An established ecommerce retailer was having limited success with Google Ads. They were struggling to manage their Google Ads search campaigns efficiently and achieve a profitable return on investment (ROI). The retailer wanted a more strategic and scalable Google Ads solution, which could grow and evolve with their business, so contacted Calculate Marketing for a free review of their Google Ads campaigns.

Summary

42% reduction in costs, 90% increase in revenue after 7 months

How I helped

With strategic use of exact match, phrase match, negative keywords, and search query theme analysis, a comprehensive long-tail campaign structure was developed. Thousands of tailored ad messages were created, ensuring that ads closely matched a wide range of different search phrases.

• 697,774 keywords
• 213,190 ad groups
• 471,279 ad messages
• 5,353 sitelink extensions

Campaigns were structured based on differences in product knowledge and commercial intent made by people searching for different themes:

• Generic brand searches
• Specific brand searches (long-tail)
• Generic non-brand searches
• Specific non-brand searches (long-tail)
• Review searches

70,092 negatives were used to funnel long-tail searches to long-tail ad groups, and prevent generic keywords and ads cannibalising long-tail keywords and ads. This helped to lower the average cost per click (CPC) when multiple keywords were eligible to appear for the same search query, and prevent search traffic diverting to more expensive keywords when previous keywords were paused. It also meant that analysis and optimisation was more reliable, allowing budget to be reliably taken out of poorer-performing themes and invested into higher-performing themes, without risk of negatively affecting other ad groups which have similar keyword themes. Overall, this funneling strategy helped to keep click costs as low as possible and improve the overall profitability of the campaigns.

Campaign results

Improved targeting, higher Quality Scores (Google's measure of relevance), and reduced click wastage meant that the performance of the campaigns improved significantly over a 7 month period:

• Number of unique keywords being clicked rose by 421%
• Number of unique ad messages being clicked rose by 501%
• Total visitor volume from Google Ads rose by 107%
• Click through rate (CTR) rose by 40%
• Average cost per click (CPC) fell by 42%

Client results

Improved targeting of keywords, increased relevancy of ad messages, and efficient campaign optimisation meant that:

• Transactions rose by 77%
• Revenue increased by 90%
• Return on investment rose by 80%

24 RLSA (remarketing list for search ad) campaigns consisting of 1,122 keyword themes have since been created to further engage with previous website visitors as they later make more generic searches on Google. 41 international campaigns consisting of 360,929 tailored ad messages and localised banners have also helped to grow sales volume and revenue in overseas markets.

If you’re an retailer looking to increase sales and revenue from Google Ads, please get in touch and ask for a more profitable Google Ads strategy for your business.