Totaljobs.com is the UK's most visited recruitment website holding the Number 1 market share position since January 2006. Paid search has become their largest and most effective route to new job applicants but increased competition and search complexity had meant results had started to plateau. Cost per applicant was increasing and their market share was in decline.

agenda21's Digital Healthcheck identified that a new approach was required for both the account structure and how it was being managed and optimised. Three key areas had to be addressed:

• 1.The account had over 400,000 keywords but their structure meant they were not fully aligned with job sectors. Linking jobseeker demand to the right area on the site had become almost impossible.
• 2.Given the size of totaljobs.com it had become hard to manage bids at a keyword level. Opportunities were being missed as search demand increased in specific job sectors.
• 3.External variables and influences such as display advertising, applicant location and day of week, had a major impact on conversion rates but were not being taken into consideration during the optimisation process.

Put simply, totaljobs were not able to accurately spend their budget in the right place and at the right time. This was resulting in lower volume, lower response rates and lower conversion rates but increased search spend and increased cost per applicant.

Firstly, we worked with totaljobs to restructure the search account to better match our keywords to the job sectors on the site. This gave us greater control over which job sectors we invested our budget into. We also implemented different strategies for different job sectors. Maximising our exposure in key job sectors by optimising to a search position but to a set ROI in the least profitable ones.

The next step was we implemented next generation search technology. This uses an algorithm to optimise automatically to multiple variables on every single keyword. We are now able to take a keyword and automatically place a variable bid, depending upon the type of search, where and when the search is being made. Our copy and landing page are then tailored to this individual sequence.

Our cost per applicant has fallen by 17% and we are now attracting higher value candidates. Also despite totaljobs.com being the existing market leader we have still been able to increase their response rate by 27% vs. the Google benchmark average for recruitment advertisers.