Data-Driven Global Communications: LEad Generation in Australia, Canada, and USA

Control Bionics

🏆 Winner of the 2020 Public Relations Society of America Cincinnati Blacksmith awards for Best Campaign and Global Communications

This is an in-depth case study, so pour a mug of your favorite caffeinated or herbal beverage, and dig in. This is the public case study, so we’ve removed proprietary client data from the award submission and lightly edited it for clarity.

LIFE CHANGING CONNECTIONS 

Control Bionics develops and sells NeuroNode, an augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) device for people with ALS / MND (Lou Gehrig’s disease), cerebral palsy, spinal muscular atrophy, and other paralysis and loss of speech conditions (paralysis + loss of speech). NeuroNode combines common eye-tracking with proprietary electromyography (EMG), using a sensor that sits on top of the skin to detect weak nerve signals, for a revolutionary multi-mode system that’s faster and less tiring than eye-tracking alone.

The company was founded by Australian CNN news anchor Peter Ford in 1998, and in 2014 partnered with Cincinnati-based TAI to form Control Bionics. The company is headquartered in Australia, with USA headquarters in Milford, Ohio. 

Purpose 

To raise awareness of EMG-based assistive tech, and generate leads for Control Bionics’ first-to-market EMG plus eye-tracking AAC system.

Goals

In Australia, Canada, and USA, raise awareness of EMG-based assistive technology for paralysis + loss of speech.

Communicate the message that Control Bionics’ NeuroNode combines EMG with eye-gaze for the fastest, lowest-fatigue AAC system.

Bring profitable leads.

Timetable 

Sept 2018 Start of our advertising for Control Bionics in Australia and USA

Spring 2019 Rising costs-per-lead across the board

July 2019 Start of this case study’s goals

Sept 2019 Added Canada

June 2020 End of this case study’s reporting period

RESEARCH CONDUCTED 

We conducted primary, quantitative research using data from our prior seven months of online advertising for client – social engagement, search and social click-thru rates, and lead conversion rates. We supplemented this with informal, qualitative research using comments submitted with lead forms and social posts, and feedback from client’s field observations of NeuroNode users.

Research Impact on Implementation 

• We discarded lower-efficiency audiences and keywords.

• We repositioned NeuroNode not as revolutionary EMG-based AAC, but as the best eye-tracking AAC.
  Research Finding: Client had found that practitioners weren’t readily embracing the concept of a revolutionary new thing, and because they had measured improvements in speed and fatigue over competitors’ systems, marketing shifted to positioning it as the best familiar thing. 

• We gave spinal muscular atrophy its own audiences in the social ad sets.
  Research Finding: Based on Google searches, people were searching for AAC devices for ALS and cerebral palsy, but not for spinal muscular atrophy, for which it’s equally applicable. So we decided to give spinal muscular atrophy its own audiences on Facebook + Instagram to target people with specific language. The plan was to push awareness that AAC tech is useful for spinal muscular atrophy into our public audiences. 

• We created new visuals for the new positioning, personal connections and tech factors.
  Rationale: It was time for a refresh!

• We started reporting Australia leads, and Canada when it was added, on a per-population basis. Rationale: These markets are small but valuable for the client, hence willing to pay a higher cost-per-lead to get outsize number of leads in those countries.

OBJECTIVES AND METRICS

1. Improve CPL Reduce cost-per-lead on search and social by 30-50% vs May-June 2019 within three months, and maintain the lower cost long-term. 

2. Get out-sized results from Australia and Canada Maintain lead numbers in Australia, and Canada upon introduction, in excess of relative population by 100% (so 2x their relative populations vs USA) long-term. 

3. Raise public awareness of AAC tech for spinal muscular atrophy By raising awareness on social, start registering web searches for AAC related to spinal muscular atrophy – any number higher than 0 within six months considered successful.

Strategies and Tactics

Reach intentional, motivated people via paid search. Google Search advertising was chosen for the largest audience, and paid advertising chosen over organic for more control and better reporting.

Reach people in daily life via social media. Facebook was chosen for its large audiences and good mix of visuals and text; Instagram chosen since it’s highly visual and more modern. We boosted organic posts for engagement and feedback in comments, and used off-page advertising for lead generation.

Re-marketing. Website visitors were targeted to show paid Facebook and Instagram posts following their website visit. Many people aren’t ready to initiate contact on first website visit, so this reinforced the messaging with a social media drip campaign and link to landing page with lead form.

Ensure landing pages are good-looking and easy to fill out on mobile. We created county-localized landing pages with lead forms using Squarespace, which we chose for familiarity and ease of design, with Zapier for Salesforce insertion. As complexity grew during the twelve-month campaign, it may have simplified our work to instead use a dedicated landing page platform.

Resources

Approx 25% of our time went for each of research and advertising by our Studio Director, design by our Art Director, web integrations by our Web Developer, and reporting by our Studio and Art Directors. Photography was a mix of custom from client, custom we shot, stock we chose, and social user generated with their permission.

Challenges

Localization

It wasn’t too bad having Australia and USA, but adding Canada complicated things more than it seemed it shoulda! Ad groups, ads, budget calculations, landing pages, Zapier zaps, and wording to review. For instance, Lou Gehrig’s disease is called ALS in the United States but MND in the rest of the world – easy enough. Except Canada tends to call it ALS yet with more exposure to international norms, so in Canada we called it ALS / MND. For global ads and landing pages, for clients’ global Facebook and Instagram accounts, we used MND / ALS. This challenge was overcome with eagle-eyed tedium. 

There are also funding differences across countries, but everywhere other than the USA those are easy. 

Responding to Social Comments

Facebook and social media in general are the world’s largest focus groups and customer support portals. Early on client didn’t have bandwidth to respond to all comments, which are useful for feedback and customer relationships. We complied reports, but that wasn’t the same. As time went on, client assigned more sales staff to respond to comments, achieving a high response rate.

Large Cost-per-Lead Variations

Client was rightly sensitive to the value of high cost-per-lead channels: each of social, search and various countries took turns being the most expensive. We worked on improvements, a major objective of this campaign, and costs-per-lead came under control during the twelve month period.

Evaluation of the Objectives

1. Improve CPL We met the objective for this metric. See the graph. Overall CPL in Dec 2018 = 1.0 (original client ref); this campaign’s baseline May-Jun 2019 = 2.33; finally twelve months later May-Jun 2020 = 0.83. This is a 64% decrease(!) in cost-per-lead from the July 2019 client meeting, and a 17% decrease vs client’s original ref date. Most gains were made in the first three months, as requested by client, with considerable variation over twelve months. 

2. Get out-sized results from Australia and Canada We exceeded the objective for this metric. See the graph. For the study period, average leads were +95% above its population proportion in Australia, and +158% above population in Canada, both meeting expectations. There were large monthly variations, likely due to smaller absolute numbers and more experimentation with targeting. 

3. Raise public awareness of AAC tech for spinal muscular atrophy Mixed results. With spinal muscular atrophy in its own social audience, we were able to start measuring its leads separately, and it has been a success for social leads. But in this twelve month period, we brought no Google search visitors for AAC related to spinal muscular atrophy. Possible remedies include spending more; running a more broad-based public relations campaign; and/or teaming up with competitors to increase the size of the pie for everyone.

Client Benefits

1. Dramatically reduced cost-per-lead Costs-per-lead for search and social advertising in all three countries were brought under control – far below their highs and within a range that’s profitable for the client. 

2. Out-sized international leads Leads from Australia and Canada were brought in well above their population proportion vis-à-vis USA. Canada was important when introduced as new sales territory, and Australia is important to the client as their country of origin.

3. Public awareness of EMG-based augmentative and alternative communication tech We set a goal of raising awareness of AAC technology for people living with spinal muscular atrophy; according to search measurements this wasn’t achieved. But ongoing social media advertising continues to promote EMG-based technology and generate leads for Control Bionics’ multimodal NeuroNode system.

 Landing Page Localizations

 Localization Summary

Lead Data

Cost per lead by channel

LEADS BY COUNTRY relative to USA POPULATION

Data Structure Detail

Live URLs

Web and social media pages are frequently updated, and won’t look the same today as they did then.

LANDING PAGES
Worldwide: https://sayhello.controlbionics.com
AUS: https://sayhello.controlbionics.com/hello-aus
CAN: https://sayhello.controlbionics.com/hello-can
USA: https://sayhello.controlbionics.com/hello-usa

SOCIAL MEDIA
https://www.facebook.com/controlbionics
https://www.instagram.com/controlbionics 

MAIN WEBSITE
https://www.controlbionics.com 

The Clinicians and Who We Help pages are used as landing pages for certain audiences. We didn’t create this website, but work with the client on ad tracking for form submissions.