Case study: Performance campaign for Esculab

As part of a performance campaign for the Esculab laboratory chain, our team developed a strategy to drive sales of promotional test packages. Taking into account the specifics of the market and competition, we focused on location targeting and using an integrated approach using Meta Ads, Google Search Ads, YouTube, and Google Display Network.

Case study: Performance campaign for Esculab

Esculab’s Growth Strategy: Performance Marketing Insights

Client:

We were approached by the team of the Esculab laboratory network, which has established itself as a reliable provider of high-quality laboratory tests. The client was faced with the task of stimulating sales during the high season by promoting test packages.

Tasks:

Our task was to plan and implement an effective advertising campaign to increase sales during the promotion period. At the same time, an important condition was to maximize the company’s net profit by balancing investments in the promotion of services with different margins and market capacity.

Challenge:

Esculab has several powerful competitors in the laboratory testing market. Given the similarity of product lines and pricing policies, an essential factor of competition in this category is the extensive network of laboratories. Historically, Esculab has a strong network in the western regions of Ukraine, while its competitors have more laboratories in the central areas, particularly in Kyiv. This leads to a differentiated approach to promotion in different regions of Ukraine.

Strategy:

In the category of medical laboratories, a critical selection criterion for consumers is the physical accessibility of laboratories. In addition, there is different competition in different locations. For example, the lead cost in Kyiv in this category is twice as high as in the western regions. And since the campaign’s goal was to drive sales in the short term, we put location targeting at the heart of our strategy. Instead of targeting regions or cities, we focused on the audience within walking distance of the laboratories.

Implementation:

To implement this approach, we needed to use advertising tools that technically allow for such targeting. In addition, we needed a comprehensive approach that included various advertising channels that would satisfy the existing need and help stimulate demand in the short term. That’s why we chose the following tools for our campaign:

▪️ Meta Ads allowed us to target the audience on Facebook and Instagram accurately.

▪️ Google Search Ads to attract those actively looking for medical laboratory services.

▪️ As well as YouTube Max Conversion and Google Display Network to ensure a broad reach with conversion optimization.

To maximize the effectiveness of advertising investments, we launched the campaign in 2 stages:

1. A pilot campaign in which we allocated 20% of the budget to determine the performance of selected tools, geographic regions, and research packages.

2. The main campaign to scale the most influential research packages, tools, and regions in terms of profitability.

Dmytro Kudinov

Dmytro Kudinov, CEO of inseed.agency:

The Esculab team set us an extremely interesting task that goes far beyond planning media indicators. By involving us in planning the campaign at the level of economic units, the client provided us with a lot of data that allowed us to plan the campaign as efficiently as possible in terms of profitability and ROAS. Thanks to this open partnership approach, the campaign showed excellent results.

Throughout the campaign, we continuously optimized based on data from ad accounts and actual sales. This helped to reduce the cost per acquisition (CPA) and increase profitability.

Results:

Thanks to effective planning, competent optimization, and precise targeting, the campaign showed excellent results and met the monthly sales plan in the first 2 weeks. The conversion rate was almost twice as high as planned (3.9% vs. 2%) Thanks to constant optimization, we managed to reduce CPA by 30% during the campaign, which became an important performance indicator. The campaign showed an incredible 396% ROAS across all test packages.

However, practice has shown that not all tools were equally effective: GDN was less effective and did not work as we expected. Instead, YouTube in the western regions demonstrated much better performance regarding the quantity and value of conversions than we had planned. Also, different research packages worked differently in terms of sales. During the period of our campaign, our competitors also launched their powerful campaign for free tests under the NHSU program with much larger media investments. Therefore, during the campaign, we optimized the promotion of certain packages according to the cost per lead and ROAS, which ranged from negative values to 800% for different packages and advertising tools.

Conclusions:

This campaign emphasized the importance of flexibility in planning and implementing marketing strategies. Openness of commercial data and partnerships at the early stages of campaign planning yields the best results. In performance campaigns, it is very important to find a strategy that allows you not to compete with larger competitors in terms of rate and budget but to find “your” customers with the lowest cost of engagement thanks to a flexible, smart approach. Esculab has gained significant profit and significant experience that will become the basis for further success in marketing campaigns.

If you have a similar request, please get in touch with us at partnership@inseed.marketing.

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