How Planet A (AIM) grew from a local to a national Internet provider

About the company

The AIM brand of Planet A, a.s. has been active in the telecommunications market since 2008. The company has focused primarily on the construction and operation of fiber optic networks for more than 40,000 households and the development of its own KUKI Internet TV. During the years 2017 to 2020 it grew from a local to a national player, and we, Triton IT, contributed to this growth with our expertise in IT and marketing. And we helped lead AIM to a successful acquisition by T-Mobile.

Our cooperation

AIM approached us following a recommendation in the summer of 2017. The company was facing declining internet orders, primarily from online channels.

Subsequent analysis conducted by our sister company, WebMedea services, through WebMedea's analytics software, showed strong links between online demand for internet connectivity and location. We thus selected the locations in Prague that represented the greatest potential for online advertising coverage. We also found opportunities in search engines for building natural positions, including the importance of individual keywords.

Our digital strategy thus became a solution that maximized the synergies of organics and narrowly targeted paid channels so that AIM could achieve reasonable conversion rates, a sustainable stream of new visits without having to invest the same resources as competitors in PPC.

Furthermore, we decided to take advantage of the fact that AIM had carefully built its own reliable metallic and fibre networks in selected locations. So we created a microsite, serving as a community hub connecting all potential clients, i.e. people interested in Internet connectivity and Internet TV in the localities. Thanks to these local websites, keywords like "internet chodov" became micro tags.

Ukázka dopadové stránky na webu A1M. — **Figure 1:** An example of one of the dozens of impactful microsites for key Prague locations covered by AIM's fibre network. We extracted unique content from KUKI TV user data for the area. These microsites became a source of new orders in the affected locations, primarily from organic searches for keywords related to the district or specific streets. They also raised the conversion rate of location-targeted campaigns. And last but not least, thanks to linkbuilding, they served to increase organic traffic and orders on the main AIM website.

Results

The implementation of the prepared strategy started in November 2017. Within three months, the a1m.cz website achieved a higher number of orders thanks to the rebuilding and maintenance of PPC campaigns (Fig. 2). The local websites started to bring in new acquisitions thanks to the precise targeting of campaigns and organics. Brand conversions increased as a result of the PR campaign. At the same time, the cost per conversion dropped as a result of campaign optimization.

Based on the successful collaboration, we continued to partner with AIM on the expansion across the country as part of the CETIN: Accelerating the Czech Republic project.

Further market and competitive analysis generated: Areas of the Czech Republic with the greatest potential in terms of internet demand for launching initial campaigns, keyword lists for building content to secure orders, incentives for linkbuilding thanks to the acquired connections of local providers with local magazines, authorities and entrepreneurs. At the same time, we gained a realistic coverage of the country with paid advertising thanks to estimates of global and local competitors' budgets.

Expansion progress

So far, AIM has operated mainly in Prague and the Central Bohemia region. Therefore, we had to obtain information about the target group in a different way. We chose a form of survey in conjunction with a competition for tempting prizes (Samsung smart TVs and IPhone phones). By promoting this competition through PR, social networks, information portals and content advertising, we also raised awareness of the AIM brand itself.

Due to the large number of locations, we replaced the idea of local microsites with one macro site, aimzrychluje.cz, with sub-sites for each location. This resulted in a total of 6253 impact pages with maximally personalized content, which corresponds to one page for each municipality in the Czech Republic.

After the announcement of the competition results, we processed 1770 submitted forms. After removing the fraudsters, we received 1682 valid responses, from which we extracted 18 pages of interesting context. From these, we got a sense of the needs and woes of competing providers' clients, price distribution and usage of the Internet and related services, suggestions for engaging content, key topics for effective acquisition and PR, and finally leads in the form of competitor contacts, all for each region.

Expansion results

The implementation of the strategy to expand started in January 2018.

Within three months, aimzrychluje.cz became a new source of orders (Fig. 2). The nationwide competition strengthened the brand awareness of AIM as an internet provider in the regions. At the same time, the data from the competition enabled the banner campaign to be precisely targeted and achieve a high number of conversions. Organik also became the main source of internet orders, which significantly reduced the cost of lead acquisition.

**Fig. 2**: Evolution of monthly internet orders from Planet A (AIM) through the different recruitment channels. Campaigns were run separately for the onnet (AIM's own fibre network) and offnet (CETIN's network). The network of microsites and macrosites built not only kick-started the growth of organic orders on AIM's main website, but also provided it with a steady flow of referral orders.

**Fig. 3**: Evolution of the conversion price (internet orders) in Prague and the rest of the country. In particular, we show the average conversion prices (red and blue solid lines) across all recruitment channels and the conversion price from PPC (dashed lines). While the PPC conversion price was affected by the highly competitive environment, especially the intensifying fight of ISPs for Prague's housing estates. A strong background of organic and referral conversions pushed the average down each month. The growing number of organic conversions in Prague compensated for the rise in advertising prices, while outside Prague the average conversion value was in the tens of crowns.

Impulse tariffs

During the implementation of linkbuilding for AIM, we discovered online magazines with specific audiences. These magazines brought in high numbers of orders, which were made only on the basis of clicks from the articles. Additional analysis showed that outside of large cities, there is a large, demographically and interest-rich group of Internet users who respond positively to information about the presence of cable Internet and Internet TV in their community. However, this group is not active on social networks and does not spontaneously seek faster internet. We consulted the information we found with AIM's marketing managers who, based on the information available to them, identified the potential in reaching the target group mentioned above through Radio Impuls. After arranging the cooperation between AIM and Radio Impuls, we consulted on the design of the new website, linkbuilding and campaign.

The Impuls tariffs were launched in late August/September 2019.

In less than three months, AIM gained another strong recruitment channel. By featuring the tariffs on Impuls radio every day, a new micro brand, Impuls Tariffs, was created, and with it, awareness and trust in the AIM brand grew across the country.

Independently of Impuls Tariffs, orders from PPC also grew thanks to consistent campaign management. Orders from organics continued to increase thanks to content creation and effective linkbuilding.

T-Mobile acquisitions

Rocketing growth in new orders and the associated reduction in conversion rates caught the attention of more than one major telecom provider. After a long negotiation, AIM was eventually acquired by T-Mobile in a very profitable way. For us, while this acquisition marked the end of the Planet A (AIM) story, it also marked the continuation of friendships that had been formed and the beginning of a number of new business opportunities. In addition to working for the largest T-Mobile supplier in the country.