issue, not a symptom of it.
- Search-targeting issues: PPC targeting required refinement to better align campaigns with relevant search demand.
- Algorithm misalignment: The source identifies a specific misalignment between the campaign setup and the advertising platform’s targeting behavior.
- LinkedIn performance plateau: LinkedIn initially generated strong results but eventually plateaued as competition on the platform increased.
- Organic search opportunity: SEO had room for growth through technical improvements, stronger content, and link building.
- Conversion-tracking confidence: The paid-social program faced a separate measurement concern — the client did not fully trust its existing analytics setup.
The root cause: the company needed to become more selective about where traffic came from, who was being targeted, how campaigns were structured, and how conversions were measured.
Our Approach & Technical Decisions
The Strategy
The engagement developed around four connected priorities: (1) clean up paid search by removing ineffective campaign elements, refining targeting, and reducing low-quality traffic; (2) shift social investment away from a plateauing LinkedIn program and into Meta; (3) strengthen organic search through technical SEO, key-page structure, high-intent content, and backlinks; and (4) improve conversion measurement using direct lead sign-up campaigns within the advertising platform.
Phase 1 — Fixing Paid Ad Issues
Decision: Clean the acquisition system before scaling it. At the start of the engagement, Google Ads were not operating efficiently — the source identifies spam-generated leads, bot traffic, underperforming PMAX campaigns, ineffective ad types, search-targeting problems, and PPC algorithm misalignment.
Action: Removed underperforming ad types and campaign components that were not producing meaningful value; refined keyword and targeting structures around better-quality search demand; filtered spam and junk traffic to improve the quality of campaign results.
Why: The strategic objective was to improve the quality of the acquisition funnel rather than simply increase traffic volume.
Phase 2 — The LinkedIn-to-Meta Pivot
Decision: Move social budget when performance plateaus. LinkedIn initially generated growth — the source reports +81% Link Clicks and +61% Impressions — but performance plateaued over time as competition on the platform increased.
Action: Shifted paid-social investment toward Meta.
Why: This was a documented channel reallocation driven by performance data, not an assumption that every platform should continue receiving the same investment. The pivot changed platform, audience strategy, campaign structure, and conversion focus, with the goal of finding a more effective environment for paid-social acquisition.
Phase 3 — Meta Campaign Execution
Decision: Focus paid social on measurable actions. Meta campaigns produced measurable improvements within the first three months of the pivot.
Action / The Numeric Story (Meta, 3-month snapshot):
| Metric | Result |
|---|---|
| Landing Page Views | 3,878 |
| Impressions | 438,748 |
| Clicks | 4,407 |
| Average CPC | $0.86 |
| Conversions | 38 |
| Conversion Rate | 13% |
| Cost Per Link Click | -87% |
| Lowest Conversion Cost | $38.92 |
Why: The $38.92 figure is specifically described in the source as the lowest conversion cost achieved within the dedicated conversions campaign — not a blended or average cost across all Meta activity, and that exact context is preserved here.
The undefined 682% metric: the detailed paid-social section of the source contains a line reading “Conversion Rate: 682%.” The source does not specify whether this represents an absolute conversion rate, a percentage change, or a differently defined campaign metric. For that reason, it is intentionally excluded from the hero metrics, headline results, and normalized visualizations in this case study, and is not restated as a business result anywhere below — it cannot be safely interpreted from the source as given.
Phase 4 — Strengthening Organic Search
Decision: Build a broader organic acquisition foundation. SEO became a major growth area within the engagement.
Action: The program began with a technical audit to identify issues affecting search visibility, then moved into key-page structure improvements, high-intent keyword targeting, content development, link building, and continued optimization based on performance data. The SEO program worked across three core layers: technical SEO, content, and authority (backlinks).
Why: A technical foundation combined with search-intent-driven content and authority building was the documented approach to growing organic visibility sustainably.
The Numeric Story — SEO (two separate reporting blocks)
Project Overview: The case-study overview reports +55% Organic Traffic. This is retained exactly as the source’s headline metric.
Detailed SEO Reporting (a separate section of the source):
| KPI | Result |
|---|---|
| Organic Traffic | +23% |
| Organic Users | +50% |
| New Users From Search | +50% |
| Backlinks Earned | 46 |
| Estimated Views From Backlinks | 18,200 |
| Estimated Audience Reach | 42,300 |
Because the source does not define whether the +55% and +23% organic-traffic figures use the same comparison period, they are not combined or reconciled here — both are reported exactly as the source presents them. The 46 backlinks earned, 18,200 estimated views, and 42,300 estimated audience reach are retained as source-estimated exposure metrics, not as verified organic traffic or conversion results.
Phase 5 — Continuous Optimization
Decision: Maintain ongoing communication and strategy adjustment rather than a set-and-forget campaign structure.
Action: Quarterly business reviews were used to review campaign performance, guide content priorities, reassess goals, align execution with client expectations, and respond to evolving search trends. Strategies were adapted as advertising-platform algorithms and policies changed.
The Numeric Story — PPC (two separate reporting levels)
Project Overview: The project overview reports +28% PPC Conversions, presented as the overview-level result.
Detailed PPC Reporting (a separate section of the source):
| Metric | Result |
|---|---|
| Total PPC Conversions | +224% |
| Cost Per Conversion | -63% |
| Average Cost Per Conversion | $169.67 |
| Total Paid Clicks | 97,979 |
The source does not explain why the +28% and +224% PPC-conversion figures differ, so this case study does not claim that either number supersedes the other. The +224% figure is described in the source as lifetime/total PPC conversion growth and is used as the primary detailed PPC result.
Similarly, the project overview’s +59% PPC Clicks figure and the detailed section’s 97,979 Total Paid Clicks are kept separate: the source does not provide enough context to establish whether 97,979 is the final value underlying the +59% growth metric, so no derivation is implied between them.
Measurement & Attribution
| Area | Documented Metrics |
|---|---|
| SEO | Organic traffic, organic users, search new users, backlinks |
| PPC | Conversions, cost per conversion, paid clicks |
| Link clicks, impressions | |
| Meta | Landing-page views, impressions, clicks, CPC, conversions, conversion rate, cost per link click |
| Authority Building | Backlinks, estimated views, estimated reach |
The source does not provide a unified attribution model or a verified revenue figure, pipeline value, or complete multi-touch attribution. This case study therefore keeps channel-level results separate from overall business impact and does not claim a specific revenue contribution from any individual channel. The paid-social conversion-tracking improvement was addressed specifically through direct lead sign-up campaigns within the advertising platform — not a broader analytics rebuild.
Competitive Context
The source identifies increasing competition on LinkedIn as a documented reason the channel’s performance eventually plateaued. No verified competitor metrics are supplied for traffic, leads, conversion rate, advertising cost, or search rankings, so no numerical competitor benchmark is presented.
The Strategic Lesson
The campaign had to improve acquisition without simply increasing spend. The strategy followed a clear progression: remove what was underperforming → improve targeting → shift channel allocation → strengthen organic acquisition → improve measurement confidence.
The Takeaway
The engagement demonstrates that improving acquisition is not always about increasing spend. The source supports meaningful gains across PPC, SEO, and Meta performance, but its multiple reporting blocks do not provide enough information to collapse every result into one universal growth figure. Keeping those distinctions visible makes the case study stronger, not weaker, because every metric remains tied to the context in which it was actually reported.
Implementation Timeline
Technology Stack
Measurable Results
- +28% PPC Conversions (project-overview figure) vs. +224% Total/Lifetime PPC Conversions (detailed reporting figure) — kept separate; the source does not explain the difference and neither is claimed to supersede the other
- -63% Cost Per Conversion; $169.67 Average Cost Per Conversion
- +59% PPC Clicks (project-overview figure) kept separate from 97,979 Total Paid Clicks (detailed figure)
- +55% Organic Traffic (project overview) vs. +23% Organic Traffic (detailed SEO reporting) — kept separate, comparison periods not specified in source
- +50% Organic Users; +50% New Users From Search
- 46 Backlinks Earned; 18,200 Estimated Views From Backlinks; 42,300 Estimated Audience Reach (source-estimated exposure metrics, secondary to organic traffic/conversions)
- LinkedIn (pre-plateau): +81% Link Clicks, +61% Impressions
- Meta 3-month snapshot: 3,878 Landing Page Views, 438,748 Impressions, 4,407 Clicks, $0.86 Average CPC, 38 Conversions, 13% Conversion Rate
- $38.92 — the lowest conversion cost achieved within Meta's dedicated conversions campaign
- Undefined figure: the source's detailed paid-social section lists "Conversion Rate: 682%" without specifying whether it is an absolute rate, a percentage change, or a different metric — excluded from all hero metrics and headline results as not safely interpretable
Post-Launch & Ongoing Engagement
The source describes two planned areas for the next phase of the engagement — presented here strictly as planned work, not as achieved outcomes:
- Expanded SEO: Additional SEO hours to deepen the content strategy and strengthen rankings for key search terms.
- Organic Social: Launch of organic social activity to support brand awareness and audience engagement.
