Supercharging Subaru’s search strategy to drive 30% more clicks for half the budget

The brief

Subaru wanted search to work harder for them. So, our PPC and SEO teams got straight to work. The challenge? Unlocking the true power of search by integrating Subaru’s PPC and SEO strategies into one holistic search model. We needed a solid joint approach to strip out cannibalisation and set up a solid account structure to generate the test drives the dealer network needed. And the strategy delivered the holy grail of search performance: lower spend and better results. Here is how we did it!

WHAT WE DID

We began with PPC and SEO joining forces in a fully holistic search strategy. Our Audience and Search Intent Modelling process identified and classified all the keywords in Subaru’s universe. We then mapped them against current PPC and SEO visibility to identify gaps, opportunities and overlap. This gave us a solid plan of action.

We audited every part of the paid search account, looking for wasted spend and underperforming keywords. We restructured the account to match the search intents and demand, splitting campaigns into themes to better allocate budgets. This significantly reduced cannibalisation, so no campaigns were double-spending on the same keywords. We also adjusted settings for better control, reducing runaway automation that inflated costs.

We didn’t stop there. We also built out stronger assets for the Pmax campaigns, leveraging Google’s AI tools to find high-intent audiences across different platforms. We connected first-party data from the brand into Google Ads. This allowed the algorithm to better find similar audiences and behaviours to target.

We then added SEO into the mix. We improved SEO visibility around the models and key FAQs with optimisations designed to win those top rankings.