Meet Our Heroes
KNQ Trade operates in one of the most traditional, relationship-driven industries on the planet: wholesale seafood. With a lean team of just three people, they’ve built something remarkable. Their network spans Central America, South America, and Southeast Asia, sourcing everything from Pacific mackerel to king crab for buyers across Korea, China, Hong Kong, the UAE, Europe, and North America.
Their internal motto says it all: “If we don’t have it, we will find it.”
But despite strong connections and a commitment to transparency, competitive pricing, and 5-star customer service, KNQ Trade faced a modern problem. In an industry still dominated by cold calls and handshake deals, they needed a way to generate qualified leads online without drowning in time-wasters.
Their Goals
KNQ Trade had one clear objective: gain qualified leads, specifically end buyers.
Not brokers. Not middlemen. Not tire-kickers on Facebook who ghost after three messages.
They needed buyers ready to purchase directly, buyers who could pay from their own accounts and close deals efficiently. In the seafood trade, brokers add layers of complexity, commission negotiations, trust issues, and inflated pricing that kills deals before they start.
Their previous attempts at digital marketing had fallen flat. A two-month engagement with another agency on Google Search returned nothing. LinkedIn ads went nowhere. Organic Facebook growth brought in mostly brokers, with over 90% of leads being low-quality and unqualified.
With a modest monthly ad budget of $800 to $1,000, they needed a partner who understood lead quality over lead volume.
The Challenge
KNQ Trade was stuck in no-man’s land.
Their industry is old school. Many competitors, including massive, profitable operations, still rely on outdated sales tactics with little to no investment in modern marketing systems. That meant there was opportunity, but also a steep learning curve.
The biggest hurdle? Lead quality.
Previous campaigns flooded them with brokers, not buyers. Facebook was a wasteland. Their last marketing agency burned through budget on Google Ads with zero return. And because their target audience varied wildly by product and geography (king crab buyers in Russia behave very differently than shrimp buyers in Spain), a one-size-fits-all approach was never going to work.
They also had no active paid advertising running when they came to us. No data. No pixel history. No remarketing audiences. Just a website, a Google Ads account, and a whole lot of frustration.
Our Process
We knew this wouldn’t be a plug-and-play situation. KNQ Trade needed a custom strategy built around their unique sales cycle, diverse product catalog, and hyper-specific buyer personas.
Phase One: Audience Research and Campaign Architecture
We started by mapping out their ideal customer profiles based on product type and geography. Using the internal exercise they’d completed, we identified high-margin products (king crab, lobster tail, blue swimming crab) and matched them to the most valuable regions.
Then we built tightly segmented Google Search campaigns designed to attract end buyers, not brokers. Our keyword strategy focused on commercial intent terms like “wholesale king crab supplier,” “bulk lobster tail USA,” and “direct seafood importer.” We excluded terms commonly used by brokers and resellers.
We also implemented negative keyword lists to filter out low-intent traffic and set up conversion tracking to measure lead quality, not just lead volume.
Phase Two: Ad Copy and Landing Page Optimization
KNQ Trade’s messaging needed to immediately differentiate them. We rewrote ad copy to emphasize direct sourcing, transparent pricing, and their “if we don’t have it, we will find it” value proposition.
We also optimized landing pages to pre-qualify visitors. Forms included questions about purchase volume, payment structure, and whether the buyer was an end user or intermediary. This helped filter out brokers before they even submitted a lead.
Phase Three: Budget Allocation and Bid Strategy
With a limited budget, every dollar mattered. We allocated spend based on product margin and regional demand, prioritizing high-value searches in markets like the UAE, Hong Kong, and the U.S.
We used Manual CPC bidding initially to gather performance data, then transitioned to Target CPA bidding once we had enough conversions to train Google’s algorithm around KNQ Trade’s ideal buyer profile.
Phase Four: Continuous Refinement
Over the first 90 days, we monitored lead quality closely. We cut underperforming keywords, expanded successful campaigns into new regions, and tested different messaging angles to see what resonated most with end buyers vs. brokers.
We also introduced remarketing campaigns to stay top-of-mind with high-intent visitors who didn’t convert immediately, a crucial tactic in an industry where purchase cycles can span weeks or months.
Results
Within three months, KNQ Trade went from zero qualified leads to a consistent pipeline of high-quality end buyers.
Lead volume increased by 320%, but more importantly, lead quality improved dramatically. Over 75% of leads were now end buyers, compared to less than 10% from their previous organic Facebook efforts.
Cost per qualified lead dropped by 48% as our targeting became more refined and our campaigns learned to filter out brokers and low-intent traffic.
ROAS climbed to 5.2x, meaning for every dollar spent on ads, KNQ Trade generated over five dollars in qualified pipeline value based on their average deal size.
And perhaps most telling: KNQ Trade closed their first six-figure deal directly from a Google Ads lead within 60 days of launch.
They finally had a scalable, predictable way to generate the leads that mattered, without wasting time on brokers or burning budget on the wrong audience. In an industry still stuck in the past, KNQ Trade now had a modern growth engine built for the future.
