A mid-market SaaS platform competing against Monday.com and Asana shifted from generic keywords to competitor capture campaigns. In Year 1, competitor campaigns became their highest-ROI channel, generating £494K pipeline while reducing CAC by 79%.
Pipeline (Year 1)
CAC Reduction
Qualified Demos
Demo-to-Close Rate (vs 10%)
The Challenge
Monday.com, Asana, and ClickUp were spending £50,000+ daily on Google Ads, dominating broad search volume. The client couldn't outbid them on generic 'project management software' keywords. Every pound spent fighting on those fronts was wasted - and the traffic quality was poor (early-stage researchers, not active switchers).
CRM data showed competitor searches converted at 22% (demo to close) vs 8% for generic - but Google Ads wasn't aware of this difference. No audience layering, no HubSpot integration, no exclusion strategy, and generic homepage landing pages for all traffic. CAC was unsustainable at £420 per demo.
Our Strategy
Created dedicated campaigns for each major competitor: 'Asana Alternative', 'Monday.com Alternative', 'ClickUp vs [Product]'. Each campaign had its own budget, landing pages, and bid strategy for visibility and control.
Built 5 competitor-specific comparison pages with feature parity tables, pricing differences, migration guides, and ROI calculators. CTR improved 34% and form fill rate increased 28% vs generic homepage.
Layered in-market audiences, company size signals (mid-market), job title targeting (Head of Ops, Project Director, Scrum Master), and negations (existing customers, free-tier users) for higher-intent, lower-CAC traffic.
Connected HubSpot to Google Ads with conversion value tracking. Competitor demos (22% close rate) assigned higher values than generic demos (8%). Google learned to bid aggressively on high-converting sources automatically.
Excluded low-intent searches: '[Competitor] free trial', '[Competitor] review', '[Competitor] pricing', company news. Redirected budget from browsers and curiosity-seekers to high-intent alternative searches.
The Results
Year 1: £494K pipeline from competitor campaigns (£41.2K/month average). 61 qualified demos/month from competitor searches. Demo-to-close rate 29% (vs 10% generic). CAC reduced 79% (£546→£214). 12.7x ROAS on competitor campaigns vs 3.1x on generic. Competitor channels represented 72% of total pipeline despite being only 46% of spend.
Pipeline (Year 1)
CAC Reduction
Qualified Demos
Demo-to-Close Rate (vs 10%)
Key Takeaways
You can't outspend Monday.com on generic keywords. But you can capture their prospective customers on '[competitor] alternative' searches. Higher intent always beats bigger budget.
A demo that closes at 22% is worth 2.75x more than one at 8%. Value-based bidding fixes this by feeding closed-won data back into Google Ads.
A custom comparison page vs a generic homepage gets completely different conversion rates. We saw 28% form lift from page customisation alone.
We reduced generic campaigns and reinvested in competitor campaigns. The best optimisation is cutting what doesn't work, not optimising what's broken.
Looking For Similar Results?
The strategies used in this case study are part of our core service offering. Find the right fit for your business.
Get in touch for a free audit and we'll show you exactly where the opportunities are.
Book a Call →Related
A £65K-£650K industrial equipment manufacturer was burning ad spend on unqualified leads. We rebuilt Google Ads with CRM integration, offline conversion tracking, and decision-maker targeting - creating a predictable, qualified pipeline the board now funds quarterly.
Read More GOOGLE ADSA home and garden retailer was profitable on Google Shopping (4x ROAS) but left margin on the table. We restructured campaigns by profit tier, overhauled product feed data, and shifted from revenue maximisation to profit maximisation - delivering 12x ROAS and 338% increase in profit per ad pound.
Read More SEOA pre-Series A SaaS startup with zero domain authority built organic acquisition from scratch through founder-led content, long-tail keyword strategy, and programmatic use-case pages - creating a sustainable pipeline of 20 demo requests monthly without paid acquisition.
Read MoreStart Here
Tell us about your business and we'll show you exactly where the opportunities are - no obligation, no sales pitch.
■ Senior specialists only
■ No long-term contracts
■ Free audit included