Reimagining Google Ads

Industry

Digital Marketing

Timeline

Ongoing

Services

• — Competitive market research and strategy
• — User testing and data analysis
• — Front and back-end software development
• — Pilot program coordination and execution
• — Marketing collateral creation
• — Sales and support training

Outcomes

• +Created a competitive differentiator
• +Increased client retention and NPS
• +Delivered expanded wallet share

A Fortune 500 company partnered with Tarkenton to develop and incorporate a digital advertising service into their B2B offerings — with three strategic objectives: competitive differentiation, increased client wallet share, and stronger brand allegiance among small and mid-sized business clients. Tarkenton designed and piloted the concept for a managed Google Ads product in direct partnership with Google, developed the technology and resources for service delivery, and provides ongoing service to the partner's clients and internal teams.

"Our success as a company is directly tied to helping our clients grow and succeed. We knew that digital marketing services would be a unique way for our company to not only provide essential services to our clients but also stand out from any of our competitors. Tarkenton helped us focus our thinking, made the connections with key players at Google, smoothly handled the development process, and even provides world-class service directly to our clients. It's a level of drive and commitment unlike any other partner we have."

An enterprise partner with a substantial small and mid-sized business client base identified the need to provide its clients with a meaningful digital marketing service. They contacted Tarkenton for guidance on what the solution should be and how it would bring value to their clients and their organization.

Through focused and diligent work with the partner's research and development team, Tarkenton identified a distinct need for a search advertising offering. While research indicated the need for such a service, many clients lacked the time or in-house resources to invest in the creation, management, and optimization of digital advertising strategies. Including a digital marketing product with their current offerings would enable the partner to not only reduce churn, but also increase client wallet share by helping clients grow — ultimately driving greater demand for the partner's core service.

The partner turned to Tarkenton for help in identifying, developing, and delivering the right novel service.

Our team tackled this opportunity in four steps.

1. 01

   Research the need

   Working within the exclusive, invitation-only Google Ads Partner Program, Tarkenton conducted market research to determine whether the level of need was great enough within the partner's client base to invest in a digital advertising product — while also analyzing the broader small business market to study where digital advertising fell along the spectrum of small-business needs.

2. 02

   Pilot and map

   Once sufficient data was captured, our team piloted the concept of an automated Google Ads platform built around the needs of small-to-mid-sized business clients. The pilot helped us outline a complete development roadmap of all the features and processes that needed to be built and automated. Through a comprehensive user journey map, Tarkenton identified the marketing, service, financial, operational, and sales processes needed to support the optimal user experience.

3. 03

   Align cross-functional teams

   The next step was to partner with cross-functional teams inside both Google and the partner to develop a business case that aligned internal teams, roadmaps, and budgets.

4. 04

   Build, deploy, and learn

   Using sprint planning best practices, Tarkenton's development team built the beta version of the automated Google Ads platform and deployed it through a self-discovery pilot, letting users find and use the product without the support and expense of marketing resources. That approach generated user feedback and utilization metrics that were used to further streamline the solution before a full-scale launch.

5. 05

   Launch and support

   Leveraging key findings from the iterative design, development, and testing process — combined with market research — Tarkenton developed and delivered a comprehensive marketing plan, along with supportive assets such as sales sheets, infographics, blog posts, webinars, and podcast episodes, for partner deployment.

Retention, NPS, and wallet share metrics have increased in direct proportion to the clients that have utilized the service. Tarkenton continues to support the partner's clients through the SaaS platform and Google Ads account managers — who monitor campaign success, assist with optimizations, and provide one-on-one consultation and support on the product as a whole.

• +Created a competitive differentiator
• +Increased client retention and NPS
• +Delivered expanded wallet share