Worked example, not a client
A recruitment agency's first month after the split: the client campaign and the candidate campaign side by side
A twelve-consultant agency placing engineering and logistics staff had run one campaign for three years and could not say what it bought. This page shows the first month after the account was split into a client campaign and a candidate campaign, with the two side by side and the figures chosen to be realistic for an agency of this size. The agency is a composite; nothing here is a client's number.
Written by Daniel Stoychev. The agency and its figures are illustrative, chosen to show what the first month after a split looks like in a report. The negatives list is the real one we use.
Worked example. The agency is a composite built from the recruitment accounts we have audited. Every figure is illustrative and is marked as such in the table. The method is the one in the recruitment guide linked below.
Side by side
The two campaigns in their first month, illustrative figures
| Line in the report | Client campaign | Candidate campaign | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Budget share | 80% | 20% | The candidate campaign runs only for two hard-to-fill roles |
| Clicks and average cost per click | 240 at 3.10 | 610 at 0.90 | Employers click rarely and cost more; that is expected |
| Search terms excluded in the month | 118 | 74 | Jobs, salary, apply and the job boards on one side; hire, agency fees and tender on the other |
| Conversion counted | Employer form, call over 60 seconds | Application completed | Candidate registrations on the client side are a secondary action, not counted |
| Results | 11 employer enquiries, 7 real vacancies | 38 completed applications, 2 placements | The two columns are never added together |
| Cost per result | About 68 per qualified vacancy | About 14 per completed application | Each judged on its own line |
| Declined | Broad match, a shared landing page, +50% budget | A permanent candidate campaign | Every one would have blurred the split |
The negatives that did the work
Two lists, one for each campaign
The client campaign carries the candidate words as a shared negative list: jobs, job, vacancy, vacancies, apply, application, salary, wage, career, careers, CV, resume, hiring now, part time, temp work, near me, and the job boards by name. The candidate campaign carries the employer words: hire, hiring a, staffing agency, recruitment agency for, agency fees, tender, outsourcing, headhunter. Both lists are applied at account level so that a new ad group inherits them on the day it is created, and both are read against the search terms report every week in the first month and every fortnight after.
What month two changes
The three decisions the first month earns
- The engineering ad group in the client campaign produced five of the seven real vacancies at the lowest cost, so it receives the budget the logistics group was not using.
- The candidate campaign closes for the role that was filled and stays open for the other, with the same budget, judged on applications alone.
- The employer landing page gains the two questions the consultants were asked on every call, time to shortlist and fee model, because an answer on the page is cheaper than a call that asks it.
Where this leads
The pages that do this work
Tell us what you spend. We reply with a fixed fee and the first three changes.
Your monthly spend, what a lead is worth to you and the address of the page your ads land on. Daniel Stoychev replies within one working day with the tier, the fee, what he would change first, and whether your sector and area are still free.