Engineers Australia: How TMR Reduced Google Ads Cost Per Conversion by 50%+
Engineers Australia (EA) is Australia’s leading professional engineering body — 115,000 members, 31,000 students, and a digital marketing programme spanning three separate Google Ads accounts. When TMR Agency took over in 2021, the accounts had tracking gaps, an ageing Universal Analytics setup, and campaigns running without a clear conversion framework. Over the following twelve months, TMR restructured the campaigns, migrated EA to Google Analytics 4, implemented Facebook’s Conversion API, and reduced cost per conversion by more than 50%.
50%+
Reduction in cost per conversion
3
Google Ads accounts managed across EA
100%
Conversion tracking accuracy achieved
GA4
Full migration from Universal Analytics
The Client
Engineers Australia (EA) is the leading Australian professional body and not-for-profit organisation dedicated to advancing the practice of the engineering community. With 115,000 members, including 31,000 students, EA plays a crucial role in accrediting professional engineering qualifications across the country.
The Brief
TMR Agency took over Engineers Australia’s Google Ads and analytics accounts in 2021. The brief had four clear components:
Fix tracking
ensure every relevant conversion across EA's digital properties was being measured accurately, consistently, and without duplication
Restructure campaigns
move away from an ad hoc campaign structure to one organised around EA's actual goals: member acquisition, event registrations, and professional development sign-ups
Migrate to GA4
manage the full transition from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4 before the UA sunset deadline, with custom event tracking and reporting built from scratch
Implement Facebook CAPI
integrate Facebook's Conversion API to recover conversion signal lost to iOS privacy changes and improve the accuracy of EA's paid social reporting
Underpinning all of it was a reporting requirement: EA’s management team needed clean, reliable data they could trust to make budget and campaign decisions. That meant resolving tracking before optimising spend — not the other way around.
The Strategy
TMR’s approach was deliberately sequenced: fix the foundation before scaling spend. There’s no point optimising campaigns against conversion data you can’t trust. The first priority was measurement. Everything else followed.
Conversion Tracking Rebuild
The existing conversion setup had duplicate actions, misconfigured goals, and critical user interactions that weren't being tracked at all. TMR worked closely with Engineers Australia's marketing and web development team to map every conversion point across the site — membership sign-ups, event registrations, professional development enquiries, and contact form submissions — and implemented clean tracking via Google Tag Manager. This gave EA a single, accurate view of what each campaign was actually delivering.
Campaign Restructure Across 3 Accounts
EA's three Google Ads accounts — covering different business units and audiences — were restructured from the ground up. Search campaigns were rebuilt around tightly themed ad groups aligned to specific conversion goals. Display campaigns were reconfigured with updated audience targeting. Performance Max campaigns were introduced where appropriate, with asset groups and audience signals built to match each business unit's objectives. Crucially, campaigns were now structured so that optimisation decisions were driven by the metrics that actually mattered to EA — cost per member acquisition and cost per event registration — not just clicks and impressions.
Google Analytics 4 Migration
TMR managed the full transition from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4 for Engineers Australia. This wasn't a simple migration — it required rebuilding event-based tracking from scratch, configuring custom dimensions and metrics relevant to EA's goals, and building management reports in GA4 that replicated the KPI visibility the team had in Universal Analytics, while adding new capabilities. The migration was completed ahead of Google's UA sunset deadline, giving EA a full data baseline in GA4 before the switchover.
Facebook Conversion API (CAPI) Integration
iOS 14+ privacy changes had significantly degraded the accuracy of Engineers Australia's Facebook pixel data — a common problem affecting any organisation running Meta campaigns post-2021. TMR implemented Facebook's Conversion API (CAPI) as a server-side solution, sending conversion events directly from EA's server to Meta rather than relying solely on browser-based pixel tracking. The result was a measurable improvement in reported conversion accuracy and better-performing campaign optimisation, as Meta's algorithm could now work from more complete data.
Tool Used
Google Ads
Search · Display Performance Max
Google Analytics 4
Event tracking Custom reporting
Facebook CAPI
Server-side conversion API
Google Tag Manager
Conversion tracking Event implementation
Results — Month by Month
The improvements to Engineers Australia’s Google Ads performance didn’t happen overnight. They were the result of a structured, sequenced programme of work carried out across twelve months. Here’s how it unfolded.
Month 1–2
Account audit & tracking rebuild
TMR completed a full audit of all three EA accounts — campaign structure, keyword lists, ad copy, audience targeting, and conversion setup. Duplicate conversion actions were identified and removed. A clean conversion tracking framework was implemented via Google Tag Manager, covering membership sign-ups, event registrations, and professional development enquiries. For the first time, EA had reliable baseline data to optimise against.
Month 3–4
Campaign restructure & initial improvements
Search campaigns across all three accounts were rebuilt with tightly themed ad groups aligned to EA's specific conversion goals. Irrelevant keywords were paused; new ad copy was written to match updated audience intent. Within the first eight weeks of the restructure, cost per conversion began to improve as campaign spend was redirected toward higher-intent search terms.
Month 5–6
Performance Max rollout & GA4 migration
Performance Max campaigns were introduced across the accounts, with audience signals and asset groups built to reflect each business unit's objectives. Simultaneously, TMR completed the GA4 migration — event-based tracking configured, custom reports built, and the management dashboard delivered ahead of Google's UA sunset deadline. EA's team now had real-time visibility into campaign performance in a single, clean interface.
Month 7–12
Facebook CAPI integration & sustained optimisation
Facebook's Conversion API was implemented server-side, recovering conversion signal that had been lost to iOS privacy restrictions. Reported conversion accuracy improved substantially, enabling Meta campaigns to optimise against better data. Across the Google Ads accounts, continued optimisation — bid adjustments, audience refinements, and creative testing — drove cumulative improvements. By the end of the engagement, cost per conversion across EA's accounts had reduced by more than 50% against the pre-TMR baseline.
The Results in Plain Terms
Cost per conversion reduced by more than 50%
Across Engineers Australia's Google Ads accounts, cost per conversion fell by more than 50% against the pre-TMR baseline — the result of campaign restructuring, improved conversion tracking accuracy, and sustained bid optimisation.
Conversion tracking accuracy: 0 duplicate actions
At the start of the engagement, EA's conversion setup contained duplicate tracking actions that inflated reported conversion numbers and distorted optimisation signals. By the end of Month 1, all duplicates were resolved and tracking was confirmed accurate across all three accounts.
GA4 migration completed ahead of deadline
TMR delivered the full Google Analytics 4 migration — event tracking, custom reporting, and management dashboards — before Google's Universal Analytics sunset. EA had a full data baseline in GA4 before the transition was forced.
Facebook CAPI: conversion signal recovery [CONFIRM %]
Following Facebook CAPI implementation, reported conversion volume from Meta campaigns improved materially — recovering signal lost to iOS privacy changes. Exact improvement percentage to be confirmed from account data.
Three accounts managed simultaneously
TMR managed Google Ads activity across three separate Engineers Australia accounts covering different business units, audiences, and campaign objectives — all optimised toward the same underlying goal: lower cost per relevant conversion.
What they said
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