Case Study: Chariot Energy

A new kind of power company for a new kind of customer.
Chariot Energy began with a simple goal: to make clean solar electricity affordable for everyone. Created by leading North American solar and energy project developer 174 Power Global, Chariot made solar more accessible by creating transparent, no-deposit electricity plans and building solar energy farms in Texas.
Chariot Energy
Chariot Energy

How We Do It

The Challenge

Charged with differentiating Chariot from numerous competitors within the saturated retail electricity market, we set about leveraging our omnichannel approach to transform a relative unknown into a household name. Specifically, we sought to:

  • Increase organic traffic
  • Win customers
  • Become a trusted authority on renewable energy

The Approach

Our search engine optimization (SEO), content, advertising, social, and web development teams worked in tandem to put Chariot on the map through:

  • Engaging optimized content – Our SEO and content teams created compelling site and blog content that educated consumers and supported the development team’s user experience goals. Of course, this content was meticulously optimized to attract search engines while delighting audiences.
  • Savvy targeted digital advertising – Our advertising decreased costs to acquire and costs per click while maximizing Chariot’s conversion rate and impressions.
  • Sophisticated website enhancements– The web development team refined Chariot’s user experience, optimizing content flow and page speed to ensure it was both user-friendly and technically sound.
  • Strategic Out-of-Home Ad Placements – Through carefully placed billboard and radio ads, our PR team ensured Chariot’s visibility across numerous channels.
lights fun outside

The Execution

We knew early on that an omnichannel approach would be essential to helping Chariot acquire thousands of customers, so we set out to engage audiences at multiple touchpoints. We started by assessing our budget and determining how many conversions we could expect to achieve through each channel. From there, we executed a plan that included robust paid search, optimized content, and traditional PR placements. We’re big believers in the importance of testing. For paid search, we implemented manual bidding until Google Ads had accumulated enough conversion data to run Google automated bidding.
As our understanding of customer personas and journeys became more nuanced, our targeting grew more precise and costs to acquire decreased. Our SEO team performed in-depth research to identify the top-ranking keywords, then created beautiful, keyword-rich landing pages and blog posts. The latter became part of Chariot U, an innovative resource page full of high-quality articles about energy conservation, green living, renewable energy, and industry news. In this way, we established Chariot as a thought leader in the solar industry and a conscientious resource for electricity consumers.

The Results

Our efforts yielded significant results, cementing Chariot’s place within Texas’ deregulated electricity market and dramatically increasing their customer base. The proof is in the numbers:

SEO & Content Marketing

5,034% growth in organic traffic in a single year, plus placement of other 400 keywords on the first page of search results.

Pay-Per-Click

78% improvement (decrease) in Cost-Per-Click (CPC) and 36% improvement in PPC conversion rate.

Customer Acquisition

86% improvement (decrease) in overall blended digital (all digital channels) cost-to-acquire.

Takeaways

This project reinforced our belief in the efficacy of omnichannel, and particularly integrated digital marketing. By integrating our digital and OOH initiatives, we exposed audiences to a coherent narrative via multiple channels. Moreover, we were able to track and test customer journeys, thereby narrowing in on common paths of engagement and directing our ad spend and content creation accordingly.