Google Online Marketing Challenge Post-Campaign Report: SMART Centre

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1 Google Online Marketing Challenge Post-Campaign Report: SMART Centre Executive Summary Campaign Overview: By partnering with SMART Centre Market in Wheeling, WV, our team hoped to create a better sense of brand awareness. The store s owners explained that they have been open for seven years, yet they still continue to get new customers in the store who say, I didn t even know this was here. We also focused on improving our client s conversion rate. We tracked these goals using success indicators, such as: increased impressions, website traffic (via clicks), and phone calls to the store. We created four AdWords campaigns, three Search Network only and one Display Network only. We developed 45 ad groups which contained 93 ads and seven ad extensions. Our campaigns featured 801 Search Network keywords, 413 Display Network keywords, and 76 negative Search Network keywords. To reach relevant consumers, we enabled a location targeting with a radius of 60 miles around the store s only location and optimized our ad rotations to capture the most traffic while keeping costs low with a Cost-Per-Click bidding strategy. Key Results: In total, our campaigns amassed 126,605 impressions, 906 interactions (clicks), a 0.72% interaction rate (CTR), 21 calls, and a total cost of $ Our display network ad group CVB Pictures was the most successful, amassing 61,794 impressions, 586 interactions, a 0.95% CTR, and a low cost of $ Conclusion: By exposing SMART Centre Market to AdWords, we proved consumers are searching for this type of business. The results surpassed our goals, showing how AdWords and paid search results can be immediately and immensely beneficial to a company. Future Online Marketing Recommendations: SMART Centre Market has all of the basics that it needs to thrive online, but they must expand in order to compete in the online environment. The company utilizes a website and Facebook page which could both be very beneficial to the company s future success if maintained appropriately. We suggest updating their website to make it more user friendly, relevant, and easy to navigate. The upkeep of their Facebook page better is a must, but we don t suggest expanding into other social media platforms due their small workforce. If they made these changes and continue to utilize AdWords, their company could flourish. Page 1 of 9

2 Industry Component Campaign Overview: Our strategy with this challenge was to devote a larger amount of money to the campaigns that we expected would do better and that consumers would be searching for more often. We also wanted to experiment with both the Google Search Network and the Google Display Network to create a variety of different ads and appeal to different audiences. Before we began the campaign, we created concrete, measurable goals to evaluate our campaign on. The major goals we set all centered around creating better brand awareness. A goal of 10,000 impressions for the ads was set for the entirety of the three weeks. In terms of engagement with the ads, we had hoped for 750 clicks on our ads to lead them to the website and 100 phone calls through the ads call extensions. In order to accomplish each goal, our team ensured that we checked on our accounts and our ads daily. We took advantage of the Opportunities tab quite frequently and utilized any advice that was provided there. The ads we created were appealing with appropriate keywords, and we used a maximize clicks strategy in order to get the most ads on the first page of search results. Being new to Google AdWords, we found that it would be best to keep our strategy to maximize clicks during the entire campaign. Through 35 ad groups among four campaigns, we spent $ over the course of three weeks. The campaign ran from March 14 through April 3. We abided by our budget for the first week but strayed from our budgeted amounts in the second and third weeks as we saw which campaigns performed better than others. Towards the end of the second week and going into the third week, we created a fourth campaign for Branding Images for the Google Display Network and we budgeted a large weekly amount for that campaign once we saw how well it could perform with the appropriate bids. Each of our team members checked the account every one to two days to ensure that the campaigns were working well. We each tended to gravitate towards one or two campaigns that we liked to monitor, and adjustments were constantly made to improve the quality of our campaigns and their respective ad groups. Evolution of Your Campaign Strategy: Running an AdWords campaign requires attention to details and adjusting some components such as ads, maximum bids, daily budget, and so on as needed. In order to optimize our budget, we opted to start the campaign with a small budget, a narrow range of ad groups, and a slightly vague scope of keywords. As we analyzed our logistics Page 2 of 9

3 and gained more confidence and experience with running a campaign, we started making major changes according to our findings. The first major change we decided to perform was to create more ad groups. We didn t realize the importance of a large number of ad groups, even if there was just a slight difference between the groups keywords. This enabled us to implement different strategies into the different ad groups and measure which ones worked best in order to identify the most successful strategies and focus on them. We observed some keywords that were generating absolutely no clicks yet lots of impressions, harming our CTR. In order to tackle this issue, we decided to pause and/or delete many of the ineffective keywords. Despite our efforts, our CTR was still not at a level that satisfied us, so in an effort to further boost our overall percentages, we completed the suggested tasks in the Opportunities tab. As mentioned earlier, we started out the campaigns with small daily budgets as we were still learning, we then adjusted those budgets twice, once after each week has gone by, increasing them both times in order to finish strong. Last but not least by any means, we created a Display campaign over halfway into the campaign in an effort to optimize our reach and get as many impressions and clicks as possible. The Search Network ads were not performing as well as we had expected them to, so we devoted the necessary time into taking this risk without knowing if we would even get the results that we wanted. The Display campaign proved to be a huge success; it was our best performing campaign, generating 61,794 impressions and 586 clicks. Our biggest and, to our delight, most successful risk was creating the Display campaign. It was a huge risk considering the fact that previous winning GOMC teams have hardly ever used a Display campaign and we went beyond what most teams normally do. However, we thought it would work well for this type of business and the types of products and services that the business provides. Thankfully, our prediction was right and the risk we took prevailed. We created ads to entice the consumer, and as a result, we opted to implement this more riskier wording in our Search Network ads. We also created a Carnegie Science Center (our top competitor within the region) ad group in an attempt to lure their customers towards us. Key Results: Our campaign racked up over 126,000 impressions which immensely surpassed our goal. Our engagement rate peaked on Saturday, April 1 when we received 204 clicks in one day alone out of 906 total clicks throughout three weeks. The Branding Images Display Network campaign garnered 586 clicks which is more clicks than what the other three campaigns received Page 3 of 9

4 combined. The Carnegie Science Center ad group was our next best ad group in terms of clicks. Based off of impressions alone, the telescope ad group did great. However, ad groups that did not do well included ones specific to Wheeling science stores and science podcasts; these received no clicks and a very low number of impressions. During our first week, we were still just learning about all of the features that AdWords offers, so we took things slow and made sure to keep our initial budget low. As shown in the Week One chart below, we did not receive many clicks or impressions throughout the first week. The following two weeks we learned more and kept increasing our budget as we felt more confident. We began to add additional ads, more relevant keywords, and added call extensions to every single ad. Once we began to experiment more, our numbers began to climb. It wasn t until the addition of our Display campaign that our numbers skyrocketed. Page 4 of 9

5 For our keywords, we utilized a lot of broad matches and phrase matches, and these worked best for our purposes. We also believe that the location targeting benefitted us greatly. This allowed us to market our ads to Wheeling, WV and the surrounding area, ensuring that the best audience was seeing our ads. People outside of the Wheeling area would not care to see a Wheeling store and would just bypass our ad. The call extensions were effective but could have been utilized better in the grand scheme of things. There were 21 clicks on the call extension which did provide the company with 21 more customers than before. However, we were had previously set a goal of 100 calls to show that consumers were interested. One of our successful tactics included the Display Network campaign targeted towards our overall branding. The client also received more calls throughout the campaign as a result of an increased sense of brand awareness. As for failures, some of our ad groups had way too many keywords. Our team misunderstood that we only needed about keywords to start or else it becomes too difficult to manage. Another failure would be that we did not create a Display Network campaign sooner since it proved to be the most successful. We had every intention to have Display ads run the entire three weeks, but we didn t have time to figure out how it worked until after we learned how to manage the Search Network campaigns. Conclusions: The results exceeded all of our expectations for SMART Centre Market. Google AdWords campaigns prove that even small companies can utilize these tools and compete with larger companies in the industry. With over 126,000 impressions, our main goal of brand awareness is definitely on its way to being achieved. If SMART Centre Market can continue with our online marketing tactics and the lessons that we are passing on to them, they will become a household name in the Wheeling, WV area in no time. Page 5 of 9

6 Future Recommendations: If the company chooses to continue with AdWords, begin the campaign with a small budget, and increase it gradually as you develop your confidence in running an AdWords campaign. Target your ads to the store s geographic location. If you come across a keyword that is generating some impressions but does not generate any clicks, pause it or delete it as it is hurting your CTR. Remember to include a call-to-action in your ads to ensure that the user knows exactly what they can do on your website. Make sure to include ad extensions that offer users important information about the brand or product such as sitelink, location, call, and review extensions. For future recommendations for the company s website, we suggest making vital information accessible within three clicks. Moving the main navigation menu more towards the top of the web pages will help users find this part easier. Posting more photos of actual products and videos of demonstrations would help attract consumers and make the website more visually appealing. Even small things like changing the typography and text font on the pages and getting their newsletter to work when users sign up with their address could create a better website. For the inner workings of the website, adding keywords into the HTML text would aid in better search engine optimization and would allow the website to show up in organic search results. An update is also needed to allow faster loading times, especially on mobile. For social media, we believe that sticking with their Facebook page should be their first and foremost priority. With a small staff of just the two owners, creating more accounts across different platforms may cause excessive stress and would stretch the limited amount of resources they have available. If they can implement these changes and maintain their online marketing, the company will thrive in its industry. The owners of the SMART Centre Market were really excited with the results of the AdWords campaign. Before we conducted this campaign, they both had been looking into some new marketing ideas and were both so thrilled when they realized they would be receiving free marketing assistance. Since the owners are the only employees, they are usually very bogged down with just everyday details of running the business. As mentioned before, they even have troubles keeping their calendar up-to-date, so this really was something worthwhile to their business. Both owners are from an older generation and are not the most technologically savvy; however, they do show interest to learn online marketing tactics such as AdWords. If they truly want to learn more, we have told them not to be afraid to reach out to any of us for future help. Page 6 of 9

7 We will probably reach out to them again this summer since we will not be so busy with with our studies and see if they require assistance with creating or maintaining an existing AdWords campaign. After running our three week long campaign, the owners realized how beneficial and crucial digital marketing is in the long run. They already utilize a Facebook page and regularly update it, but they know they have to do more. They can even tell from the fact that customers will still walk into their business and tell them that they did not know that their business even existed that they have to amp up their online presence. They also know that they really need to focus on first building awareness to reach more customers to purchase their products. They have even mentioned that they wish to update their website with the possibility of online sales. The owners of the SMART Centre Market would have to dedicate the time to learning about AdWords and maintaining their campaigns, and potentially hire someone to manage the account for them. They are really limited with their time so we could see it in their best interest in hiring someone outside of their business who understands how AdWords works and who would have the time to manage it successfully. The benefits they would receive would include the following: increasing awareness, consideration, and potential decisions from consumers to head to the store to check out products and purchase them. We believe that video marketing would be really beneficial to their business in addition to other online marketing tactics. Consumers would really get a feel for their services and products, as well as the owners themselves. The owners are truly a delight and make learning about science fun for children of all ages. Keeping up with their marketing would also prove to be very successful to alert clients of new events, exhibits, and products. Page 7 of 9

8 Learning Component Learning Objectives and Outcomes: As a group, we hoped to learn the best way to engage with our target market to get them to visit the site and, more importantly, visit the Science Center. We wanted to make sure more people knew about the store and all of the products and services it offered. At first, it was a little hard for us to get a lot of people to actually click on our ads, which also meant that they were not visiting the site either. Around the last week of our campaign, we decided that we would make a Display ad to try to get our click rates up and that was probably one of the smartest things we did. We learned that our target market was more likely to visit the site when using a Display ad rather than a Search ad. We also learned that our clients were more interested in the events and the education ads more than they were the branding ads. The key outcomes that we will remember would be to really utilize Display ads early on in the campaign. Seeing pictures and graphics is sometimes more appealing than just some words in search results, and we should have realized this sooner when we found such great photos of the store. Our team expected this Google Online Marketing Challenge would be a lot of work, but we definitely underestimated things. We now understand why this is sometimes one person s entire job in a company; it takes a lot of time, something that is hard to come by as a college student. Because of this, we would have definitely studied up on AdWords more closely in order to begin the Challenge strong. Unexpectedly, the Challenge provided us with a new idea of what online marketing can be and all of the potential things it could expand to in the future. With AdWords recent announcement of adding message extensions, there s no limit to what AdWords can incorporate to make online marketing even better. Group Dynamics: It was hard for our group to create risky or really creative ads. None of us were very large risk takers, so this was a challenge for our group. We consulted others on how to improve this. Additionally, we found it hard to find time to meet to discuss things going on with our campaigns and there were some points in time where none of us knew an answer to some questions about our campaigns. Client Dynamics: Some challenges that we have encountered working with the the client were that their website is really slow and not up-to-date. There was also a problem with their address that was on the actual website. This made it difficult for people to get on the website and Page 8 of 9

9 contact them this way. We expected our client would be helpful when we had questions, and they were responsive. Our client did not use Google Analytics and also did not frequently keep up with their website's calendar. The first week, we informed them that updating their calendar every month could increase the amount of visits their website could get. By the time the campaign was over, they had begun adding more events to this section. Overall, working with the website itself was the toughest part with our client because we would find neat information to create ads about, but we couldn t find one specific page/link with more information. Future Recommendations: To improve our campaign strategy, we would create and publish more display ads and dedicate more money to them. We would also spend less money on or completely drop the Branding campaign in order to have more money in our budget. After looking back at the statistics, our Branding campaign performed the worst and it would have benefitted us greatly if we would have spent less time and money on that campaign and more time and money on the others. To improve our learning experience, a mock trial with AdWords could give us a better idea on what we should do and what we should not do during the campaign. Though we reviewed AdWords before beginning the campaign and learned more about it through the precampaign report, we still felt that we were trying to learn the ropes during the first week of our campaign. If we had felt more prepared during this time, it could have caused better success rates during those first days. Our group dynamics could have been improved by working on the campaigns together more in a face-to-face meeting. Trying to communicate through messages while we are all busy doing other things was difficult, and additional in-person meetings could have helped collaborate on various details of the campaign. Similarly, we could have met with the clients in person to improve our client dynamics. Though they were out of town, a few of us could have visited the store to get a better idea of what it is like to improve our marketing of it. Though we live in a technology age, nothing beats talking one-on-one with someone, no matter who it is or what it is about. Page 9 of 9