Data-Driven Marketing: Agency's "In the Weeds" Methods Win 7X ROI

Case Study

• Agency: aptDigital
• Client: Appliance Repair Company
• Software: WhatConverts

“[WhatConverts] is really helpful for making better business decisions, better marketing strategy and advertising strategy decisions." 

The Challenge:

In a world of perfect information, a decision isn’t really a decision—it’s a calculation.

You take the data (benefits, risks, probabilities), plug it into an equation, and presto: you know whether or not to take an action. But the problem with marketing decisions is there’s often a data gap. It’s hard to see which channels are working, how well they’re working, and what the expected return on investment is going to be.

This is a problem marketing agency aptDigital aimed to solve. Their proprietary Business Intelligence system is designed to connect with their client’s tech stack to pull critical performance data (jobs booked, avg. revenue per job, total revenue, etc.) and calculate the return on investment.

That way, clients can confidently invest their budget into channels they know will have a positive ROI.

However, data from aptDigital’s Business Intelligence system only told the second half of the story. In order to know where to invest their client’s limited budget, they also needed data like:

• How many leads were generated through each channel (Google Ads, organic, LSAs, etc.)
• Which of those leads resulted in jobs booked (lead quality)
• Revenue generated by channel
• ROI for each channel

Ultimately, they needed to know the first half of the story. Only then could they make the data-driven marketing decisions needed to use budget strategically and communicate the hard numbers their clients needed to feel confident in their investment.

The Approach:

"WhatConverts gives us the ability to communicate to our clients the effectiveness of each channel, make cases for fluctuating budget allocations between channels, and make cases for increasing budget allocation in a particular channel.”

In order to get the data aptDigital was looking for, they needed a tool that:

1. Tracked client leads, primarily from phone calls
2. Connected those leads to revenue through their Business Intelligence system
3. Tied that revenue back to the marketing channel that produced them

WhatConverts checked all those boxes.

With it, aptDigital could cover all their call tracking needs, both using dynamic number pools/DNI and static numbers for channels like local service ads, Google My Business, and Google Ads call extensions. Once a lead converted through a call, their data (including detailed attribution info like keyword, ad, and campaign data) would flow automatically into the lead management system.

From there, aptDigital could connect WhatConverts to their Business Intelligence system. They could then see which leads turned into booked jobs and connect those leads to the revenue earned from them.

Finally, aptDigital could calculate valuable KPIs for clients using data from both systems. For instance, they could calculate:

• Booking Rate = Jobs booked (Business Intelligence) divided by leads generated per channel (WhatConverts)
• Cost per Acquisition = Ad spend (Business Intelligence) divided by leads per channel (WhatConverts)
• Channel ROI = Revenue (Business Intelligence) divided by ad spend—segmented by channel (WhatConverts)

As a result, clients could get a comprehensive report with the data they need to make better marketing decisions.

The Result:

"WhatConverts plays a pivotal role in helping our clients clearly understand the role that our marketing and advertising strategies play in growing their revenue. This leads to growing their team and therefore needing to increase their marketing and advertising investment with us."

The pairing of WhatConverts with aptDigital’s Business Intelligence was a success.

The combination let the agency create data-rich reporting that showed not just that their marketing was working, but how well it was working.

These reports included channel-by-channel ROI breakdowns, booking rate and average job revenue by marketing channel, and even industry benchmarks across other aptDigital clients (e.g., your booking rate was 10% lower than the average this month).

Thanks to this “in the weeds” reporting, aptDigital achieved such standout results for clients like a 7X average monthly ROI, turning a $3,500 ad budget increase into a $30K boost in revenue, and helping one client scale from a one-truck business to a five-truck business in one year.

Results Highlights

• Turned $3,500 ad spend increase into $30,000 additional earned revenue
• Achieved average monthly marketing ROI of more than 700%
• Segmented channels by earned revenue and ROAS to make better marketing decisions

Want to see how WhatConverts lets you make data-driven marketing decisions? Start your free 14-day trial of WhatConverts today!