Reducing CPA by 72% for luxury yacht brokerage, Northrop & Johnson

The challenge

As global sales and charter specialists, Northrop & Johnson’s offline reputation was firmly established across luxury yachting audiences, but rising competition and shifting search behaviors made it harder to consistently capture demand online. Our challenge was to increase digital visibility and improve the volume and quality of leads being passed to brokers for both charters and yacht sales.

Going beyond traffic growth, the brief called for organic and paid activity to work together to support the required outcomes. Success meant attracting high intent audiences through new SEO and PPC strategies that refined messaging, creative, and campaign focus. 

Our approach

Building authority

Establishing strong technical foundations was key to securing Northrop & Johnson’s authority in a crowded market. Our efforts concentrated on high value yachts for sale and yachts for charter pages, supported by targeted content optimization and dedicated off‑site link building. Technical auditing, metadata updates, EEAT style elements, and content templates for commercial pages were all reviewed and refined to ensure high ranking signals onsite.

Refining paid efforts

Paid media activity was refocused, moving away from broad display campaigns that were generating low-quality leads. Instead, we prioritized high intent targeting and improved creative and messaging, ensuring PPC activity drove relevant traffic and broker‑ready enquiries.

Results

The wins are significant. Not only did we move core keywords like ‘Superyacht’ and ‘Yachts for sale’ into the top three positions on Google, but we also drove CPA down from 84 in 2024 to $51 in early 2026. Organic impressions have increased by 15.5% YoY, and a 28% increase in keywords on page 1.

Strong collaboration and close alignment turned the Northrop & Johnson team’s relationship with IDHL into a true partnership, ensuring strategies stayed focused on performance and long-term growth – even as the search landscape evolves.