MCSnet Drives 20-30% More New Leads from Digital Ads

Beating Fierce Entrants in a Competitive Market

The Challenge

MCSnet, one of Western Canada’s leading rural high-speed internet providers, specializes in serving Alberta communities. With nearly 30 years of experience, MCSnet preserves the essence of country living while keeping people connected.

MCSnet needed a digital marketing partner that could help drive more customer sign-ups and compete against fierce new market entrants. Top Draw and MCSnet have been working together since 2019, and over time, we’ve helped them exceed their digital marketing goals and win hundreds of new customers.

Tracking Real Business Results

Top Draw provides a monthly insights report and dashboard that focuses on their “North Star KPI” of internet sign-ups. This dashboard clearly shows which digital marketing efforts are driving business results.

Drove 20-30% of home internet sign-ups from Google Ads
Reached 70,000 rural Albertans each month on Meta Ads
Ranked #2 for “rural alberta internet” on Google

Digital Marketing Strategy

Shaping a forward-thinking digital marketing strategy for MCSnet, we engage with potential and current customers at all stages of the funnel. Our team has combined unconventional ideas with tried-and-true methods to take their online advertising, search engine optimization (SEO), and content to the next level.

Competitive online ad campaigns that boost MCSnet’s online market share
Location-driven SEO that is customized to users’ regions and inspires them to visit MCSnet’s website
Thought leadership content that builds relationships and grows MCSnet’s reputation

At each touchpoint, we highlight what sets MCSnet apart from the competition: They’re a homegrown internet provider that truly cares about rural Albertans and deeply invests in the community. By focusing on why prospective MCSnet customers should make the switch from their current provider with their unique USPs, and incentives tacked on to remarketing landing pages, we created a successful content angle to our competitor conquesting efforts.

“I appreciate Top Draw’s outside-of-the-box strategy for tackling our marketing needs, especially in light of emerging competitors. It feels like the entire team is on the same page and working towards common goals and established KPIs.”
–Rhonda Lafrance, Chief Marketing Officer, MCSnet

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Through SEO, we’re helping MCSnet gain more visibility on search engines and drive traffic to their website. One impactful tactic was creating location-based landing pages. On these pages, we crafted the content to appeal to residents from MCSnet’s service areas. This boosted their search engine rankings and earned them exposure with interested customers.

Thanks to our efforts, MCSnet is now ranking in the top 3 for 95 local search phrases, including:

“rural alberta internet”: #2
“internet providers lac la biche”: #1
“st paul internet providers” #1

Other key SEO efforts have included:

Re-optimized existing webpages to resonate with target personas and drive more conversions

Strategic SEO blog topics and writing to build their authority with high-ranking keywords and meet users’ search intent

Identifying digital partnerships between the client and local communities to build their online presence in hyper-targeted communities

Digital Advertising

Top Draw runs online ad campaigns for MCSnet across Google, Meta (Facebook and Instagram), and Bing. In any given month, these campaigns drive 25-30% of all new internet sign-ups for MCSnet.

Google Ads

MCSnet is primarily a referral-based business, relying on happy customers talking to their friends and family and recommending MCSnet. Despite that, Top Draw drives 20-30% of their new prospect leads via Google Ads.

Our optimizations have focused on:

Choosing to bid on ads that aimed to increase internet sign-ups rather than just website traffic
Prioritizing search phrases that indicated web visitors are ready to buy, while also targeting less of the client’s brand name for users who were already familiar with MCSnet
Optimizing and testing variations of high-performing ad copy and keywords
Moving away from Google Display ads and re-routing this ad budget to Google Search ads, which brought in higher quality leads

Microsoft Ads

While optimizing MCSnet’s paid ads, we noticed that Bing was generating a stable amount of organic traffic, and website visitors from Bing stayed on the MCSnet website for a significant amount of time.

With this in mind, we tested Bing search ads to find promising results in this small but steady traffic source. The modest budget we’ve allocated to Bing is proving profitable with the large impression share (48.20%, making MCSnet the market leader in their industry). It has also tripled the number of leads (organic and now paid combined) we bring in from this secondary search engine.

Meta Ads

On Facebook and Instagram, we promote MCSnet’s GigAir internet, which is a key service offering that they want to grow in the coming years. With eye-catching videos, our creative highlights the superior reliability and value of their internet in a way that speaks to rural Alberta residents. We also remarket GigAir to users who have clicked on the ads before, which is a strong driver for leads.

290 leads per quarter from GigAir campaigns
17 leads per quarter from GigAir remarketing campaigns

Content Strategy

We crafted a tailored content strategy that highlighted their competitive advantage as a homegrown internet provider while educating and engaging their target audience of rural Albertans. Through training sessions, we equipped MCSnet’s team with the skills to curate compelling content. Today, they drive their own content creation, positioning themselves as industry thought leaders.

Competing Campaigns

Major competitors, such as Elon Musk’s StarLink, have moved into the rural internet space. We’ve collaborated with MCSnet to come up with creative ways to outperform the competition on all digital marketing fronts.

Ad campaigns that address the weaknesses of the competition and position MCSnet as the best rural internet option
Remarketing pages that persuade customers to make the switch from competitors
Search engine marketing that optimizes for competitor search terms and increases MCSnet’s market share

Looking Forward

In the coming months and years, we’re excited to build on our successes and elevate MCSnet’s digital marketing to the latest tech and approaches. Our team will be hyper-targeting their paid advertising even further, expanding their PR efforts, and growing their online community with a custom social platform. We look forward to outperforming our past goals while keeping MCSnet ahead in the digital marketing landscape.