It is a fact that most small and medium-sized companies are facing significant financial problems and one of the first cuts that are made is everything that has to do with marketing and advertising (not to mention the blow of employee layoffs).
However, the internet offers the opportunity, with a fairly limited budget, to create ways of promoting, targeted to the audience you are interested in, using techniques such as e-mail marketing, affiliate partnership, social media ads, display ads, SEO, SEA, etc.
There are experts with many years of professional experience in the field of online marketing who are more qualified to report on successful advertising techniques. Nevertheless, I greatly appreciate the opportunity to briefly describe my experience from the Challenge 2014, which can be an opportunity for many companies to enter the field of online marketing for free and with the support of new people.
The team I participated in, consisting of fellow students and very good friends of mine at Lancaster University in the MSc E-Business & Innovation department, Juan from Colombia, Petar from Bulgaria and Chun-Nien, Li-Fan from Taiwan, came in 10th in Europe out of 1,140 teams (2nd in the UK out of 57 teams and 27th in the world out of 2,540 teams) and were named Google AdWords Business Semi-Finalists. The evaluation was based on a fairly demanding Google algorithm that automatically checks all the parameterizations made during the three weeks, as well as a before and after report.
Our great advantage was the different nationalities and experiences, which helped us complement each other's knowledge and thoughts. Through a month of daily meetings and work as a team, but also with the responsible teacher and the National Park Traveller company, we managed to develop a completely harmonious communication and cooperation, which played an important role in making the result so successful.
However, our main priority was not a high position in the competition, but the development of our knowledge in the field of online marketing and specifically in Search Engine Advertising through the practical application of techniques we learned.
The competition was open to students representing a company that had not advertised with Google Pay Per Click in the last semester. A great way for students to gain practical experience and attract companies to use Google's platform. The budget was $250 (approximately €200) and the time was 3 weeks to run an advertising campaign through Google AdWords. There were many parameters for evaluating the campaign, as I mentioned, but the most important was the CTR (Click through rate).
The client we represented was a new small company (4 employees) offering travel packages exclusively to National Parks around the world. The main goal was to increase the company's reputation among the public and reach new customers ready to purchase a travel package.
At first, we used the Google Trends and Keyword Planner tools, aiming to identify popular travel destinations that the British search for during the May-June period and to identify keywords with less competition and cheaper PPC charges for the placement of AdTexts.
We created 4 different campaigns, with a total of 71 AdGroups and 1295 keywords, with different target audiences:
- Explorers: People who search for potential travel destinations.
- Deciders: People who have already decided on a destination and are looking for an affordable travel package.
- Brand (SEA) and Brand (Display): People to whom we want to develop the company's reputation through the search engine network, but also through banner placement on specialized websites related to travel and National Parks.
During the three weeks, after continuous monitoring of parameters through Google AdWords and Google Analytics tools, such as impressions, clicks, quality score, CTR, bounce rate, etc., we made significant changes, resulting in the third week in only having 50 active keywords that showed positive results, investing half of the available budget.
The results of the advertising campaign showed a continuous increase in CTR, which was our main goal. National Park Traveler knew that by booking just one travel package, they would not only recoup the $250 of the advertising campaign (if they had put it out of their own pocket), but would also make a profit.
- Our strategy resulted in 3 customers completing the purchase of a travel package with a turnover of over 7,000 British Pounds, over 300 prospective customers browsing the website with an increase in the average time spent on the page, and over 20,000 impressions in the Brand campaign, which aimed to increase the company's reputation.
All of the above was accomplished within a period of 4 weeks, which included the preparation and activation of the advertising campaign, offering significant satisfaction to our client and to us before Google ranked us in this specific position.
If I were to summarize the most important points that played a decisive role in successful Google PPC advertising, they would be:
- Analysis of competition and trends in user searches for holidays in National Parks,
- Utilizing the Long Tail strategy, where we used over 1200 Keywords at the beginning for more targeted searches and avoiding popular words with high competition and expensive PPC,
- Using the “analyze-implement-monitor” tactic, where we constantly analyzed the data of our movements, made changes and monitored their progress,
- Using techniques such as multiple AdGroups, AdTexts, Keyword Insertion, Bidding strategies and landing optimization (where we had the client's support, making significant simple changes to their new website to increase its ease of use by users)
- Efficient communication and collaboration between team members with a clear division of tasks and responsibilities.
It is certain that companies will certainly be able to try new techniques without spending time and money with very likely benefits in the short future.
My own exhortation is mainly addressed to those students active in the field of marketing to participate in the next Google competition by looking for a company without experience in Google PPC and thus in a free and interesting way they will increase their knowledge and practical experience. If of course they succeed and come out first in the competition, then a week at Google headquarters in California will compensate to the maximum extent for the many hours of intensive work!
Source: tech.in.gr
