The challenge
Porter Group is one of the southern hemisphere's largest heavy-equipment businesses: nine equipment brands (Hyundai Construction Equipment, Sandvik, BOMAG, Madill, Airman, Terex, Furukawa and more) sold and hired through five divisions, Equipment, Hire, Mechanical, Parts and Haulage, with operations spanning New Zealand, Australia, the United States and the Pacific Islands.
Each brand had its own audience, dealer requirements and seasonal cycles. Each market had its own competitors and buying behaviour. The digital footprint had grown organically into multiple websites, email lists and social accounts without a unifying strategy, and paid spend wasn't accountable to a return figure.
What I did
- Rebuilt paid search around return, not impressions. Restructured Google Ads campaigns by brand, division and region, with conversion tracking tied to enquiry value, reaching a sustained 3.5x return on ad spend across regions.
- Ran the multi-region digital estate as one system. Multiple websites, email programs on Mailchimp, and industry media placements, coordinated so each brand stayed consistent while speaking to its own market.
- Managed a large social portfolio. Eight Facebook and Instagram profiles, two LinkedIn pages, a YouTube channel and 50+ Google My Business locations, each optimized for local visibility where machines are actually bought and serviced.
- Created "Porter Press". Designed, wrote and managed a quarterly in-house magazine distributed to more than 9,000 global recipients, a print product that kept a high-value B2B audience engaged between purchase cycles.
The results
- 3.5x ROAS on Google Ads sustained across four markets
- A single, accountable digital system replacing fragmented brand-by-brand activity
- 50+ locations with maintained, optimized local search presence
- A flagship owned-media channel (Porter Press) reaching 9,000+ readers every quarter
Why it matters
This role proved the model I've used ever since: one senior marketer, with clear systems and accountable numbers, can run what looks like a department-sized remit across brands, divisions and borders, without losing the local nuance that makes each market convert.