GOOGLE ONLINE MARKETING CHALLENGE 2012

Post campaign report

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Participants:

Elias Kanja

Kuan Wei Chen

Quynh Anh Nguyen Vu

Xiang Meng

Zhao Yingyu

Steve Silk

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1.1. Campaign Overview

Four key goals were established for the Google AdWords campaign developed for Steve Silk

– the magician [http://magicianperth.com.au/], a magician based in Perth, Western Australia.

The overall goal of the campaign was to leverage on Google Adwords to attract more

potential customers to Steve’s current business. The goals were outlined at the beginning

based on current situation faced by the client: 1) Achieve a CTR of 5%, 2) Target an

impression rate of 4000-5000/day, 3) Maintain an Avg. Pos. from 1-3 in relevant Google

search results, and 4) Optimise the limited budget of $250 over a short period of three weeks’

time. One AdWords campaign was created to achieve these goals: Steve Silk – the magician.

1.2. Key Results

With $243.57 of the budget spent, the account accumulated 352 total clicks and 202,928 total

impressions. The best performing Ad Group was Party purposes which achieved an overall

CTR of 0.17% and an average CPC of $0.66. However, due to short campaign duration, there

were only three goals achieved including: achieve an average impressions rate of 9176 per

day); maintain a high rank in relevant Google search results (Avg. Pos. is 2.6); and save on

advertising costs. However, two unexpected outcomes occurred; specifically the final average

CTR was 0.18%, which left a big gap between our desired objective (5%) and the real

outcome. Secondly, there were only two leads generated for the website.

1.3. Conclusion

Despite a moderate result achieved, our group has put great effort in the campaign by

utilising provided Google tools (e.g., the Opportunities tab, Google Analytics, Traffic

Estimator, AdWords Editor, and more), and a frequent monitoring schedule of the campaign.

With the help of these tools, new keywords with high search volume were continuously

explored with the aim to maximise clicks and CTR.

1.4. Future Online Marketing Recommendations

It is highly recommended that Steve Silk continue to use AdWords to enhance his online

marketing presence and to attract more customers. Due to the high competition within

entertainment industry, we suggest that Steve should improve his website interface as well as

content that are currently sparsely made. Future promotional activities should moreover

concentrate on differentiating his services from other powerful competitors, and monitoring

must be done carefully so as to filter the best functional keywords that deliver greater

advertising efficiency.

INDUSTRY COMPONENT

2.1.Introduction

This section will firstly identify the major goals that were established for the campaign,

followed by the relevant strategies on how to achieve each goal. The operational

methodology will then be discussed including initial budget allocation and ad groups used.

The evolution of the campaign strategy will comprise of the major changes made during the

campaign and their impact on the overall campaign. Key results will then be presented

according to the campaign data gathered in three weeks’ time. To sum up all key aspects of

the campaign, a conclusion will be briefly given. Lastly, with the aim to provide useful future

implications on what the client should improve, applicable recommendations will be outlined

with regard to online marketing.

2.2.Campaign overview

The overall goal of the campaign was to utilise cost-efficient advertising tools to raise

awareness of Steve’s magician service, thus expanding his customer base. Accordingly, four

Adwords goals were outlined at the beginning based on current situation faced by the client:

1) Achieve a CTR of 5%, 2) Target an impression rate of 4000-5000/day, 3) Maintain an

Avg. Pos. from 1-3 in relevant Google search results, and 4) Optimise the limited budget of

$250. A frequent monitoring schedule was set up; therefore the allocated budget would not be

expended too quickly.

The table below summarises the strategy chosen to achieve each goal respectively:

GOAL STRATEGY

Target an impression rate of 4000-5000/day Use Google display network

Optimise keywords relevance

Achieve a CTR of 5% Limit advertisement viewers through Geo

targeting

Maintain an Avg. Pos. from 1-3 in relevant

Google search results

Target specifically using distinctive keyword

matching options for a high quality score

Optimise the limited budget of $250 Exact phrase matching

Eliminate unproductive keywords regularly

The group ran the Adwords strategy with solely one campaign “Steve Silk – the magician”,

and determine ad groups quantity based on customer segments, to which Steve offers his

service. The Search Term Report feature, the Opportunities tab, and the Keyword Tool were

utilised to identify keywords and negative keywords to insert.

Ad group Party purposes Corporate events Social functions

Keywords Birthday party

magician, birthday

magician, magic show

for kids, “kids party

magician”, Perth

magician, magician kids

party.

Mental magic, strolling

magician, mind reading

magic, magician

corporate events

magic entertainment,

Perth magician, magic

floorshow, strolling

magician, close-up

magic, funny magic,

magician performance

Ad copy Funny kids magician Magical shows for

corporate events

Magician service for

social events

Negative keywords Cheap, free Cheap, free Cheap, free

The Opportunities tab especially provided us with fresh ideas on keyword and the potential

function they may create. In conjunction with Google Traffic Estimator, ad copies as well as

keywords were constantly adjusted based on prediction of search volume, clicks, and cost per

day, in order to generate high search volume. Additionally, the Google display network was

kept automatic at the beginning; however during the campaign process, we set up this to

manual mode. Pertaining to Geo targeting, we selected a 400km radius from Perth CBD to

ensure that only people who can see and click on our ads are supposed to be in close

proximity to our business, thus maximising CTR and lowering the CPC.

The account was run 24/7 in three weeks’ time from April 16 to May 7, 2012. Assuming that

the first two weeks are the time when the campaign should put great effort in raising

awareness of people, the budget allocated a greater amount of money for this phase.

Especially, we focused on Mondays and Tuesdays as they are the most prevalent days for

search. Another assumption made here was if the budget allocation of $100 were successful

in the first week, we would use the same technique for the following two weeks. The table

below shows the total budget spent throughout the campaign period:

Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun

Week 1: $100 $30 $15 $11 $11 $11 $11 $11

Week 2: $100 $30 $15 $11 $11 $11 $11 $11

Week 3: $50 $7 $7 $7 $7 $7 $7 $7

Regarding account monitoring, each member was assigned to keep track of the campaign on

a daily basis. In case any change is made, that member has the duty of reporting it back to all

members through email with a screenshot of Before and After the modification e.g. Keywords

can be changed if the productivity shown in Impression and Clicks is low.

2.4 Evolution of the campaign strategy

All the changes made throughout the campaign were divided into two phases as following:

Phase 1 (18th –25th April)

Initially, CPC was kept at a high

level of $1.21 to compete with other

Australian magicians on high rank

in search results. Underperforming

keywords with low search volume

were replaced with new ones (magic

entertainment, magician

performance and local magician),

which were supposed to reduce

untargeted impressions, maximise

the CTR, and minimize the CPC.

At this phase, our group bumped into the misunderstanding of how to use negative keywords

right. As a result, the insertion of relevant keywords instead of the right negative keywords

reduced our impressions significantly. Soon after the impact had been recognised, we deleted

these wrong ones and put back ‘cheap’ and ‘free’ as our sole negative keywords.

Phase 1 result: Best Performing Ad Groups

Ad Group Clicks Impressions CTR Avg. CPC Avg. Pos.

Party purposes 130 106,195 0.12% $0.57 2.5

The other two Ad groups underperformed, specifically Social functions only managed to get

2 clicks and 2,332 impressions at an average CPC of $0.94. Corporate events had 0 clicks,

therefore also 0% CTR. Based on these results, we decided to focus more on the

underperforming ad groups so that we can get our campaign back on the right track.

Phase 2 (25th – 30th April)

Changes were made to the two underperforming ad groups. Reasons were probably due to the

lack of exposure to relevant target audiences. Following that direction, we decided to switch

the Google display network from automatic to manual mode by selecting the sites, on which

the ads were placed. There are two main criteria for selection namely the impressions/day

rate lied between 10000 - 500000, and the target audiences were supposedly most likely to

visit these sites. The primary aim of this change was to increase awareness of relevant

customers toward Corporate events and Social functions.

Phase 2 result

Despite using Display network, the Impressions rate was following a downward trend

Social functions: From 16th to 25th April = 2,814. From 25th to 6th May = 345

Corporate events: From 16th to 25th April = 1,483. From 25th to 6th April = 205

Due to the unexpected outcome, we decided to completely divert focus to only search

networks.

Phase 3 (1 May- 6 May)

As of 1 May, the budget balance was $67.27. The main object now was to minimise

expenditure to keep the campaign running until 6th may. Several actions were carried out

with the effort of minimising costs:

Reduce geographic target range from 400 km to 300km radius

Reduce the maximum CPC from $1.10 to $0.70; reduce our bidding power, thus the

rank is high enough for maximum exposure. Therefore, we decided to compensate for

the loss in bidding power by concentrating on developing high quality score

keywords, which have lower CPCs, lower first page and top of page bid estimates,

which means our ads would rank high at a very low cost.

To generate high quality score keywords, we used exact and phrase matching options to

specifically target consumers namely “kids party magician” used in Party purposes.

Phase 3 result

The graph above shows the situation of the ad group Party purposes, in which the keyword

Perth magician managed to achieve a quality score of 7/10. Furthermore, CTR rose from

0.08% to 1.91 %. Besides, the ad group Social functions managed to get 10% CTR from the 2

clicks it generated within this period. Our objective was to achieve saving on cost in this third

phase of change.

2.5 Key results

Total campaign cost was $243.57 at a daily budget of $12.

Week Clicks Impressions CTR Avg. CPC Avg. Pos.

1 130 87,185 0.15% 0.67 2.2

2 119 87,476 0.14% 0.74 2.7

3 37 22,812 0.16% 0.59 2.8

Best Performing Keywords for the Ad Group Party purposes:

Ad Group Clicks Impressions CTR Avg. CPC Avg. Pos.

Party purposes 352 202,928 0.17% $0.66 2.5

Social functions generated 14 clicks, whereas Corporate events underperformed the most

with only 2 clicks regardless of numerous attempts such as keyword tweaking, use of display

network and keyword matching. After thoroughly discussing, our group came to a conclusion

that the main reason behind this was due to the lack of segment potential. Given that the

campaign took place in April and May, there is supposedly a limited number of corporate

events organised during this time; thus, the demand for entertaining services is low.

2.6 Conclusion

In this section, we will discuss which goals we achieved and which ones we did not. Firstly,

only two leads were attained, which is not considered a significant change. Secondly, the

desired CTR of 5% was not achieved. However, a high rank in Google search (Avg. Pos. =

2.6) was achieved through high quality score keywords. We also achieved savings on

advertising costs through narrowing down the target geo graphic area to only 300 km.

Furthermore, the initial target impressions rate of 4000 to 5000/day was within our reach. In

fact, we attained an average impressions rate of 9176 per day.

2.7 Recommendations

Google AdWords clearly helped our client generate more traffic to his website. However, to

turn visitors into customers, we suggest that Steve should combine the use of both Adwords

and other currently popular social media due to the rapidly increasing role of word-of-mouth.

Because the first ad group Party purposes had a CTR of 0.17%, as well as receiving the

highest share of clicks, increasing the amount of the budget allocated to this segment should

lead to an improved ROI. Another way to attract businesses is to offer the customisation

services as one unique selling point.

Another important point is the modification of the website as well as improving the

appearance of landing page. At the same time, more specific information on service detail

should be to the website to reduce bounce back rate (352 clicks but only 2 leads).

LEARNING COMPONENT

3.1. Learning Objectives and Outcomes

The expected learning objectives from our participation in the GOMC included a proper

understanding of how online advertising works, how to use Google AdWords as an effective

tool in business promotion, and most important how to leverage on a tightly restricted budget

to deliver expected outcome. According to that, the competition has provided our group the

opportunity to carry out advertising activities for a small business using Google AdWords;

not to mention the exact use of AdWords Tools in creating a relevant campaign for our client

to expand his business. Furthermore, our group also learnt how to optimise the keywords and

Ad Groups selection for different customer segments in order to increase traffic to our

client’s website.

However, due to the lack of Adwords experience among group members at the beginning, we

were faced with the difficulty in managing the AdWords account and running the campaign

properly. Thanks to the GOMC competition guideline, we figured out the right way to get

things worked. Another unexpected outcome is the short campaign period inhibited the team

from identifying the right strategies after each strategy failed; due to the fact that we learn

from failures. For instance, after analysing the market response, we realised the wrong use of

some keywords and eliminated them. But it also took time to see whether the new ones work.

3.2. Group dynamics

In general, we owned a great deal of advantages in working with each other. Firstly, we have

group members at hand frequently; thus an open, interactive communication among us is

available, which contributed to the construction of the campaign. The tolerance toward each

other then delivered great team spirit. Moreover, each member possesses certain strength that

can outweigh the other member’s weakness. The passion for the competition also allowed us

to work effectively in a remote working environment using social network tools to

communicate with each other. Lastly, being fast-learners in terms of the adoption of new

technologies helped us utilise the provided Google tools.

However, each member’s tight schedule made it difficult to arrange group meeting time,

which suits all of us. So we came up with a solution of having meeting prior to the

commencement of our class. Another problem is the conflict of opinions among us.

Therefore, an open discussion to promote mutual understanding is necessary in giving us an

overview of what the others were thinking; thus, we can give relevant recommendations and

argument if needed. By the end, there are several lessons regarding teamwork to be drawn,

which are: tight collaboration, high responsibility, constant encouragement and support.

3.3. Client dynamics

Lack of knowledge of the magician industry is the biggest challenge to us. Additionally, we

also experienced the limitation of useful when browsing through online resources; thus, most

of the information was provided by the client. Having said this, the client was very supportive

in providing us with a two-way communication that contributed significantly to the strategy

creation. Moreover, the client was willing to give the group valuable encouragement during

hard time, and by the end, he also would like to receive further recommendations from us.

3.4. Future recommendations

If we ever had another chance to help our client’s online advertising activities, we would

firstly do thorough self-training in terms of theoretical and practical Adwords knowledge to

enhance outcome quality. We would then spend more time on doing market research

properly, and at the same time, build solid relationship with the client to get to know them

better. This will allow for the development of a more comprehensive Adwords strategy,

providing a deeper understanding of the tactics needed.

In the future, if the time frame were not limited, we would choose to obtain initial customer

response on the campaign through clicks and impressions. To achieve that, we would set a

higher daily budget and more geographical locations and then focus on the relevant strategy

based on the data gathered. With this in mind, we hope to yield more positive outcomes

demonstrated in the increase of sales and the rise in awareness.