Google Ads and SEO Case Study for an AI Consultancy
GPT Training Consultants was a newly launched Irish consultancy helping businesses understand and implement ChatGPT in their operations.
Between 2 April and 17 May 2024, I led a four-person student consultancy team working with the business as part of my Master’s programme in Digital Marketing. The client was a genuine external business that supplied the project objectives and a total paid-media budget of €500.
As team lead, I was responsible for the Google Ads and SEO work.
My work covered:
- Google Search and Display campaign planning
- Keyword and audience research
- Campaign creation and optimization
- Budget monitoring
- Technical and on-page SEO auditing
- SEO keyword research
- Link prospecting, outreach and acquisition
- Analysis and presentation of the results
Results at a glance
- 250,000 Google Display impressions in 14 days
- 96 total Google Ads clicks
- 75 Search campaign clicks from 574 impressions
- Approximately 13.1% combined Search CTR
- A UK client worth €2,000 generated through the Google Ads campaign
- Ahrefs Domain Rating increased from 1.1 to 7
The challenge
GPT Training Consultants had launched in January 2024 and was still testing demand for its consultancy and training services.
The client wanted the project to support three objectives:
- Increase awareness of the new brand.
- Establish credibility in the emerging market for business-focused ChatGPT services.
- Generate early consultation enquiries.
The entire paid-media budget was limited to €500 and had to cover both Google and LinkedIn advertising. My Google Ads allocation was planned at €350, split between Display and Search.
The short project window meant the campaign needed to generate immediate visibility while also identifying which messages, keywords and markets showed potential for future investment.
My Google Ads strategy
I created three Google Ads campaigns with separate objectives:
- A Display campaign focused on brand awareness
- A Search campaign targeting Ireland
- A Search campaign targeting the United Kingdom
The campaigns ran from 5 to 18 April 2024. Google Ads spend reached €307.24 before the campaigns were paused as the combined Google and LinkedIn expenditure approached the project’s €500 budget limit.
Search campaigns: capturing existing demand
The Search campaigns were designed to reach people actively looking for ChatGPT consultancy, training and implementation support.
I separated the targeting into Ireland and the UK so that performance and expenditure could be assessed by market. The UK was included because the client had previously received consultation interest from that region.
The keyword research was organized around two principal service themes:
- GPT and ChatGPT consultancy for businesses
- Custom GPT development and training
The campaigns targeted searches including:
- “ChatGPT consulting”
- “ChatGPT consultant”
- “ChatGPT for business”
- “GPT for business”
- “custom ChatGPT”
- “GPT training”
- “train ChatGPT on custom data”
I also created responsive ad copy, sitelinks, callouts and structured snippets that directed users to the consultancy, custom GPT and contact pages.
Search campaign performance
The Ireland Search campaign produced:
- 296 impressions
- 44 clicks
- Approximately 14.9% CTR
- €93.49 spend
The UK Search campaign produced:
- 278 impressions
- 31 clicks
- Approximately 11.2% CTR
- €82.60 spend
Across the two Search campaigns, the account generated 75 clicks from 574 impressions—an overall Search CTR of approximately 13.1%—with €176.09 spent.
Display campaign: building awareness
The Display campaign was designed for reach rather than direct-response lead generation.
It targeted audiences in Ireland and the UK using a combination of business-related affinity, in-market and life-event segments. These included business professionals, SMEs, business technology users and people starting a business.
I also developed a managed placement list covering relevant Irish and UK websites. Mobile-app categories and YouTube were excluded to give the campaign greater control over where the ads appeared.
The responsive Display ad achieved:
- 250,000 impressions
- 21 clicks
- €131.15 spend
- “Excellent” ad strength in Google Ads
Yahoo and Independent.co.uk generated some of the campaign’s highest levels of viewable impressions and clicks. Computers produced the most Display impressions and clicks, followed by mobile devices.
The result provided the newly launched consultancy with substantial initial exposure within the limits of a small pilot budget.
Campaign monitoring and optimization
I monitored campaign performance throughout the two-week advertising period rather than leaving the initial setup unchanged.
Early in the campaign, Google Ads reported that the Search reach was being restricted by conflicting negative keywords. I traced the problem to “work” being included in a shared negative-keyword list, despite several target searches containing the same word. I removed the conflict to restore eligibility for relevant searches.
I also reviewed:
- Search terms and irrelevant queries
- Keyword-level clicks, impressions and CPC
- Search top-impression rate
- Device performance
- Day and time performance
- Display placements
- Budget pacing across the three campaigns
This analysis informed recommendations to concentrate spend on the strongest keywords, devices, placements and campaign periods while excluding searches or placements that did not align with the consultancy’s services.
The campaigns were paused on 18 April once the shared project budget approached its limit.
SEO audit and keyword strategy
Alongside Google Ads, I conducted keyword research and an SEO audit of the website.
The keyword research covered Ireland, the UK and the US. Keywords were grouped around the consultancy’s three service areas:
- GPT consultancy
- Custom GPT development
- GPT training
I manually reviewed the search results to assess intent, competitor positioning and the types of pages Google favoured for each query. These findings informed both the Search campaign structure and the client’s longer-term organic strategy.
The audit identified three priority areas:
1. Service-page relevance and search intent
Several important pages lacked a clear heading hierarchy, consistent keyword targeting and concise search snippets. I recommended aligning each service page with a distinct commercial search intent and improving its title, description, headings and supporting copy accordingly.
2. Site accessibility and content relationships
Missing image descriptions and weak internal linking reduced accessibility and made it harder to establish relationships between the consultancy’s services, insights and conversion pages. I recommended descriptive alt text where appropriate and a more deliberate internal-linking structure connecting informational content with relevant service pages.
3. Technical performance and indexation signals
The audit found weaker mobile performance. I prioritised improving mobile loading performance and correcting page-level technical signals that could affect crawling, indexation or user experience.
Link acquisition and authority growth
I also managed the project’s link-acquisition activity.
I researched and vetted prospective websites, conducted the outreach and secured two followed backlinks from two websites:
- One guest-post link
- One contextual link placement
During the project period, Ahrefs Domain Rating increased from 1.1 to 7.
The increase occurred alongside the acquisition work and indicates growth in Ahrefs’ assessment of the backlink profile.
Domain Rating remains a third-party metric rather than a Google ranking factor, so it should be considered supporting evidence rather than a direct measure of organic performance.
Commercial outcome
The Google Ads campaign generated a UK client worth approximately €2,000.
This gave the project a clear commercial return:
- Approximately €2,000 in client revenue
- €307.24 spent on Google Ads
- More than 6× the Google Ads spend returned in revenue
- The client’s entire €500 cross-channel advertising budget was recovered four times over
The client confirmed that the advertising investment had paid off. Beyond generating immediate revenue, the campaign demonstrated that there was viable UK demand for the consultancy’s ChatGPT services and gave the business a stronger basis for future Search advertising.
What the project demonstrated
This project gave me responsibility for both immediate acquisition activity and longer-term organic-search planning.
Within a constrained budget and two-week advertising window, I:
- Planned and launched Search and Display campaigns with different objectives
- Separated Search targeting between Ireland and the UK
- Generated a combined Search CTR of approximately 13.1%
- Managed campaign expenditure against a shared €500 cap
- Diagnosed and corrected a negative-keyword conflict
- Used live performance data to refine targeting recommendations
- Completed a practical SEO and keyword audit
- Secured two followed backlinks that remain live
- Presented the final strategy and results to an external client