PPC case study
How we helped a North East car dealership slash costs by 98%
Northumbria Cars was trusted locally but couldn't shift its digital presence out of first gear. Our joined-up PPC and SEO strategy helped them get seen and get sales – all while drastically cutting spend.
The result to remember
CPC down by 98%
from £7.50 to just £0.13
Project profile
The client
Northumbria Cars
Based in Gateshead in the northeast of England, Northumbria Cars was a trusted local used car dealership and a specialist in bad-credit car finance.
Decades of experience in used car sales
Five-star Autotrader rating
Trusted by hundreds of local customers
The problem
A trusted local name stuck in the digital slow lane
Northumbria Cars had a solid community presence, but it needed more than word of mouth if it was going to meet its growth ambitions. Unfortunately, its website was only ranking for brand-name searches – and its PPC campaigns were guzzling through budget like a vintage Range Rover. That meant limited online visibility coupled with uncontrolled spend.
Our solution
A suite of paid search campaign optimisations, supported by SEO tweaks and ongoing content marketing
Expensive and under-optimised PPC campaigns
Bespoke PPC strategy, built from the ground up to:
Improve ad relevance and quality score
Focus spend on high-intent automotive queries
Reduce wasted spend on low-performing placements
Outdated website with limited search visibility
A host of technical SEO improvements, focused on:
On-page SEO adjustments
Technical fixes to improve crawlability
Enhancing site speed and user experience
Missed opportunities to attract cash-conscious local search users
Monthly package of four blog posts, including:
Car finance topics optimised for high-intent local searches
FAQ-style educational articles on saving and budgeting
Used car buying guides positioning Northumbria as a helpful authority
Project timeline
Client calls My Digital Hero
Initial discovery meeting
Strategy presented and approved
Google Ads audience and keyword research complete
Website optimisations go live
Google Ads campaign launched
Content strategy rolls out (addition to original strategy)
Roadblock…
Northumbria Cars operated in a crowded automotive market – a market dominated by big brands with in-house SEO expertise and mammoth PPC budgets. For a local dealership to compete, it needed to think differently.
…Averted
Those big-name dealerships could afford to throw money at the wall and see what stuck. But we recognised that Northumbria – a Geordie David to those deep-pocketed Goliaths – required a more precise and strategic approach.
So, we shifted spending from generic ads to targeted keywords that matched real customer intent. Backed by a solid inbound marketing strategy, this approach drove impressive multichannel visibility while significantly cutting cost per click.
98%
reduction in cost per click
25%
sales uplift
7,880
Google rankings gained
'Simon is one of those few people who deliver what they promise. Before meeting Simon, we dealt with many corporate businesses that promised so much and delivered so little. In the five years we have dealt with Simon, he has transformed our business, achieving top results on Google at a cost much lower than we previously paid.'
Peter Jackson, Northumbria Cars
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Want more done for less?
Automotive PPC is just one of our talents. Our ROI-focused paid search campaigns have helped clients of all stripes boost conversions while slashing spend.
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