Innovative Partners
Specialist R&D consultancy achieving dominant organic and paid positioning in a competitive B2B market.
About the Client
Innovative Partners is a UK-based R&D tax advisory and strategic investment consultancy working with innovation-led businesses across sectors. The firm offers boutique, high-integrity services to a carefully chosen client base — often high-growth technology, engineering, and manufacturing businesses.
While they operate in a specialised niche, the competitive landscape for R&D advice in the UK is intense — with aggressive direct-response competitors bidding heavily across Google and LinkedIn for high-value keywords.
Innovative Partners approached Elevated Clicks in 2021 to help establish a performance-led PPC strategy that could drive credibility, visibility, and consistent lead flow at a sustainable CPA.
What We Did
PPC became a core driver of qualified pipeline growth, contributing significantly to the firm’s commercial momentum.
Performance Audit & Funnel Strategy
This began with a full performance audit across all existing traffic sources, CRM close rates, landing pages, and attribution setup. We built a bespoke funnel strategy based on audience segmentation, buyer intent, and keyword mapping.
We identified three major segments:
- High-quality leads with technical founders and CFOs at innovation-led SMEs
- Lower-value leads from generalists and startups not ready to claim R&D relief
- Misinformed inbound traffic driven by overly broad match types and PMAX
Our mission was to double down on the first segment while actively filtering the second and third.
Precision PPC Strategy for Professional Services
Unlike e-commerce or local lead gen, R&D tax consultancy deals are high-ticket and high-consideration. Each lead had to be deeply qualified — and conversions had to translate into real fees, not just form-fills.
We rebuilt the Google Ads structure from scratch:
- Removed all broad and dynamic match campaigns
- Moved to exact match, intent-rich keywords focused on “R&D tax credits for X sector”
- Built industry-specific landing pages (engineering, SaaS, biotech, manufacturing)
- Enabled offline conversion tracking linked to CRM-qualified leads and closed deals
We also layered in LinkedIn Ads as a supplemental top-of-funnel channel, retargeting qualified firmographic audiences with credibility-focused content (case studies, partner highlights, funding updates).
Optimisation, Attribution & Results
We implemented full-funnel tracking and advanced attribution across Google Ads, LinkedIn, HubSpot CRM, and first-party analytics tools.
- Weekly data reviews allowed us to eliminate non-performing keywords and audiences in real time
- Retargeting was refined to prioritise high-value profiles who engaged with technical page content
- Landing pages were A/B tested to increase lead quality and reduce CPA
The result was a highly efficient, high-conversion PPC funnel — generating consistent inbound leads with real commercial value.
The Result
PPC became a core driver of qualified pipeline growth, contributing significantly to the firm’s commercial momentum.
CPA reduced by 41% over 18 months
Conversion rate increased from 3.2% to 9.4%
Google Ads became a sustainable acquisition engine, delivering quality leads weekly
Strategic clarity around which sectors and search terms actually delivered ROI
45% revenue growth year-on-year over the past three years.
In professional services, intent and trust are everything. Our approach didn’t just drive leads — it filtered for the right kind of client and delivered them a clear, relevant journey from first click to onboarding.
We combined paid media discipline with sector knowledge and deep funnel attribution — proving that PPC, when built right, can drive growth even in high-ticket, low-volume markets.
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