How The Loam Wolf Climbed to 100,000 YouTube Subscribers
An SEO & PPC Case Study in Improving Online Authority
Project Overview
100K+
YouTube Subscribers
101%
Increase in Organic Traffic
2000+
More Keyword Positions
| Website | theloamwolf.com |
| Industry | B2C, outdoor recreation |
| Value Provided | Increase in organic traffic and YouTube subscribers |
Project Overview
When you’re a business offering insightful and honest reviews with community members, online reach and subscribership are pivotal. But sometimes the unexpected hits in life and it’s time to stoke those innovation wheels.Â
The Loam Wolf is backed by a team of passionate mountain bikers committed to sharing honest gear reviews with like-minded folks within their community. The team approached Big Leap for help with two things:Â
- In 2019, they lacked competitive advantage in the market. They needed more product reviews from passionate bikers around the world. This would help bolster their online credibility and authority
- In 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, brands sponsoring The Loam Wolf’s reviews canceled or decreased their marketing budgets.Â
Throughout our 4+ year partnership, The Loam Wolf has taken advantage of several opportunities in the organic and paid search landscapes to combat the volatile tides the market never fails to bring. The results? A 101% increase in organic traffic, hitting the bullseye by meeting our client’s goal of 100K subscribers.
Strategy
Our Strategy
SEO
To build The Loam Wolf’s online authority, our SEO experts at Big Leap focused on two key strategies: keyword research and content optimization.  Â
Keyword & Competitor Analysis
Our SEO team dug into the interests of The Loam Wolf’s target market:Â
- The types of reviews bike users were searching for the most.
- The products they had the most interest in.Â
We also analyzed the types of keywords our client’s competitors were targeting and ranking highly for. The data gleaned from this research helped us identify additional opportunities to connect with their target audience.Â
Content Optimization
After a thorough site audit, our team optimized their website’s front and back end to enhance the relevancy and click-through rate of their review pages. Our team applied this same method to their YouTube videos. To increase their ratings on the search engine results page and boost traffic to their website.
PPC
While we successfully ramped up organic efforts and elevated The Loam Wolf’s competitive advantage, the B2C business soon faced additional roadblocks—the COVID-19 pandemic hit, causing a decline in sponsorships.Â
The Loam Wolf team established a goal to hit 100K YouTube subscribers by the end of 2023 to support their online reach, subscribership, and revenue. To achieve this, Big Leap focused on migrating their PPC efforts to a new platform.
PPC Audit
When running occasional paid YouTube ad campaigns in the past, The Loam Wolf didn’t receive a sufficient return on their investment. Upon a PPC audit, we decided to level up our client’s paid search performance by leveraging Google Ads.Â
Leveraging Google Ads to Connect with Users
In Google Ads, our PPC team set up the appropriate campaign features to drive qualified traffic to The Loam Wolf’s YouTube page. The key was to set up features that aligned with their target audience’s user behaviors, interests, and needs. That way, the right videos would show up to the right people.Â
We also grouped campaigns into different categories to help us track which video types were performing well and to ensure specific videos would receive maximum exposure.
We were pleasantly surprised to see some great performance right out of the gate with our initial campaigns and selected videos—generating a high number of subscriptions at a great price. It has been fun to continue testing new things while maintaining a solid return for the client! -BL Account Manager
Results
The Results
SEO
The Loam Wolf has been able to connect with more outdoor and bike enthusiastsÂ
By successfully outranking their competitors and increasing organic traffic to their site and sponsors’ sites, The Loam Wolf increased 1,370 keyword positions on Google and 710 on Bing.
We optimized The Loam Wolf’s new and old review pages and boosted keyword rankings. For example:Â
- Pivot Switchblade review page: This page increased 15 keyword positions above their competitors and then ranked in the first position.
- Mondraker Crafty R review page: This page increased 63 keyword positions and then moved up another four positions a few days later, putting it straight into the answer box snippet.
PPC
Through data-based decisions and relevant features set up in Google Ads, The Loam Wolf experienced the following results within 90 days of the campaign’s launch:Â
- 4,341 subscribers (approximately 49 per day)
- 224 earned likes*Â
- 2,315 earned views**
- 92 earned playlist additions***Â
*An earned like occurs when someone views your video ad and likes a video from your linked YouTube channel within seven days of the initial view. Clients aren’t charged for earned likes.
**An earned view occurs when someone views your video ad and watches another video on your linked YouTube channel within seven days of the initial view. Clients aren’t charged for earned views.
***An earned playlist addition occurs when someone views your video ad and adds a video from your linked YouTube channel to a playlist within seven days of the initial view. Clients aren’t charged for earned playlist additions.
Overall, The Loam Wolf’s campaigns have garnered 2,971,719 unique people who have seen an ad during the duration. The campaigns featured the following results:Â
- 3.09% conversion rate
- $0.151 cost per view
- $1.13 cost per conversion
All of these PPC improvements ultimately helped The Loam Wolf achieve their 100K subscriber goal!
Get the Best of Both Worlds with SEO & PPC
If you want to bolster your online ad performance, partnering with an experienced SEO and PPC team can make all the difference. Learn about Big Leap’s organic and paid ads services and contact us for further information to take advantage of a free SEO audit.
More Case Studies
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