Customer ID: 703-895-5918

Executive Summary

Campaign Overview | We established two strategic goals for our AdWords campaign created for

Shoeture, a company specializing in high quality metal lacelocks and pins to accessorize

sneakers. The first goal was to increase awareness throughout Shoeture’s target market by

running ads on sites in the Display network that targeted sneakerheads. The second goal was to

increase sales through ads on the Search network. To measure success, we included the

following metric goals: 1) achieve a CTR of at least 1%, 2) allocate the budget to maintain a

CPC of $0.08, 3) reach a total of 100,000 impressions, 4) increase site views by 30%, and 5)

increase sales by 10%.

Key Results | Not all goals were achieved. The Display campaign metrics resulted in 15 clicks

and 57,949 Impressions. We made two ad groups within our Search campaign. The Products ad

group achieved 1,136 clicks, 49,900 impressions, a CTR of 2.28%, and an average CPC of

$0.15. The How-To Videos ad group attained 96 clicks, 4,085 impressions, an average CTR of

2.35%, and an average CPC of $0.14. We reached our impressions, clicks, and CTR goals but

did not meet our CPC goal. We increased website views by 100%, but the sales objective was

not met as there was no significant change in sales during this time period. However, it should be

noted that we did not install any conversion tracker on the website.

Conclusion | The Display campaign was not a cost effective way of converting impressions to

clicks. This proved to be 28.4 times as expensive to obtain a click than through Search. Our

Search campaign did not receive views as quickly as Display, but those views were much more

likely to be clicked. Through regular monitoring, we identified successful keywords and

optimized the ads. The entire campaign more than doubled the average visits to the website;

however, sales did not improve.

Future Online Marketing Recommendations |

• Create distinct landing pages on the website specific to products and sales promotions.

• Use image ads on Google’s display network to build awareness.

• Use narrow targeting and long-tail keywords to capture customers.

• Use conversion/tracking codes to continue to optimize AdWords campaigns.

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Industry Component

Campaign Overview | Strategic Goals We had two key goals for the Shoeture AdWords

account. The first was to raise awareness of Shoeture’s products by attracting potential

consumers and establishing a relationship based on their interests and lifestyle. To achieve this,

we emphasized impressions over CTR and

created a Display network ad group. We

also opted to use ad rotation rather than

optimization to support our focus on

impressions. The second goal was to

increase sales by encouraging customers

to view the Shoeture website and make a purchase. To achieve this we created a campaign to run

on the Search network. We used product-specific keywords prominent among consumers in the

sneakerhead sub-culture and offered promotions on the website. Finally, since CTR was of

greater significance for this goal, we utilized the optimization ad serving option. To attain the

primary goal of raising awareness, we allocated 70% of our budget to the Display network ads

and 30% to the Search network ads.

Operational details | Our campaign ran from April 2 to April 23. We spent all $250 of the

budget. We created two campaigns, one for Display and one for Search. The Search campaign

consisted of two ad groups, How-to Videos and Products. We used the budget evenly over the

course of the campaign, with the exception of the start of the campaign when an initial budget

boost would help to generate data. In the second phase we distributed our budget evenly over the

remainder of the time. For each of the three weeks we spent $101, $80, and $69 respectively.

The daily budget for Search fluctuated between $8 for the first week, $11 for the second week,

and $9 for the final week. The fluctuation of the budget was due in part to the deletion of the

Display campaign and the reallocation of funds on April 9. Display originally had a budget of $8.

For the Display ads we utilized the bidding setting option, which focused on impressions, manual

maximum CPM bidding, and ad scheduling to show ads all days and hours with ad rotation

optimized for clicks. For Search we focused on clicks with automatic bidding, no CPC bid limit,

ad scheduling to show ads all days and hours, and optimization for clicks. Initially we logged on

every day to monitor the progress; however, this did not provide enough time for data to be

generated following the changes. Thereafter, we monitored the account on every third day. This

Metric Goals Search Display

CTR 1% 1%

CPC $0.08 $0.08

Impressions 50,000 50,000

Daily Budget $3.57 $8.33

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held true except when our Search clicks dropped dramatically and the changes had to be made to

improve them. Our campaign was geo-targeted within the United States. We also stated that we

would focus more specifically on urban cities because of the fashion/trend-driven nature of the

product. In addition, we used the Search Term Report feature, the Opportunities tab, and the

Keyword Tool to identify new keywords and negative keywords.

Evolution of Your Campaign Strategy | Ads in the Display campaign were set to optimize for

clicks. Each ad received 1-4 clicks and were rotated evenly. On April 4, after viewing automatic

placements selected by Google, we switched to managing our own placements because, although

they were relevant based on Google’s algorithms, they were neither specific nor credible enough

for our niche audience. The change from broad to specific reach reduced our average CPM of

$1.39 to $1.00 and increased impressions from approximately 6,000 to 7,000. The Display ads

were initially designed to be broad to build awareness; however, we later began using product-

specific ads because the managed placements were already directed to long-tail customers who

might already be familiar with similar products. After one week of running the Display

campaign, we had already passed our goal of 50,000 impressions, and it became evident that we

were unlikely to meet our goal of 4,000 clicks. We paused the Display campaign for the

remainder of the challenge due to underperformance. We reallocated the budget to the Search

campaign. Product-specific ads were used for the Search campaign because we thought that

there might be enough long-tail customers be searching for our products. On April 6, we created

ads about accessorizing popular sneakers likely to be searched rather than the products

themselves. This led to an ad with the highest CTR (4.77%). We used the high-performing ads as

a basis for optimizing new ads and included the highest performing keywords in all ads. On

April 9, since we paused the Display campaign, we changed our account structure, which led to

the creation of another community-based long-tail How-to Video ad group. The landing page of

this ad group showed how the accessories are installed on sneakers, and this ad group obtained a

higher CTR of 2.35% than the Products ad group, which obtained a CTR of 2.28%. On April 16,

we excluded Alaska and Hawaii from our locations because they are culturally distant to

mainstream US culture. Further, we narrowed down the geo-targeting further to specific cities

and states. However, the campaign impressions, clicks, and CTR significantly dropped April 16.

Thus, the original geo-targeting option was reinstated and then expanded to selected international

markets. Many changes took place on April 16 not limited to the geo-targeting and we were

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unable to recover from the resulting downward performance until the last day when we

exhausted our entire budget to create a spike in last-minute clicks.

Key Results | The AdWords campaign produced mixed results as sales figures showed no

correlation to clicks and impressions, which only met some pre-established objectives of the

campaign. Table 3.1 below summarizes the key results across the Search and Display

campaigns. Our Display campaign resulted in 15 clicks, 57,949 Impressions, a CTR of 0.03%,

and an average CPC of $4.26 but the small amount of clicks did not warrant the amount of

budget it was utilizing. We met our impressions goal but did not meet our clicks goal. Our

Search campaign was more successful than the Display campaign. Specifically, for the Search

campaign, we wanted to achieve 50,000 impressions, 400 clicks, a CPC of $0.08, and CTR of

1%. Our Search network exceeded expectations and resulted in 1,232 clicks, 53,985

impressions, a CTR of more than 2.2%, and an average CPC of $0.15. With the increased

campaign performance we allocated a larger percent of the budget to the Search campaign,

allowing the campaign to maintain a high CTR. Table 3.1 shows how our CTR increased as our

average CPC decreased. In the second week, Search CTR drastically increased from 0.84% to

4.21%. This increase was a result of account restructuring actions, such as the addition of

successful keywords, deletion of underperforming keywords and ads, and creation of ad copy

using keywords with high CTRs.

Specifically, there were two ad groups within our Search campaign: Products and How-to

Videos. Products garnered 1,136 clicks, 49,900 impressions, an average CTR of 2.28%, and an

average CPC of $0.15 while How-to Videos gained 96 clicks, 4,085 impressions, an average

CTR of 2.35%, and an average CPC of $0.14.

Table: 3.1 Week Totals

Campaign Week Clicks Imp. CTR

Avg.

CPC

Avg.

Pos.

Display: Homepage 1

2

11

4

50845

7104

0.02%

0.06%

5.2

1.7

1

1

Search: How-to Videos &

Products

1

2

3* **

185

527

520

22010

12507

19468

0.84%

4.21%

2.67%

0.24

0.14

0.13

5.9

4.7

5.0

5

*Week 3 Search is skewed due to losing statistics caused by editing best performing ad

**Week 3 Display is N/A because it was canceled during the second week

Overall, keywords had a CTR between 4% and 10%, which generally resulted in a higher

average position and lower CPC. We attracted a large volume of highly targeted searches,

producing a high CTR. Table 3.2 below summarizes the performance indicators for successful

keyword phrases.

As depicted in Chart 1, our efforts to optimize our campaign resulted in a steady increase in CTR

throughout the campaign while decreasing the average CPC numbers. However, sales did not

correlate with the results, as the client obtained the usual few sales during the course of the

campaign. The only notable difference was the increase in traffic to the website (average hits per

week more than doubled) totaling 724. There was a discrepancy between our recorded clicks and

the website hits due to factors, such as traffic filtered out for specific profiles, destination URLs

of the ads not having the correct tracking code installed, or users disabling JavaScript or cookies.

Chart 1

Note: Week 3 CTR is skewed due to

user error of deleting the stats of the best

performing ad

Ad Group

Table 3.2 Keyword Clicks Imp. CTR

Avg.

CPC

Avg.

Pos.

Search

How-to video

customize sneakers

customize your sneakers

79

6

1,387

195

5.70%

3.08%

0.14

0.14

3.6

4.5

Search

Products

customize sneakers

custom sneakers

629

281

7,492

5,985

8.40%

4.70%

0.13

0.16

3.6

4.4

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Future Recommendations | We recommend the following course of actions:

Create distinct landing pages on the website specific to products and sales promotions

It is unlikely that long-tail ads with specific products and sales promotions will be effective if

they do not lead to a page that reflects those products. Viewers will leave the landing page

instantly if it looks overwhelming, irrelevant, and misleading. Additionally, it will keep the

Quality Score around its current low score of 2. The webmaster simply did not have the time or

technological structure to create such pages.

Use image ads on Google’s display network to build awareness

Fashion products and trends are driven not only by the brand but also by role models and opinion

leaders wearing the product. Thus, we feel it is important to create image ads rather than text ads.

Viewers will quickly know whether or not they are interested in the product, and this will reduce

unnecessary and costly clicks that are unlikely to lead to sales. We did not create such ads

because they would not be counted toward Google’s Online Marketing Challenge.

Use narrow targeting and long-tail keywords to capture customers

Although image ads on the display network may help in building brand and product category

awareness, our data suggests that those within the sneaker community are more likely to search

for Shoeture’s products through the search network. Since Shoeture lacks the marketing budget,

we recommend that they use very narrow geo-targeting, ad serving, long-tail keywords, etc.

Three weeks did not give us enough time to experiment with a rotation of such long-tail

strategies, thus we could not determine what would be most effective for creating conversions.

Use conversion/tracking codes to continue to optimize AdWords campaigns

Lastly, by tracking when and where the sales come from, geo-targeting, ad serving, long-tail

keywords, etc. can be narrowed down further, increasing campaign efficiency and cost-

effectiveness. Niche fashion products are typically concentrated within segments of similar

lifestyles, behavior, and geographic regions because of the inherent community-driven nature of

trends. Again, due to time and technological constraints, we were unable to use

conversion/tracking codes.

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Learning Component

Learning Objectives and Outcomes | Our team had two goals: first was to acquire the skills to

run an AdWords campaign through the Google interface and utilize many of the tools it provides.

The second goal was to achieve a high CTR for our ads with those tools to create a cost-effective

campaign that would increase brand awareness. Through hands-on experimentation, we were

able to learn from our mistakes and successes. We achieved a high CTR and a high number of

impressions. The Google Challenge objectives followed right along with our learning objectives.

We learned how to organize an account structure with campaigns, ad groups, and ads. We

learned how to select when and where we would run the ads with geographical targeting and

scheduling. We learned how to identify top keywords and build new ads while incorporating

successful keywords into top performing ads. We expected to have more success on the display

network but got better results on the search network. We learned that Google AdWords is an

effective tool to increase traffic to a website and that with careful optimization and monitoring,

the campaign can be implemented at a relatively nominal cost.

Group Dynamics | In the beginning, our group struggled with deciding on what direction to take

with the campaign, but we resolved the issue by brainstorming as a team until we came to an

agreement on the strategy. When everybody has access to the account through their home

computer, every member was able to make changes to the campaign without consulting with the

rest of the group. This lack of communication caused some inconsistencies with the campaign

goals and strategies but we understood that the entire process was an experiment and as long as

we justified our changes, we accepted each other’s individual judgment. Relations improved

when each member had a specific portion of the campaign to focus on based on their individual

talents and strengths. Eventually, most conflicts were resolved, through decision review by the

team captain, increased communication, and open minds.

Client Dynamics | Two members of the group had worked with the client previously through

another school-related project. The owner is directly involved with the sub-culture of his

product/market, so the communication channels and style were familiar (casual yet professional).

We did not physically meet with the client because the two members had already met him

before. The member most familiar with the client e-mailed back and forth about questions, ideas,

and updates, while the other member called the client on the phone for very specific and time-

sensitive questions. The owner was transparent about the numbers/statistics he offered to us, but

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felt they were not a relevant analytical gauge because he has recently been focusing on

wholesaling rather than e-tailing. We included him in some of the strategy and copywriting

because he is more familiar with the language of the audience. The only issues we encountered

involved the inability to create separate pages specific to products and sales promotions and

inability to place conversion codes on the website. This was due to time and technological

constraints. Hence, we adapted as best we could within these limitations. Overall, because of

previous experience with the client, the communication and time constraints as well as the

technological issues were expected, and everything was dealt with in a friendly manner from

both parties.

Future Recommendations | If we were to participate in this challenge again, we would insist

upon the use of a conversion tracking code and Google Analytics. This would have allowed us to

track web viewers and learn how they respond to the website and campaign alterations.

Secondly, we would not use the Display network because text ads are not cost-effective. Third,

we would never edit an existing ad because all of the data associated with it cannot be enabled

again. Rather than editing it, we now know to create a new ad while pausing the old one to allow

the option of switching back in case of poor performance.