The paid search overhaul that finally made sales happy

Where things stood

UL EHS Sustainability — the environmental, health, and safety software arm of the global safety-science company — was paying heavily for paid search leads its sales team didn't trust. The account needed a rebuild, not another round of tweaks.

What we changed

• We rebuilt around intent. Research questions and purchase questions were separated, ad groups reorganized around the problems buyers actually type, and ads rewritten to qualify as much as attract.
• We measured what sales cared about. Conversion definitions were aligned with what the sales team considered a real lead, so every optimization pushed toward quality rather than volume.
• We worked in the open. A structured audit set the baseline and the roadmap, and the client saw progress against it every step — the same audit process that won the agency a 68% pitch close rate.

How it turned out

Over four months, conversions grew to more than seven times baseline while cost per lead fell to about a sixth of what UL had been paying. The part I'm proudest of: the sales team was happy with both the volume and the quality — the sentence most paid search case studies can't write.

This work contributed to a shelf of industry recognition, including PRSA Phoenix Gold awards for search and a Hermes Gold Creative Award.