CPC Search Blog

Our client is a leader in consumer software for Mac computers. Our client’s flagship product is an all-in-one utility suite that helps speed up your Mac by addressing universal binaries, logs rotation, cleaning out unneeded languages, application un-installation, caches, and other issues that unnecessarily take up extra disk space and slow down users’ systems. Users are able to download a free trial of the software before buying.

The client came to CPC Search hoping that we might grow revenues and profitability of their PPC program. Upon auditing the client’s Google AdWords account, we noticed that there were multiple opportunities to optimize and expand Search and Content campaigns for this client. After 6 months, CPC Search has achieved very significant results*

• Revenue up over 100%
• Profit (after agency fees) up 73%

Every client is different, but for this particular client we focused especially on separating out Content from Search campaigns, adding and managing content placements, expanding content ad groups in the spirit of Google’s ‘Cast Your Net (CYN)’ technique for contextual campaigns, and on restructuring the Search campaign by creating multiple ‘child’ ad groups from what had been a small number of original ad groups in the Search campaign. We also had the wind to our back inasmuch as the client proactively sent additional display creative which, when rotated into our Content campaigns, improved CTRs markedly. In keyword land, ad fatigue is typically not much of an issue – the nature of keywords is that users search for what they need at the time, and later they are searching on something else that they need. With display ads, on the other hand, users may be seeing an ad again and again because they continually visit the same blog, for example. So, refreshing Content creative (display or text, actually) can actually do good things for CTRs.

* Note - we have used ‘100′ as the month-0 benchmark number – revenue and profit numbers therefore represent percentage growth from month-0, rather than actual revenue and profit for this client. Also, we net out our PPC agency fees since we took over from an internal team rather than from another SEM agency.

Our client, a public company, is a leader in software and information solutions that empower physicians and other healthcare providers to deliver best-in-class patient safety, clinical outcomes and financial results. Hundreds of thousands of physicians as well as hundreds of hospitals use this client’s platforms to help manage clinical and business operations. The client has a substantial SEM program focused both on branding as well as driving qualified leads to its large direct salesforce.

CPC Search was tasked with improving the SEM program’s efficiency by lowering the cost/lead submission as reported by Google, and with lowering as much as possible the cost/prospect (lead submissions excluding duplicates, bad data, and current customers) as reported by the client’s CRM system.

Within 5 months after engagement, CPC Search was able to make very significant progress towards those goals. In terms of lead submissions as recorded by Google AdWords, we were able to show:

Medical B2B SEM Case Study

• 75% growth in leads/month
• 44% decrease in cost/lead

The results that were achieved for prospects were even more significant:

• 343% growth in monthly prospects
• 78% decrease in cost/prospect

One of the first things we noticed was that the landing page being used by the client was very rich with content – typically that can be a good thing. In this case, though, the page was not leading to lead submissions. First of all, the page did not have a simple call-to-action; rather, the user had to self-select whether they represented a hospital, physician group, acute care facility, etc. Then the user had to choose which solution category they were interested in. There was no lead form on the page, and the multiple calls-to-action were not featured prominently on the page. At our suggestion, the client re-worked the primary landing page with the form on the page, a simple call-to-action, and a more streamlined, easy-to-digest page. This has proven to have a very positive impact on the SEM program.

Another significant change was that we worked to separate out certain ‘branding and positioning’ keywords that are important to the client. We now have more visibility on these keyword categories; if they result in relatively high cost/lead and cost/prospect, the client can now see and understand this more easily. In the future, this may lead to a decrease in spend for these types of keywords, and improve measurable ROI.

In addition to the above, we have also continued to invest in keyword generation and testing, ad testing, expanding campaigns with additional ad groups, and all the other things that go into best-in-class SEM programs, and we expect to be able to report additional improvements for this client in the future!

I was part of a panel at Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce conference in San Francisco in late November. Here is video of the session. Enjoy!

GotBody is an authorized distributor for well-known brands like Power Bar, Gu, Clif, 5-Hour Energy and a plethora of additional manufacturers of energy, health, and wellness products. GotBody sells hundreds if not thousands of sku’s which can make managing a paid search program difficult and time-consuming.  Very simply, GotBody tasked CPC Search with increasing revenue and decreasing costs.  Within the first 5 months of taking over management of the account we were able to increase revenue by 16% while decreasing overall costs by 17%.

First 5 months of SEM program:

• Revenue up 16%
• Costs down 17%

Our work has included combining AdWords accounts, turning on AdWords conversion tracking to supplement Google Analytics e-commerce tracking, doing additional testing of broad match keywords, and expanding Bing and Yahoo activity.  We have also recently begun to aggressively test the Google Content Network for GotBody. Going forward our focus is on increasing order and revenue volume while keeping costs in line.

Great article written by George Mitchie at SearchEngineLand.com about paid search being more about process than planning.  It’s worth reading – here is the starting paragraph:

Many times we’re asked to present a plan for the next 30 – 60 – 90 days of a paid search program. This makes a great deal of sense when we bring a new client on board and have to fix or re-build their program. It takes time to build out a program comprehensively and laying out the priorities helps manage expectations. After that point that request for a “vision” or “plan” reveals a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of paid search marketing.

You can read the whole article here.

JumpStart is an award-winning adventure-based 3D virtual world that is fun for kids yet also teaches math, reading, and critical thinking skills so kids get a real jump start in life. JumpStart was the 2008 winner for the National Parenting Seal of Approval and its nationally-recognized software is sold in Wal-Mart and other large retailers. You can view one of the intro’s to JumpStart World 3rd grade below, or navigate to JumpStart to see a promo video.

JumpStart has been undergoing a massive project over the last several years, moving their pc-based games to the web for kids to play online. JumpStart uses Google AdWords to drive parent registrations. Once registered, parents can download games for their children to play. Upgrading to a paid subscription membership enables kids to do lots of things they cannot do without being a member.

The challenge for JumpStart is to generate thousands of parent registrations at the lowest possible cost. The company is funded by top-tier venture capital, so the ability to scale the program is very important. Within the first 5 months CPC Search (www.cpcsearch.com) grew monthly registrations to tens of thousands from a standing start. Additionally, we drove down the cost to acquire a registration while scaling up total numbers of registrations.

First 5 months of SEM program:

JumpStart PPC Case Study

• Registrations up 130%
• Cost-per-registration down 59%

Our work has included not only keyword development, ad testing, and bid optimization, but there has also been much work in terms of conversion funnels (both registration and membership subscription funnels). As with other successful SEM projects, we have benefited from a very collaborative relationship with our client, particularly in terms of optimizing the registration funnel. CPC Search tends to be very good at critical analysis of conversion funnels. We typically deliver our findings and suggestions for improvement via powerpoint decks with ‘redlined’ screenshots and additional notes. Our client has done their part in implementing changes to improve the process, which has in turn helped to increase conversion rates and allowed us to bid higher on core converting keywords.

Landing page split tests are one of our current focuses with JumpStart, and we hope to report additional gains and improvements in the program!

–Terry, CPC Search

FastSpring® is an outsourced e-commerce provider for vendors selling digital goods. FastSpring® provides a comprehensive e-commerce payment processing, merchandising, and fulfillment solution, enabling its merchant customers to sell digital products online using Visa®, Mastercard®, American Express®, Discover®, JCB, PayPal™, check or money order. Think Digital River, but with more competitive rates, better customer service, and various other advantages.  FastSpring uses Google AdWords to generate new vendor account signups.

FastSpring Paid Search Case Study

CPC Search took over FastSpring’s paid search efforts recently, and within the first month we achieved dramatically improved results:

• Conversions up 93%
• Cost-per-conversion down 35%
• Converting keywords up 100%

Our areas of focus in month one were bid optimization, better matching ads both to value propositions and also to keywords in the ad group, and breaking out additional ad group and keyword categories.  We also instituted additional keyword-level tracking in order to start to evaluate keywords as they pertain to lifetime value of a signup. This data will be very valuable in the coming months and years, since it will allow us to gain more visibility into keyword categories that drive higher quality and larger vendors versus those that drive lower quality or smaller vendors. We will use that information to re-assess CPA targets.  This is not a new relationship for us – however, it is a very new client, and we hope to report additional positive developments for this client over time.

As many SEM pros know, Google AdWords Editor is a fantastic tool for managing Google paid search accounts. The Google AdWords user interface folks visited our offices a few months back to see how we use AE and how the software might be improved. Here was the pre-meeting ‘wish list’ we wrote up for them as part of their study.

Google AdWords Editor Screenshot

• Keyword Grouper tool – have option to focus on words in addition to ‘ignore these words’.  I’ve seen this tool output too many ad groups; Sometimes there are many more words you’d want the tool to ignore compared to words you want them to focus on; the user would then choose which list is shorter, and work with that list.
• Edit selected keywords – after user inputs max cpc bid, automatically have cursor default back to row so user can hit down arrow and keep trucking on bids (without having to click mouse or hit shift+tab 3 times to get back to row)
• Advanced Search settings – have advanced search settings auto-erase after ‘all’ view is picked (easy for user to forget that something is there)
• Download speeds – have AE download data faster for large accounts (big spend accounts vs. large dataset accounts)
• Navigation Tree – when user clicks on tree, have cursor default to right-hand row; if user isn’t finished navigating where they want to go on tree, they can use mouse (users don’t want to down-arrow or up-arrow on trees as much as they want to do this with rows, after they’ve picked ad groups or campaigns via the tree)
• Data – include option to download dynamic revenue and ROAS values.  Some of the larger clients are ecommerce folks, and this functionality would help so much (same goes for web interface)
• Advanced bidding – option to use ‘average CPC’ as a reference point for changing bids
• Ability to highlight rows of data and see sums and/or averages
• Ads – ability to look at ad data in AE same way you can do in web interface

Anyone agree with these or disagree? Or have additional ideas?

I went to SES but I missed the “Advanced Paid Search Techniques” session. Fortunately, Keri Morgret of Strike Models was kind enough to live blog the session – she took great notes. Some of the points I thought deserved to be highlighted.  If you’d like to refer back to Keri’s original notes, you can find them here.  The numbers represent the time that the comments were made (remember – it was live blogged), which may make it easier for you to refer back to the original notes.

10:48  The AdWords Search Query report is much, much improved. It shows a ton of search queries for which there may have been only 1 impression and 1 click. Although it may be true that other analytics data will be more granular, I think search query report data will give most folks 90-95% of what they need.

10:53  When using the AdWords search query report, focus on cost to figure out which search queries you may want to add as negative keywords. Queries with a lot of click spend and no conversions are likely candidates. Search queries that received conversions at a target CPA or better should be added as keywords if the search query type is not ‘exact.’ Bid your new keywords using cost/conv and avg. CPC data from each specific search query.

10:58  Set ad-serving to Rotate! This is very important and it’s often over-looked. CTR very often has an inverse relationship to conversion rates, so you need to make sure that all ads are rotated equally regardless of CTR so that you can figure out which wins in terms of conversion data (cost/conv or conversions per thousand impressions or whatever).

11:02  When doing ad optimization it’s very important to make sure that all ads you are evaluating got served up the same number of impressions. Otherwise you may jump to the wrong conclusions when deciding on champion ads.

11:06  I love that someone talked about how to make your long tail shorter. Yes, you can have too many keywords in your account, and this can have an adverse effect on your account performance in terms of 1) it can drag down overall account quality scores; and 2) it can add extra, unneeded “weight” to your account, which can make daily management less efficient (e.g. latency with AE and web interface). Focus on the long tail *that users actually search on* and the long tail keywords *that actually get conversions* and you’ll stay ahead of the game.  As an anecdote, we once took over a paid search program from a large agency and within one month we increased the number of unique keywords (excluding match types) that were contributing 1 conversion or more from 351 to over 735, an increase of 100%+. We did this while simultaneously decreasing overall keyword count by 85%, from over 200,000 keywords to about 15,000. It’s not the number of keywords in the account – it’s the number of converting keywords you have in your account that really matters.

11:06  Start simple, and go where the data takes you. This will save you a lot of time, which means you’ll get to better-performing PPC accounts more quickly.

11:38  Yes yes, LP testing is definitely for business reasons – don’t do it in order to raise quality scores.

Hello Friends,

This week it looks like we will be doing about 3 SEM account audits, which is fun for us because: 1) we get to look at something new, and 2) we typically give some good insights and specific feedback that will help the advertiser save money, expand their campaigns, or both. And that makes us feel useful. Also, it can lead to a new client. We have years of experience managing paid search programs for large and small companies, with annual spends of $100,000 to $5 million. We bring that experience to bear when we perform a paid search audit. For those who may be interested, just visit our Free PPC Audit page and sign up.

The only work on the advertiser’s part is to send a login or invitation to access the AdWords account. (Naturally, we are more than happy to sign an NDA.) Once we get that, we typically spend an hour or two analyzing the account, recording our observations (we use an Excel template to help us keep our ppc audits clear, concise, and thorough), and then summarizing our thoughts on the opportunitiesfor optimization and growth.  Many times, the audit leads to a new client – but it doesn’t have to – we have a “no strings” policy when it comes to our free ppc account audits.

So, go ahead and take us up on our offer. As I like to say “there is no downside, only upside.”