Where the traffic came from, what it did, and where the real demand is showing up. Built for Shawn at Plains Equipment Rentals.
The four numbers that matter most this month. Quote requests are the cleanest signal of real demand from the site.
439 sessions, 274 conversions, 65% engagement. The strongest real channel this month. The cost guide and Komatsu spec pages are doing the heavy lifting, and the new Kubota R640 vs Bobcat L85 blog is already ranking at position 6.5.
Perplexity (9 sessions) and ChatGPT (3) referred real traffic for the first time. Small, but it validates the comparison and spec content. People are asking AI which loader to rent, and Plains is starting to be the answer.
Real audience only. Organic and paid search drive the engaged visits and the conversions; direct is mostly bot volume landing on the home page.
What people searched, which pages earned the clicks, and where the next gains are. Sortable and filterable.
| Page | Clicks | Impr. | CTR | Avg Pos |
|---|
| Query | Clicks | Impr. | CTR | Avg Pos |
|---|
Domain Rating sits at 1.4, which is low for a site ranking this well on content alone. The pages are good enough to rank; the domain just needs more authority behind them. Directory listings (American Rental Association already referred a lead), supplier and manufacturer links, and local Alberta citations are the path to compounding the organic gains.
CA$3,063 spent in May across four search campaigns, returning 21 primary conversions at $146 each. The brand campaign is the efficiency winner; wheel loaders need attention.
| Campaign | Impr. | Clicks | CTR | Cost | Conv. | Cost/Conv | Status |
|---|
| Campaign | Phone calls | Form fills | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Skid Steers | 7 | 1 | 8 |
| Excavators | 3 | 2 | 5 |
| Wheel Loaders | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| Brand | 3 | 3 | 6 |
Phone calls tracked via WhatConverts (includes call-extension clicks and direct calls). The equipment campaigns lean heavily on phone leads, which is typical for contractors pricing a job.
22% CTR on people already searching for Plains. Cheap, high-intent, working exactly as it should.
The wheel loader search campaign carries the biggest budget ($65/day) but rarely hits its cap. There simply isn't enough search volume in the category to spend the budget, which is why cost per conversion looks high on just 2 conversions. The pages and targeting are sound; pure search can't surface demand that isn't being typed into Google. That is the constraint we're solving next.
Because wheel loader search volume is limited, we're going beyond search to create demand rather than just capture it. Through June we're building a new Performance Max campaign tailored to wheel loaders, paired with YouTube and video ads using footage Shawn has supplied. Performance Max reaches people across YouTube, Display, Search, and Discover, so it can put wheel loaders in front of contractors who aren't actively searching yet. The goal is to fill the top of the funnel for the flagship category and feed the search campaigns that are currently starved for volume.
Form submissions and WhatConverts phone calls, tracked through the lead sheet. Form-fills have names; phone-only entries are calls. Quality is graded SQL / New / Bad.
The monthly Plains newsletter: who it reached, how many opened, and what they clicked.
The "rental FAQ" angle landed. Nearly half the list opened it, well above the rental and equipment industry average of around 25 to 30%. The subject and the practical, question-first format are working.
One click on 58 opens. The email answers the questions inside the body, so readers may be getting what they need without clicking through. Worth testing a sharper single call to action next month if the goal is to drive traffic to the site.
The rental FAQ blog post: plainsequipmentrentals.com/equipment-rental-faq-western-canada/ — the only link clicked this send.
Where the next gains are, based on what the May data is telling us.
"Wheel loader rental" and "loader rental" sit around position 20 with real impression volume. These are the flagship category. Getting them onto page 1 meaningfully shifts organic volume.
Search can't spend the wheel loader budget because the volume isn't there. In June we're building a Performance Max campaign tailored to wheel loaders, with YouTube and video using Shawn's footage, to create demand instead of waiting for it.
Domain Rating of 1.4 is the ceiling on organic. The content is strong enough to rank; the domain needs links. Directories, suppliers, and Alberta citations are the lever.