From landing page optimization to mobile advertising, paid search comprises different tactics that can be employed at various stages throughout the project – it differs from client to client depending on existing paid search maturity, immediate marketing objectives, overall business objectives, budget, time frame etc.

To maximize the value of pay per click advertising ROI, two key things are required:

• A solid understanding of customer personas and what message will resonate the most.
• Creation of campaigns that drive maximum visitor conversions and improve cost ratios.

These two case studies show how different strategies were implemented by two very different clients, but with the same ultimate goal of increasing traffic, conversions and revenue:

Case Study #1: Long Term Investment in Paid Search Results in Big Wins for Enterprise Client

Client: A global enterprise with over 30,000 employees worldwide

Goal: Maximize online conversions while improving efficiencies and cost per lead levels.

What did Mediative do?

Identified 4 key areas of missed paid search opportunity where money was being left on the table:

• Increased competitiveness on Google by increasing the investment. The campaigns became much more competitive, with 80-90% of the missed opportunity captured.
• Expanded into more geographical areas where conversions could be captured online.
• Ran campaigns on weekends as well as in the week resulting in 18% additional conversions captured at the same average CPA (cost-per-acquisition) as during the week.
• Ran campaigns on Bing in addition to Google, where impressions were 41% of the volume as in Google at only 6% of the cost.

 
Account Expansion and Growth

• A budget increase allowed for further expansion into Bing, which resulted in record conversions.
• Extensive and iterative building of negative keyword lists resulted in a branded click volume decrease, but a cost per click decrease of 35%.
• Testing of landing pages revealed that offering a more targeted prospect experience to branded searchers, and giving prospects the opportunity to apply online resulted in an increase in conversions.
• The largest quarterly budget ever was approved allowing for more testing of new strategies, including mobile testing and remarketing strategies.

The Results: YTD results as of October 2012:

• Conversions: 106% of YTD target
• Cost-per-conversion: 104% of YTD target

Read the full case study


Case Study #2: Keyword expansion drives increase in traffic, conversions and revenue

Client: A market leader in the distribution of industrial supplies.

Goal: Increase traffic, conversions and ROAS on a campaign where the ROAS was slowly declining.

What did Mediative do?

Due to the past successes achieved with paid search, the client opened up budget to double the total account monthly ad spend.

• A keyword expansion built out the inventory of keywords by 20,000.
• Bidding less aggressively on the new terms lowered their position on the page and won more clicks at a lower cost.
• Overall search inventory increased and allowed for the budget to be fully utilized without depending on highly competitive positions.
• Total traffic was maximized which, together with a decreasing cost-per-click and stable conversion rates, meant that revenue and ROAS both increased.

The Results: For the account as a whole, ROAS was 896% in the first month following the keyword expansion.

The results of the keyword expansion specifically:

• Total increase in Impressions = 1300%
• Decrease in Cost per Click = 11%
• Increase in Revenue = 1276%
• Increase in Traffic = 1200%

Read the full case study.


About the Author
Rebecca Maynes is Mediative’ Marketing Communication Specialist, focusing on Demand Generation Communications. Using her expertise in creating and compiling engaging content, she captures and nurtures existing and new leads through the marketing funnel. Rebecca is responsible for the creation of Mediative’s monthly eNewsletter, case studies, and cheat sheets, and she also plays an integral role in whitepaper and eBook production. Rebecca began her career with Yell.com in England, and, after emigrating to Canada in 2005, she has gone full circle, joining Mediative, a Yellow Pages Group Company, in April 2009. Prior positions include Marketing for a B2B Software company. Rebecca graduated from Cardiff University in Wales, UK, with a First Class Honours BSc in Business Administration.