How we are helping small businesses through the Australian recession
November 3, 2022

As an Australian small business ourselves, we know exactly the predicament other small businesses are facing right now.

We’ve been in operation for over four years, and during that time ridden the highs and lows that are inevitable in each business.


You may be sick of hearing it, we are sick of saying it. COVID-19 really threw everything off its course. The level of uncertainty in business impacted us and our clients. However with optimism, government grants, perseverance and plain old hard work we got through it.


Some clients soared, others struggled. We did what we could to help and support them.

Now the Australian financial market is impacting businesses once again. High interest rates and inflation are causing consumer doubt, and businesses again may be faced with fear of the future. Here’s our take on the coming recession and what we are doing to help small businesses.


Less money - for businesses and their customers

Let’s face it. A recession impacts us both ways. Consumers hold back spending as discretionary income decreases, luxury or non-essential purchases are lowered as they wait to see the impact of the next 6-12 months.


This means businesses may face lower revenue, and then also hold back spending. Typically, marketing budgets are one of the first things that businesses will cut spending on, amongst other things like hiring, travel and other business non-essentials.


So if we are potentially all entering a time of decreased income and decreased spending, how can we all make the most of this time?


Here’s what we are doing to help.

 1. Supporting clients first and foremost.

It’s our job to partner with our clients. This means supporting them through thick and thin. We know every business is different, so different impacts will be felt, so we are in constant communication with our clients to find out how they are coping, how business is overall and if there’s anything else we can do to support them.


When talking with new prospects we discuss the current state of the market, understand how business coped over the last few years and reiterate that marketing is not a short term fix - if any sort of digital marketing investment will cause financial stress then we don’t recommend the investment straight away. We will guide prospects to other organic avenues to help them in the short term and provide a plan to get started when the time is right.


2. Pricing

We take our prices seriously. We pride ourselves on our affordable ad management and web design pricing structures and in turn we don’t frequently raise our prices. Because of our low overheads (see more below) we are able to offer a premium service at an affordable price. It’s important to us that our pricing makes quality digital marketing services available to small businesses.


3. No Lock in contracts

We don’t lock any client into fixed terms. We definitely recommend a minimum term for advertising in order for us to get the best results (usually 3 months but sometimes longer especially for startups), but at the end of the day we know the quality and value of the service we offer and it truly does speak for itself. Most of our clients have been on board with us for over 12 months, some have been with us since day one four years ago.


We will be the first to say if a strategy isn’t working and would much rather maintain a positive relationship and guide you to other strategies than hold on to you as a client purely for the sake of revenue and to your detriment. It’s just not how we do things.

 4. Low overheads

We are able to offer such affordable pricing because we have low overheads. Our team work remotely in their home offices in Brisbane and Adelaide, and we (the owners) also work from our home office. We keep things simple and efficient in our business and can carry that over to our pricing so our clients get access to a premium service without the hefty price tag.


5. Supporting a wide range of industries and markets

We are happy to work with businesses in most industries or global markets. We don’t focus on one particular niche, rather we aim to get a solid understanding of your business and tailor strategies to suit your unique needs. With every client we work with, we learn about their business model, their products, services and their competition. We become a part of their team and we work with them in a collaborative relationship to get the best outcomes.


6. Continued marketing investment

One thing we recommend and one thing we will continue with is investing into our digital marketing. Marketing in a downturn is essential for continued exposure and continued growth.



We don’t recommend having all your eggs in one basket - in marketing terms this is not relying on one single source of new business.


Depending on your budget and financial position, different strategies can be applied that can continue to help your online presence. Even a small budget can make a difference.

For us we will continue our investment in:

  1. Google ads
  2. Bing ads
  3. Social media marketing
  4. Website design and optimisation

Remember an investment in marketing doesn’t always translate into financial investment, an investment of your time can also make a big impact. Doing some marketing activities yourself can be a great way to maintain your digital presence without the added expense of management. Things like blog content, social media content and community engagement are simple activities that can make a big impact on your business and can be quite easily achieved in-house.


Conclusion

We are here to ride the recession wave with you. If you need guidance on what you can invest in over the coming months, please don’t hesitate to reach out on our contact page. One of our directors would be glad to chat and guide you. Remember, we are also entering a crucial seasonal period with Christmas coming up and this can be a great time to get your business out there. A new year is approaching so having a strategy to kick off 2023 will propel you forward with the right mindset and structures in place. 


About PupDigital

PupDigital have your digital marketing needs covered. From online advertising to website design, we can help. Based in Canberra, servicing the world with quality, down to earth digital marketing services.

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Recent Posts
August 21, 2026
The Client AGA Air Conditioning is a Canberra-based heating and cooling specialist delivering residential and commercial installation, servicing and maintenance across the ACT. AGA had built a strong reputation through quality workmanship, referrals and customer service. What it needed was a digital and acquisition sy stem that matched the standard of the business and its growth ambitions, one built to support serious, sustained investment rather than one-off campaign spend. PupDigital was engaged in a multi-year partnership to bring the website, conversion tracking and paid media strategy together into a single, connected acquisition system. The Challenge AGA was already a trusted local provider, but its website and advertising weren't working together as one system. The site needed to better communicate the quality of the business and give prospective customers a clearer path to enquire. At the same time, the advertising account needed to become far more commercially disciplined. Heating and cooling demand shifts significantly through the year, and customer intent moves quickly between installation, servicing, evaporative cooling and gas heating, each with different commercial value. Residential and commercial enquiries needed to be treated differently, and the business's own capacity to take on work had to be factored into how aggressively the account was scaled. It's the kind of complexity we see all the time working with trades, services, and building and construction businesses. It's genuinely where we do our best work. A broad, static campaign was never going to cut it here. The goal wasn't more traffic, it was a system that turned demand into real, valuable enquiries, built to scale as the business did. Our Strategic Approach 1. Rebuild the Conversion Experience The first priority was improving what happened after someone clicked an ad. PupDigital designed and developed a new website that better reflected AGA's positioning and made its services easier to understand, with: Clearer service pathways for residential and commercial customers Improved mobile usability and more direct calls to action Tighter alignment between ad campaigns and the landing pages they led to Simplified enquiry journeys The website was built as part of the acquisition strategy, not a separate branding exercise. Every campaign needed to send customers to a page that matched their intent and made the next step obvious. 2. Improve the Quality of the Data Better optimisation depends on measuring the right things. PupDigital strengthened conversion tracking across the site and ad account, including enquiry forms and tracked phone calls, and critically, stopped treating every conversion as equal. AGA's feedback made clear that phone calls often represented stronger opportunities than lower-intent web actions. Tracking and optimisation were refined accordingly, shifting the strategy away from simply increasing reported conversions and towards improving the quality of the enquiries being generated, the metric that actually matters to a business owner's bottom line. 3. Structure Campaigns Around Demand and Commercial Value Rather than one broad, always-on campaign, PupDigital structured the account around AGA's core service categories and how demand moved seasonally, giving granular control over which services were promoted, how budget was allocated, and the messaging and landing pages each audience saw. This meant investment could be increased where strong opportunities existed, pulled back where intent was weaker, and kept continuously aligned with the work AGA actually wanted to win, not just the work that was easiest to generate leads for. Scaling Investment With Confidence As performance and enquiry consistency improved, PupDigital progressively scaled AGA's monthly ad investment, growing it 300% over the course of the partnership. This wasn't a case of increasing spend and hoping volume followed. Every scaling decision was informed by conversion performance, search demand, lead quality feedback, seasonal opportunity, and AGA's real capacity to service new work. Growth in ad spend only compounds when the wider system, website, tracking and campaign structure, can convert that investment efficiently. Building that system first is what allowed AGA to keep increasing investment with confidence, rather than second-guessing where the budget was going. The Results Following the website launch in May 2025, AGA's Google Ads performance improved substantially against the preceding period: Conversions up 14% 18.71% conversion rate, a 77% improvement Impressions up 22% Monthly ad investment scaled 300% across the partnership The standout result was conversion rate, not raw traffic volume. The campaigns didn't need to chase the largest possible audience. They became more focused on reaching people actively searching for AGA's services and directing them into a stronger website experience. The result was a materially higher percentage of visitors taking meaningful action, a more efficient acquisition system, not just a busier one. Broader Business Growth: A Harvey Norman Commercial Contract Throughout the partnership, AGA continued expanding its residential and commercial workload, including securing a significant commercial contract with Harvey Norman Commercial, alongside a growing volume of rough-in and fit-off work. 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AGA moved from a fragmented digital setup to one connected system for attracting and converting customers, and gained: A website that reflects the quality and scale of the business Clear visibility over what's actually driving enquiries, not just what's easy to report Granular control over service-specific and seasonal demand Confidence to keep increasing investment because the system converts it efficiently A digital foundation that supported the business's move into larger commercial work This is the throughline in how PupDigital works with trades, services, and building and construction businesses: advertising is never managed in isolation. It's shaped by the type of work a business wants, the enquiries it actually values, and the capacity it has to deliver, because that alignment, not spend for its own sake, is what drives real business growth. 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August 21, 2026
The Client AGA Air Conditioning is a Canberra-based heating and cooling specialist delivering residential and commercial installation, servicing and maintenance across the ACT. AGA had built a strong reputation through quality workmanship, referrals and customer service. What it needed was a digital and acquisition sy stem that matched the standard of the business and its growth ambitions, one built to support serious, sustained investment rather than one-off campaign spend. PupDigital was engaged in a multi-year partnership to bring the website, conversion tracking and paid media strategy together into a single, connected acquisition system. The Challenge AGA was already a trusted local provider, but its website and advertising weren't working together as one system. The site needed to better communicate the quality of the business and give prospective customers a clearer path to enquire. At the same time, the advertising account needed to become far more commercially disciplined. Heating and cooling demand shifts significantly through the year, and customer intent moves quickly between installation, servicing, evaporative cooling and gas heating, each with different commercial value. Residential and commercial enquiries needed to be treated differently, and the business's own capacity to take on work had to be factored into how aggressively the account was scaled. It's the kind of complexity we see all the time working with trades, services, and building and construction businesses. It's genuinely where we do our best work. A broad, static campaign was never going to cut it here. The goal wasn't more traffic, it was a system that turned demand into real, valuable enquiries, built to scale as the business did. Our Strategic Approach 1. Rebuild the Conversion Experience The first priority was improving what happened after someone clicked an ad. PupDigital designed and developed a new website that better reflected AGA's positioning and made its services easier to understand, with: Clearer service pathways for residential and commercial customers Improved mobile usability and more direct calls to action Tighter alignment between ad campaigns and the landing pages they led to Simplified enquiry journeys The website was built as part of the acquisition strategy, not a separate branding exercise. Every campaign needed to send customers to a page that matched their intent and made the next step obvious. 2. Improve the Quality of the Data Better optimisation depends on measuring the right things. PupDigital strengthened conversion tracking across the site and ad account, including enquiry forms and tracked phone calls, and critically, stopped treating every conversion as equal. AGA's feedback made clear that phone calls often represented stronger opportunities than lower-intent web actions. Tracking and optimisation were refined accordingly, shifting the strategy away from simply increasing reported conversions and towards improving the quality of the enquiries being generated, the metric that actually matters to a business owner's bottom line. 3. Structure Campaigns Around Demand and Commercial Value Rather than one broad, always-on campaign, PupDigital structured the account around AGA's core service categories and how demand moved seasonally, giving granular control over which services were promoted, how budget was allocated, and the messaging and landing pages each audience saw. This meant investment could be increased where strong opportunities existed, pulled back where intent was weaker, and kept continuously aligned with the work AGA actually wanted to win, not just the work that was easiest to generate leads for. Scaling Investment With Confidence As performance and enquiry consistency improved, PupDigital progressively scaled AGA's monthly ad investment, growing it 300% over the course of the partnership. This wasn't a case of increasing spend and hoping volume followed. Every scaling decision was informed by conversion performance, search demand, lead quality feedback, seasonal opportunity, and AGA's real capacity to service new work. Growth in ad spend only compounds when the wider system, website, tracking and campaign structure, can convert that investment efficiently. Building that system first is what allowed AGA to keep increasing investment with confidence, rather than second-guessing where the budget was going. The Results Following the website launch in May 2025, AGA's Google Ads performance improved substantially against the preceding period: Conversions up 14% 18.71% conversion rate, a 77% improvement Impressions up 22% Monthly ad investment scaled 300% across the partnership The standout result was conversion rate, not raw traffic volume. The campaigns didn't need to chase the largest possible audience. They became more focused on reaching people actively searching for AGA's services and directing them into a stronger website experience. The result was a materially higher percentage of visitors taking meaningful action, a more efficient acquisition system, not just a busier one. Broader Business Growth: A Harvey Norman Commercial Contract Throughout the partnership, AGA continued expanding its residential and commercial workload, including securing a significant commercial contract with Harvey Norman Commercial, alongside a growing volume of rough-in and fit-off work. Landing a contract like that comes down to the quality of AGA's work and reputation, not an ad campaign in isolation. What it does show is the broader trajectory of the business during our partnership, and the part PupDigital played in making sure AGA's digital presence could keep up with, and represent, that scale of growth. Winning commercial-level work like this means having a website and digital presence that looks and performs the part, and that's what we focused on throughout. The Business Impact The most valuable outcome wasn't any single campaign result or website metric. AGA moved from a fragmented digital setup to one connected system for attracting and converting customers, and gained: A website that reflects the quality and scale of the business Clear visibility over what's actually driving enquiries, not just what's easy to report Granular control over service-specific and seasonal demand Confidence to keep increasing investment because the system converts it efficiently A digital foundation that supported the business's move into larger commercial work This is the throughline in how PupDigital works with trades, services, and building and construction businesses: advertising is never managed in isolation. It's shaped by the type of work a business wants, the enquiries it actually values, and the capacity it has to deliver, because that alignment, not spend for its own sake, is what drives real business growth. Conclusion AGA Air Conditioning shows what's possible when a website, tracking and paid media strategy are treated as one connected system, working together, rather than three separate pieces bolted on side by side. PupDigital's role was never simply to drive more clicks. We rebuilt the customer journey, strengthened measurement around what actually matters, aligned campaigns with seasonal and commercial priorities, and built a structure capable of supporting significantly increased investment, investment AGA could scale with confidence because the underlying system was built to convert it. The result: a 77% improvement in Google Ads conversion rate, a 300% increase in monthly ad investment, and a stronger digital foundation that helped support AGA's move into larger-scale commercial work.
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