Twelve months of organic and paid performance, audited end-to-end. The trajectory is more positive than the monthly dashboard shows — and the underperforming pockets have specific, named remediation plans.
Brentwood's search program has improved on every quality dimension over the last twelve months. The numbers Brentwood sees on a monthly basis don't fully capture the trajectory — these four do.
The site's average position has moved from 38.2 to 11.0 in twelve months.
CTR has improved from 1.61% to 1.97%. Engagement rate has nearly doubled. Conversions hit a 12-month high in April. None of this shows up in a sessions-only view — which is part of why the trajectory is invisible from the standard monthly dashboard.
Impressions have flattened slightly off a January peak. That's expected; rising position concentrates impressions on higher-quality queries rather than long-tail noise.
Position improvements are showing up in session quality, not just rank. Engagement rate has nearly doubled. Time-on-page is up 77%. April conversions hit a 12-month peak — and the slope is still up.
GA4 conversions differ from Google Ads native attribution. Ads-native shows 242 conversions (broader window, includes call/import events). GA4 shows 59 (last-non-direct, on-site events only). Both numbers are correct in their own frame.
| Layer | Spend | Conv | CPA |
|---|---|---|---|
| Search · Prospecting | $46,054 | 80 | $575 |
| Remarketing | $16,733 | 161 | $104 |
| Test & trial | $248 | ~1 | — |
| New launches (EU, Accuvent) | $1,756 | 0 | In ramp |
| Total | $63,518 | 242 | $263 |
The blended figure includes both the prospecting layer (which trains the audience model and runs at $575 because it's reaching cold buyers) and the remarketing layer that runs at $104 because it's converting buyers we've already touched.
Cutting prospecting to "save money" doesn't lower CPA — it collapses the audience pool that makes remarketing efficient. The two halves are one system.
Five campaigns are doing the structural work. Two of them are doing it at numbers that industrial B2B programs do not typically see.
| Campaign | Type | Spend | Conv | CPA | CTR | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stormtank Remarketing | Remarketing | $3,950 | 135 | $29 | 3.66% | Class-leading. Pays for the program by itself. |
| Mass Transfer Remarketing | Remarketing | $3,303 | 25 | $132 | 6.50% | Strong long-cycle B2B remarketing performance. |
| 2025 Stormwater | Prospecting | $6,035 | 23 | $260 | 9.81% | Best-in-class CTR for industrial prospecting. |
| 2025 Cooling Tower | Prospecting | $9,689 | 21 | $464 | 8.65% | Top spend bucket; converting under benchmark. |
| 2025 Markets & Applications | Prospecting | $9,672 | 17 | $569 | 6.80% | Cross-vertical entry point; broad audience. |
Five campaigns aren't pulling their weight. Each has a named diagnosis and a specific fix queued for Q3. We don't hide the weak spots — we plan for them.
| Campaign | Spend | Conv | Diagnosis | Q3 fix |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 Medical | $3,666 | 1 | Long sales cycle; landing page weak; offline conversions not tracked back | LP rebuild + offline-conv import |
| 2025 Mass Transfer | $6,133 | 6 | Highly technical buyers; conversion events under-captured | Form simplify + Salesforce-side attribution |
| Water & Wastewater Remarketing | $5,245 | 1 | Display-heavy, 1.5M impressions, audience too broad | Tight audience refinement; cut placement targets |
| Cooling Tower Remarketing | $2,152 | 0 | Audience fatigue; creative stale; no new value prop | Creative refresh + audience rebuild |
| Medical Solutions Remarketing | $2,083 | 0 | Same as above; medical buyers especially slow to remarket-convert | Pause & redeploy budget to Stormtank model |
Remarketing delivered 161 of 242 total conversions on 27% of the budget. That only works because prospecting campaigns are feeding qualified audiences into it. The two halves of the program are not independent.
The performance is good. The opportunity is bigger. Brentwood's search presence is brand-dependent, which means almost all of the non-brand market is being left to competitors. The Learning Center is the lever — when it's pointed at the right targets.
of Brentwood's organic clicks last quarter were branded queries — people searching "Brentwood," "Stormtank," "AccuVent."
That's a strong brand asset. It's also a structural risk — it means almost no one is finding Brentwood by searching the category instead of the company.
| Query | Clicks | Type |
|---|---|---|
| brentwood industries | 2,429 | BRAND |
| brentwood | 892 | BRAND |
| brentwood wheelbarrow | 500 | BRAND |
| stormtank | 460 | BRAND |
| accuvent | 151 | BRAND |
| hot roof | 52 | CATEGORY |
| hot roof vs cold roof | 50 | CATEGORY |
| detention tank | 44 | CATEGORY |
The branded queries dominate top of the click list. The non-brand winners — only three pages with meaningful volume — are the proof that category capture is possible. It just hasn't been done at scale.
These are commercial-intent queries where Brentwood appears in search results with substantial monthly volume — and almost no one clicks. Either the rank is too low, the title doesn't match intent, or both.
| Non-brand query | Impressions | Clicks | Avg position | Category | Why we lose |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| water treatment | 30,148 | 2 | 38 | Water/Wastewater | Article ranks too deep; title too academic |
| wheelbarrow | 10,920 | 7 | 25 | Building Products | Product page outranks article; no buying guide |
| trickling filter | 3,895 | 3 | 18 | Water/Wastewater | Multiple thin articles compete with each other |
| medical device packaging trays | 2,390 | 0 | 41 | Medical | No dedicated landing or article |
| cooling tower | 1,583 | 3 | 22 | Cooling Tower | Generic head term; product-page approach not winning |
| thermoforming | 366 | 0 | — | Medical / Cross | Capability page, not commercial intent match |
| structured packing | 183 | 0 | — | Mass Transfer | Niche but conversion-rich; no dedicated content |
The Learning Center has been publishing on cadence for years. The strategy isn't matching the demand.
Of roughly 200 indexed articles, "Hot Roof vs Cold Roof" alone drove 437 of last quarter's ~2,150 Learning Center clicks. The top five articles together deliver half of Learning Center traffic. The bottom 150 articles deliver about 5%.
This is a classic power-law distribution — and it tells us something important. The formula works. It just hasn't been replicated.
The Hot Roof formula isn't unique. It can be replicated 15–20 times across cooling tower, water/wastewater, stormwater, medical packaging, and building products. The math scales.
~200 articles published. Top performer drives 20% of LC traffic. Bottom 150 articles drive 5%. Publishing without strategy.
15–20 new commercial-intent articles per year, organized as 4–6 topic clusters around money pages. Legacy LC cleaned, consolidated, refreshed. Publishing with architecture.
Move the seven category queries from page 2–4 to page 1, hold impressions flat (conservative). Clicks multiply 165×. Leads follow.
| Query | Impressions · 3 mo | Pos | Clicks today | At page 1 · pos 4–6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| water treatment | 30,148 | 38 | 2 | ~1,507 |
| wheelbarrow | 10,920 | 25 | 7 | ~546 |
| trickling filter | 3,895 | 18 | 3 | ~195 |
| medical device packaging trays | 2,390 | 41 | 0 | ~120 |
| cooling tower | 1,583 | 22 | 3 | ~79 |
| thermoforming | 366 | — | 0 | ~18 |
| structured packing | 183 | — | 0 | ~9 |
| Total · quarterly | 49,485 | — | 15 | ~2,474 |
Organic and paid have been running on parallel tracks. The next chapter makes them operate as one connected system — each feeding the other, with shared audiences, shared attribution, and shared planning.
It's about the right ratio of renting attention versus building it. Today, Brentwood pays to rent because the building hasn't happened. With investment in content, paid becomes more efficient, and the ratio shifts.
~$63K/yr paid for non-brand acquisition.
10% of organic clicks are non-brand.
One LC article drives 20% of category content traffic.
Brentwood is renting attention every month — and there's no building accumulating in the background.
Paid spend optimized — same budget, ~25% more efficient.
30–40% of organic is non-brand category capture.
15–20 cluster articles compounding monthly.
Paid still rents — but renting on top of a built asset, not in place of one.
Optimize the campaigns that work. Tune Stormtank Remarketing, Stormwater Prospecting, and Mass Transfer for sustained performance.
Fix the campaigns that don't. Five named remediation plans for Q3.
Expand into new audience layers. Firmographic targeting on Display, AccuVent consumer expansion, branded protection layer.
Build 15–20 commercial-intent articles per year, structured as topic clusters with hub pages and supporting spokes.
Target the non-brand queries we're missing. Water treatment, cooling tower, wheelbarrow, medical packaging.
Refresh the legacy Learning Center. Consolidate thin pages, fix indexing, retitle for commercial intent.
Shared audience layer. Paid search visitors become remarketing pools and GA4 organic audiences.
Unified attribution. Looker Studio dashboard combining organic + paid + conversion paths.
Joint quarterly planning. Organic priorities inform paid; paid learnings inform content priorities.
Six topic clusters built around commercial hub pages. Each hub anchored by a Brentwood money page. 3–4 supporting "spoke" articles per cluster — comparison and buying-guide format. All interlinked. All targeting commercial-intent queries we currently miss.
| Cluster | Hub focus | Articles |
|---|---|---|
| Cooling Tower Fill Selection | CF / XF / Shockwave lines | 4 |
| Stormwater System Design | Stormtank module + pack | 3 |
| Water/Wastewater Treatment | Trickling filter + lamella | 4 |
| Medical Packaging Materials | Thermoforming + tray design | 3 |
| Mass Transfer Sizing | Structured packing | 2 |
| Roof & Attic Efficiency | AccuVent extension | 3 |
| Total cluster spokes | + 6 hub pages | 19 |
The current state — paid and organic measured separately, planned separately, optimized separately — leaves measurable performance on the table every quarter.
Strategy without accountability is just talk. Here's the scorecard Brentwood should hold Synapse against — quarter by quarter, written down, signed off, audit-ready.
Seven metrics. Each with a baseline, a 12-month target, and a defined source. If we miss a target, the QBR is where we explain why and what we're doing about it — not a quarter later.
| KPI | Baseline (today) | 12-mo target | Change | Source · cadence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blended Google Ads CPA | $263 | $200 | −24% | Google Ads · monthly |
| Non-brand organic clicks · quarterly | ~5,000 | 15,000+ | 3× | Search Console · quarterly · branded queries filtered |
| Total search-attributed conversions · annual | ~1,025 | 1,400+ | +37% | GA4 + Google Ads · annual · deduplicated |
| Organic engagement rate | 50% | 60%+ | +10 pts | GA4 · organic search channel · monthly |
| Paid Search engagement rate | 45% | 55%+ | +10 pts | GA4 · paid search channel · monthly |
| Top-3 rankings · non-brand keywords | ~5 | 25+ | 5× | Search Console · top-positions monitoring · monthly |
| Learning Center conversion rate | ~0.5% EST | 2%+ | 4× | GA4 · /resources/learning-center/* path · quarterly |
Every quarter, Synapse delivers a written scorecard against the seven KPIs, plus a four-section operating review. Same format every time — so Brentwood can read across quarters and watch the trajectory.
Q1 of the new program: Foundation work; KPI baselines validated. Don't expect topline lift yet.
Q2: Paid efficiency improvements start showing. First content goes live but hasn't ranked yet.
Q3–Q4: First non-brand organic lifts appear. Paid CPA moves toward target. Both trajectories visible in the scorecard.
Q5–Q6: Content authority compounds. Organic non-brand traffic 2–3× baseline. Hub pages ranking.
Q7–Q8: Full integration dividend visible. Paid CPA at target. Content engine self-sustaining. Brentwood owns the category for 6 hub topics.