Yes Energy — Stable Google Ads lead flow through Ukraine's blackout crisis

The challenge

Yes Energy distributes power generators and energy backup solutions to Ukrainian households and businesses. During the 2022–2023 winter, Russian missile attacks on Ukraine's electrical infrastructure caused rolling blackouts that affected every region of the country, sometimes for 8–16 hours per day. For Yes Energy, demand exploded — but so did operational chaos. Customers couldn't reliably browse the website (no power), couldn't process online payments (banking down), and couldn't accept deliveries (curfews + civilian power restrictions).

Most competitors in the category either paused campaigns entirely (lost market share when demand peaked) or kept campaigns running blindly (burned budget on impressions to a population that physically could not transact). Yes Energy needed a different approach: continuous campaigns that adapted to real-time blackout schedules and prioritized lead capture for callbacks, not online checkout.

What we did

1. Re-architected conversion goals

Pre-crisis, the account optimized for online purchase. Mid-crisis, that conversion event was impossible for most prospects. We restructured the conversion stack to prioritize phone calls (callback requests) and form submissions for delivery scheduling once power was restored. Smart Bidding learned to optimize for lead capture rather than completed orders — keeping campaign signal strong while the e-commerce funnel was disrupted.

2. Adapted ad scheduling to blackout patterns

We mapped reported blackout schedules per region (Lviv, Kyiv, Odesa, Kharkiv) and applied geo-bid adjustments by hour of day to spend the budget when prospects had power and were online. This sounds basic, but most competitor accounts kept 24/7 even spending, which meant 60% of impressions hit users in active blackouts who couldn't click anyway.

3. Restructured Shopping feed for inventory reality

Supply chains were chaotic — some generator models were available, others were 4–8 weeks out. We tagged the Google Shopping feed with custom labels for real-time availability and excluded out-of-stock SKUs from Performance Max so the algorithm didn't waste budget pushing products that couldn't ship. The feed was updated daily during peak supply chain disruption.

4. Aggressive negative keyword hygiene

Crisis-driven searches generated huge volume of low-intent queries ("when will blackouts end", "ukraine electricity news"). We expanded the negative keyword list by 200+ terms in the first month to prevent budget leakage on information-seekers vs. buyers.

5. Direct response ad copy

Standard pre-crisis ad copy emphasized brand and product features. Mid-crisis copy shifted to availability, delivery timeline, and immediate callback. "In stock — call back within 1 hour" outperformed product-feature copy by 2.4× CTR during peak demand weeks.

The result

Through the worst weeks of the blackout crisis — when most competitor accounts saw 60–90% drops in conversion rate — Yes Energy maintained a stable flow of qualified leads that converted to actual sales. Our weekly performance reports during this period showed:

• Conversion rate remained within 15% of pre-crisis baseline (while industry-wide rates collapsed)
• Cost per qualified lead stayed flat instead of spiking 3–5× like most competitor accounts
• Phone-call leads converted to sales at higher rate than pre-crisis online checkout had

We express our gratitude to the Digitelia agency for expertly setting up advertising in Google Ads and Google Shopping. During an extremely challenging period of blackouts, thanks to their professionalism, we received a steady flow of high-quality leads that converted into real sales.

The Digitelia team demonstrated a deep understanding of our objectives and responded promptly to changes, ensuring maximum return on our advertising budget. We confidently recommend Digitelia as a reliable and competent partner for achieving concrete business results.

What we'd repeat in any crisis-driven category

The Yes Energy playbook applies whenever external conditions disrupt a customer's normal buying behavior — supply chain shocks, regulatory changes, regional disasters, sudden category demand spikes. The principles are universal:

1. Re-define what "conversion" means when your normal funnel is broken. Capture what the customer can do, not what they normally do.
2. Match spend to actual buying-window patterns, not 24/7 default schedules.
3. Inventory-aware feeds prevent algorithm waste on products you can't ship.
4. Ad copy must match crisis reality — feature-led copy fails when the customer's primary concern is logistical certainty.
5. Aggressive negative-keyword expansion prevents informational-search waste during high-volume news cycles.