Oak Street Advisors

Refining Google Ads to Reach the Right Clients—Not Just More Clicks

CHALLENGE

Oak Street Advisors, a financial planning firm in South Carolina, came to us with a volume problem—but not in the way you’d expect. Their Google Ads campaigns were pulling in plenty of traffic, but very little of it was relevant. As a firm that serves individuals and business owners with complex financial needs, they needed to ensure their advertising dollars were reaching a more financially established audience.

Their targeting was far too broad. Keywords were selected primarily from Google’s automated suggestions, which created overlap between ad groups and introduced terms that didn’t align with their actual services. The result? Inflated traffic from users unlikely to convert—low-quality clicks that distracted from true business growth.

SOLUTION

We stepped in and restructured the campaign to focus less on quantity and more on qualified traffic:

• Keyword Simplification: We pared down each ad group to a tightly controlled set of exact match keywords, eliminating overlap and ensuring we only showed up for high-intent searches.
• Income-Based Audience Targeting: To better align with Oak Street’s ideal clientele, we narrowed targeting to include only users in the top 10% of household income—a powerful signal for financial readiness. Unlike most campaigns where we leave the “unknown” income group on (since it includes untrackable but potentially qualified users), we excluded it entirely here to maximize targeting precision.
• Negative Keywords: We’ve added around 200 negative keywords since we took over their account, many of which were competitor brands.
  

These changes significantly reduced wasted spend and improved ad relevance. Click volume dropped by 65%, which was intentional—we stopped paying for clicks from the wrong users. At the same time, CTR increased by over 213%, proving we were finally connecting with the right audience.

One side effect: Cost-per-click (CPC) increased by 123%. While this might raise eyebrows in some industries, it’s not a red flag in financial services—where even a single qualified lead can represent thousands of dollars in revenue. For Oak Street Advisors, just one new client gained through Google Ads can cover several months of ad spend—making higher CPCs well worth the tradeoff for higher-quality traffic and better conversion potential.

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