Company: SETAF2018 — Geotechnical Analysis and Design Software
Industry: Technology / Engineering Software
Start: March 2026
Services: SEO strategy, migration to WordPress and custom theme development, Google Ads setup & management, measurement infrastructure, email marketing and CRM integration
SETAF2018 is a Turkish-built analysis and design software for geotechnical engineers. A niche, technical product with a narrow set of buyers. The work started with SEO; within eight months it had become a complete marketing operation covering the website, the ad account, measurement, email and CRM. Every figure below is read from Google Search Console and the Google Ads account.
The starting picture: a constrained website, an unmeasurable ad account
When we took over there were two separate problems, and each was feeding the other.
The site was on Wix. The room the template allowed was not enough for the product explanation, module pages and technical depth SETAF2018 needed. On the search side the space was just as tight: page structure, internal link architecture and technical access were all limited.
The complaint on the advertising side was this: “Money goes out, conversions do not come in.” When we looked at the account, we saw that the problem was not the ads but what was being counted as a conversion .
Measurement: 34 conversion actions, none of them real
The account had 34 separate conversion actions defined. A few examples, exactly as they stood in the account:
- Downloading the setup file → each one was recorded as 4,000 TL of “revenue” in the account
- Opening the chat window → 100 TL
- Clicking the WhatsApp link → 100 TL
- Clicking the email address → 200 TL
- Downloading a PDF → 10 TL
- Three separate “purchase” actions — one of them misspelled as Pucrhase , which meant the same event could be counted more than once
- An install conversion for an Android app that does not exist
This setup was still running in the early months of 2026. The “setup file download” action alone produced 48 records in that period and wrote 192,000 TL of revenue into the account. In reality those 48 people had only downloaded the trial version; not one of them was a purchase.
With measurement in that state, Google’s algorithm was optimising towards the wrong target as well: the system was learning to find not the user who buys, but the user who opens the chat window . The spend was real; the return was not.
Diagnosis first, ad budget second
We find out which keywords actually convert and manage the setup with data. We start by cutting the budget that’s going to waste.
GET AN ADS QUOTEWe removed every one of the old actions and built four in their place. We also tied value assignment to a clear rule: a trial is worth 1 TL, and a purchase is worth the actual sale price minus 1 TL. The “conversion value” column in the account therefore became a figure that corresponds to real revenue, not an estimated score.
The website: from Wix to WordPress, with a custom theme
We moved the site to WordPress and built a custom theme around SETAF2018’s needs. This was not a cosmetic decision; it was about making possible the page structure, product-module explanation and technical depth the template would not allow. The measurement infrastructure was rebuilt from scratch in the same step, because if the page an ad lands on cannot be measured, neither can the ad.
The difference is not only in appearance. In the old structure everything was piled onto one long page; in the new one every module, every use case and every sector has its own page. That was the precondition for appearing in search: to be the answer to a query, you need a page devoted to that query.
Google Ads: campaigns rebuilt from scratch, by market and language
We stopped the inefficient campaigns and rebuilt the structure from scratch. Campaigns were not left in one pool; they were separated by market, language and topic . That way each market’s budget, bids and search terms could be managed on their own:
- Separate campaigns by topic on the Turkish side — geotechnical analysis, foundation engineering, slope stability, soil liquefaction, excavation support
- A separate core-keyword campaign for international markets searching in English
- A separate geotechnical software campaign for Azerbaijan
- A separate campaign for brand searches
Splitting by topic was not a preference for this product but a necessity: the engineer searching for “slope stability” and the engineer searching for “soil liquefaction” are not looking for the same module and are not persuaded by the same ad copy.
Search visibility
Search Console data shows the effect of the SEO work clearly:
| Google Search | Previous 6 months | Last 6 months |
|---|---|---|
| Clicks | 302 | 5.572 |
| Impressions | 15.402 | 343.633 |
| Average position | 11,4 | 6,6 |
Clicks grew 18-fold and impressions 22-fold; the average position moved from the edge of page two to the upper half of page one.
The traffic does not come from one country either. Over the last 16 months, 30% of searches came from outside Turkey: the United States, India, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, the Philippines and the United Arab Emirates foremost among them. For a niche engineering product, that shows the market is not bounded by geography.
That visibility had a commercial result too: SETAF2018’s first international sales were made in this period, through the search and advertising channels. For software that had sold only to the Turkish market for years, this means a new revenue stream opening up.
Email and CRM: connecting the channels to each other
As the engagement went on we took over the email campaigns as well and integrated the CRM setup (FluentCRM) into the system. Behaviour such as a purchase or a trial download now forms an automatic segment in the CRM. In practice that means contact with existing customers is not random; it is built on the user’s relationship with the product. The cold email campaigns run on the same infrastructure.
The logic here is not to treat every channel as a separate job. Search visibility creates demand, advertising accelerates that demand, and email and CRM hold on to the interest that arrives. Because it is defined from the outset which channel delivers which outcome, the risk of looking at one channel’s numbers and making the wrong decision disappears.
Results
Measurement became reliable. 34 conversion actions came down to four. The “conversion value” column is no longer an estimated score but the real sale amount.
Between 1 January and 12 November 2026, the ads produced 36 purchases worth 683,892 TL in sales value. That figure is the real sales recorded by the new measurement setup.
Organic search grew 18-fold (302 → 5,572 clicks), and the average position rose from 11.4 to 6.6.
30% of the traffic comes from abroad and the market-based campaign structure is managed separately for Azerbaijan and for English-speaking markets.
The first international sales came in this period.
What started as an SEO engagement became a five-channel marketing operation — search, advertising, web, email and CRM all run within one plan.
What does the client say?
“Brandaft’s team approaches digital marketing not just as SEO or Google Ads, but treats every process as a single whole. They plan SEO, Google Ads, social media and other digital marketing work so that each supports the others.
What impressed me most was that they genuinely tried to understand the product before starting the work. Although our product is a highly niche and technical engineering software, they grasped it quickly through detailed market research and shaped their entire strategy accordingly.
I have worked with many agencies before, but this is the first time I have come across a team that listens to its client this well, learns the product this deeply, and acts on it. Thanks to their professional approach and holistic perspective, we had a working process that inspired confidence. I wish them continued success.”
— İbrahim Bozkurt, Founder of SETAF2018
Taken from the review on Brandaft’s Google Business Profile.
Result
The real gain in the SETAF2018 project was not a bigger budget but fixing what was being measured . In an account that counts someone downloading a setup file as a 4,000 TL customer, it is impossible to know which campaign is working; every optimisation decision taken in that account is guesswork.
Once measurement was fixed, the rest of the work fell into order: the site was rebuilt, campaigns were separated by market and topic, search visibility grew, and email and CRM were connected on top of that structure. Every project needs its own remedy — here the remedy was not more advertising but a correctly defined conversion.
