How Phillips Auction House turned media efficiency into growth
Phillips Auction House operated with 11+ conversion actions applied universally across all auction types, confusing Google’s bidding systems and inflating costs. Auction types varied widely: live, online, consignment, exhibitions, etc, yet all were optimized the same way. Location targeting was broad and inconsistent, and Meta was optimized toward traffic events, not business-critical actions. The result: inefficient spend, low conversion relevance, and limited ability to scale high-value actions.
Challenge
Approach
Custom conversion goal groups
Built custom conversion goal groups aligned to the different auction types (e.g., Online auctions, Live auctions, Exhibitions, etc).
Paid campaign management
Launched set of campaigns for every auction using goal groups specific to the auction type and tied to lower-funnel behaviors (e.g., Consignment Submissions events for Consignment Campaigns).
Goal group management
Expanded each goal group to account for 2–3 events to ensure sufficient signal volume during short 1–2 week auction windows.
Geo-refined targeting
Implemented geo-refined targeting based on auction location and interest from target audience (Geneva, Hong Kong, etc.), eliminating irrelevant global traffic.
Platform synchronization
Synced Google + Meta to the same location lists and updated Meta from a traffic event to a more lower funnel event.
Workflow consistency
Ensured consistency and operational rigor with an auction-category workflow and location-targeting source of truth.
