Promotion of a Translation Agency via Google Ads

This case study was created by the digital marketing agency “Spilno.”

About the client: a translation agency based in Cyprus. They had previously run ad campaigns with another specialist but were unhappy with the lack of proactive development—it was “okay,” but there was no growth.

For Spilno Agency it was important that the ads be profitable for the client, so from the beginning we tried to determine with the client how much they were willing to pay per lead. Unfortunately, since the previous campaign wasn’t tracked, the client couldn’t give a clear answer. Therefore, the most important task became setting up campaign measurement, so that later we could optimize the campaign to be cost‑effective for the client.

If you don’t know how much a lead or customer costs for you — the ad campaign has no meaning. Because you cannot determine whether your ad spend is paying off.

Thus, we defined the tasks:

Tasks:

1. Set up tracking of marketing tools.
   
2. Determine how much one lead costs for the client. A lead is either a unique call or a submitted form on the website.
   

The first two weeks were spent setting up call‑tracking and verifying Google Analytics 4. It was essential that conversions in these services worked without errors, and that conversions from Google Analytics were successfully imported into Google Ads.

After launching the ad campaigns, we immediately began seeing call data in Google Ads—allowing transparent tracking of which campaigns generated calls and which did not. The next phase involved optimizing the campaigns: reallocating budget toward more effective campaigns and lowering bids on less effective ones.

Solution:

1. Installed the Unitalk call‑tracking service.
   
2. Checked and fixed all website forms.
   
3. Created and configured advertising in Google Ads:
   
   • Set up search campaigns.
     
   • Set up Performance Max campaigns.
     
   • Created graphic ad creatives.
     

Result:

First month of work: generated 44 leads at a cost of €1,111.50. The cost per lead was €26.26.
Second month: generated 93 leads at a cost of €1,797. The cost per lead dropped to €19.30. In the second month, the agency more than doubled the number of leads for the client, while reducing cost per lead by 36%.
Third month: generated 94 leads at a cost of €1,586. Cost per lead was €16.90. We reduced the cost per lead by another 13% through campaign optimization. We also began testing Facebook ads — more on that in next month’s report.

Conclusion: Google Ads works in the translation agency business. To truly understand its value, you must measure the cost per lead or customer. Since most orders in this sector come via phone calls, installing call‑tracking is essential. On average, it takes three months to reach optimal agency performance—and the results of the second month confirm this.

P.S. If you represent a translation bureau or a company offering translation services and you’d like to achieve the same results, submit a request on the Spilno Agency website. As results show, we are successful at promoting translation agencies.

Read more cases and promotion examples in our case studies section.