How GoFoodservice Doubled Google Ads ROAS With Strategic Keyword Bidding

GoFoodservice is a leading online retailer for restaurant industry equipment and supplies. With over 30,000 SKUs and counting, the retailer sells a broad range of products, from traditional machinery like refrigerators and ice machines to disposable products like paper plates and hand sanitizer.  

To get the most out of its digital advertising, it needed to increase sales while maintaining an efficient level of marketing spend. The retailer’s limited bandwidth prompted its small marketing team to search for an external partner, and it turned to Quartile to bring its Google and Bing advertising to the next level.

Smarter Campaign Segmentation in Shopping & Search

GoFoodService consulted with Quartile to increase overall return on ad spend (ROAS). Using Quartile’s Apex technology, the Quartile team analyzed GoFoodservice’s shopping and paid search campaigns to understand which products and keywords performed best. That led to the development of three specific campaign types: trademark, branded, and numeric.  

Many of GoFoodservice’s top-selling products come from three brands: True Refrigeration, Turbo Air, and Beverage Air. Because these brands account for many of the highest value items in GoFoodservice’s product catalog, Quartile’s team bucketed these products into three separate branded Shopping campaigns.  

In addition to brand name, GoFoodservice sees high search activity from shoppers researching products by serial number type. This inspired Quartile’s team to develop numeric campaigns in Shopping. These campaigns help the retailer convert lower funnel searches that include model and part numbers, which make up a sizable portion of GoFoodservice’s sales.  

Increasing impression share is the main goal for the retailer’s trademark paid search campaigns. Because trademark terms are typically associated with high purchase intent, these terms are separated into their own campaigns with a dedicated amount of spend. This ensures that the retailer dominates impression share for its trademark search terms.

“What stood out to us in our initial call with Quartile was its pairing of team and technology. We were hitting a wall with our previous partner, and the only way to make progress was to spend more money. With Quartile, we saw a transparent way to reach our advertising goals while keeping costs in check.” – Chris Fraser, General Manager at GoFoodservice

In addition, Quartile developed a strategy to incorporate expanded text ads and dynamic search ads to further promote GoFoodservice’s equipment. Expanded text ads promote the retailer’s top brand equipment and brand parts, while dynamic search ads act as a net to catch relevant search traffic the branded campaigns might otherwise miss.

“The strategies we have in place with Quartile are better than what we’ve experienced with other partners. The willingness to collaborate on what works and what doesn’t has left no stone unturned when it comes to our campaign setup. We’re set up for long term success.” – Chris Fraser, General Manager at GoFoodservice

The Results

After launching the cross-channel shopping and search advertising strategy, GoFoodservice saw the following results:

• Increased Sales: In its first six months with Quartile, GoFoodservice grew total overall sales across Google and Bing by 13% compared to the final six months with its previous partner.

• Increased Returns: Since launching with Quartile, paid search ROAS has increased 48% while Shopping ROAS has grown 119%.

• Reduced Costs: GoFoodservice experienced a 30% decline in year-over-year costs for paid search and a 6% drop in shopping ads costs during the same period.

By building out dedicated trademark, branded, and numeric campaigns across paid search and shopping ads, GoFoodservice has grown conversions 56% and revenue 106% since partnering with Quartile. That has put the retailer in a strong position to scale its business while achieving incremental revenue growth.

“Our partnership with Quartile boils down to three key results: time savings, confidence in our ad spend, and better overall return. I can spend more time managing the overall success of the company while I trust our team to get the most out of our ad campaigns.” – Chris Fraser, General Manager at GoFoodservice

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