Taco Bell

In partnership with Taco Bell, my team at NAS undertook a comprehensive Google AdWords campaign aimed at enhancing the restaurant’s ability to recruit candidates for various roles, including crew members, managers, and assistant managers. The primary objective was to improve engagement with job seekers and increase return on investment (ROI) while staying within the fixed budget aligned with Taco Bell’s cost-per-hire.

Challenges and Objectives: Taco Bell faced ongoing talent acquisition needs for its restaurant locations, requiring a more effective approach to Google AdWords in order to:

  • Drive higher engagement from job seekers.
  • Optimize spending to reduce cost-per-click (CPC) while maximizing candidate applications.
  • Improve campaign performance by focusing on a better user experience and higher quality traffic.

The fixed budget and the cost-per-hire goal set clear parameters, but to meet these objectives, we needed to improve the performance of the existing AdWords campaign.

Strategic Campaign Improvements:

  1. Keyword Research and Ad Group Optimization:
    • A thorough keyword analysis was conducted to identify high-performing and relevant keywords while eliminating ineffective ones. The ad group structure was refined to ensure that keyword cannibalization was reduced and traffic was better directed to the most relevant job listings.
    • Focus was placed on achieving a better Google Quality Score by aligning the keywords with the most relevant landing pages, thus improving ad relevance and reducing costs.
  2. Ad Extensions & Audience Targeting:
    • New ad extensions were introduced, providing more comprehensive information directly in the search results. This enhanced targeting and engagement with job seekers by showcasing key details such as location and job benefits.
    • These changes aimed to improve the visibility of Taco Bell’s recruitment ads, enhancing user experience and increasing interaction rates.
  3. PPC Landing Page Optimization:
    • Working alongside Taco Bell’s team, we optimized the landing pages to ensure they were tailored to job seekers, offering a streamlined and clear call to action. The landing pages were specifically designed for PPC, ensuring faster load times and mobile-friendly interfaces, leading to a better overall user experience.
    • Alongside the paid campaigns, we also focused on improving Taco Bell’s organic SEO strategy, which complemented the paid campaigns and created an optimized environment for attracting job seekers both through paid and organic search.

Key Results and Achievements:

  • Click-Through Rate (CTR):
    • A significant improvement in CTR was realized, increasing by 162%. In the first year, the CTR averaged 11%, but by the third year, it had risen to 26%. This was a result of better ad targeting, improved landing pages, and more relevant keyword and ad structure.
  • Cost-Per-Click (CPC) Reduction:
    • We achieved a 44% reduction in CPC, decreasing from $0.16 to $0.09. This not only lowered costs but also helped drive more traffic within the same budget constraints.
  • High-Performing Ads:
    • The best-performing text ad received 61,661 clicks with a CTR of 25%, with another ad receiving 42,338 clicks and a CTR of 38%. Overall, seven ads had a CTR of over 20%, demonstrating the success of the refined targeting and optimized ad copy.
  • Increase in Organic and PPC Traffic:
    • Following the launch of NAS’s SEO improvements, Taco Bell’s organic search clicks increased by 59%, averaging 590 clicks per day. Meanwhile, PPC performance soared, with the campaign averaging 1,195 clicks per day—a remarkable 292% increase in daily clicks compared to previous performance.
  • Sustained Performance with Fixed Budget:
    • Taco Bell saw substantial increases in both organic search and PPC traffic while maintaining a steady PPC budget year-over-year, proving the effectiveness of the optimizations made. The combined improvements across SEO and PPC drove higher engagement and reduced costs, resulting in a more efficient recruitment process.

Conclusion: The campaign successfully met Taco Bell’s goals by refining and optimizing their Google AdWords strategy, leading to higher engagement, a significant reduction in CPC, and a stronger ROI on their talent acquisition efforts. Through continuous data-driven optimizations, improved landing pages, and a focus on quality score improvements, we were able to deliver long-term success for Taco Bell’s recruitment strategy, driving both organic and paid search performance while staying within budget constraints. The turnaround was so well received by Taco Bell that they sent their HR team on an all-expenses paid Hawaiian trip, and Google reached out to me, offering to pay the entry fees to nominate Taco Bell for their campaign of the year.

NAS TACO BELL WEBINAR:

Copyright © 2025Brian Kirby.