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How a rural broadband provider got 55% more connections from the same budget
A rural broadband provider with a growing network, a healthy ad budget, and a nagging suspicion that too much of it was buying the wrong thing. Twelve months later: 55% more connections from paid search, each one costing 38% less.
The brief
Stop paying for interest. Start paying for orders.
A rural full-fibre broadband provider, building out its network across some of England's most rural counties. When we took over in June 2025, the ad account was optimising towards "register your interest" submissions: useful for planning the network, less useful for filling it.
The brief was blunt, and it came from the client: we want orders, not expressions of interest. Same budget. More people actually connecting.
The solution
Cut the waste, point everything at purchases
First job was finding out where the money went. A full placement audit across Display and Performance Max turned up 74 placements quietly eating budget on mobile games and made-for-advertising sites. All excluded.
Then we repointed the ad account:
- Bidding rebuilt around completed orders rather than interest registrations
- Campaign structure reworked so budget follows the areas where people can actually connect today
- Conversion tracking migrated and verified, so the algorithm learns from real orders
- Google Business Profile traffic split out and measured properly, so local search finally gets credit for the orders it drives
- The organic side got the same treatment: content and technical work aimed at the searches people make when they're ready to order, not just researching
The breakthrough
The same budget started buying different clicks
Spend barely moved. What it bought changed completely. Comparing June to August 2026 against the same three months a year earlier.
Bars scaled to the largest gain (clicks, up 40% on 4% less spend).
The results
More connections from every channel
A deliberate strategic shift delivered exactly as briefed: interest registrations traded for orders, with organic still catching the early-stage demand paid search no longer chases.
+55%
connections from paid search, year on year
-38%
cost per connection (£255 down to £158)
+72%
purchases from organic search, including Google Business Profile
Plus a conversion setup the algorithm can actually learn from: every number the account optimises towards is a real order, not an expression of interest.
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