Client Profile

One of our clients offers access to an extensive database of private equity firms. They had no AdWords account prior to working with us.

The Problem

With no historical data to work from, we needed to discover the demand for their product and whether or not AdWords was a viable, profitable method for gaining new customers.

Our Goal

Prior to starting the campaign, we needed to take a look at the landing pages that were being used and make sure everything was optimized accordingly. After ensuring all was dialed in, our primary goal was to bring customers in at a rate and price that justified paying for the AdWords campaign.

The Results

Total Conversions

AdWords Conversions Graph
In October, during the second half of the month only, there was a total of 6 conversions.
In November, there was a total of 15 conversions.
In December, there was a total of 27 conversions.
In January, there was a total of 38 conversions.
In February, despite it being a shorter month, there was a total of 41 conversions.
In March, there was a total of 46 conversion.
In total, that’s 173 conversions.

Strategies Taken

Building a campaign from the ground up is a bit different than improving a campaign that already has mounds of data to optimize. Both require similar practices, but tackling a campaign from the get-go requires additional research and trial and error.
In the case of this particular client, it was clear we needed to build ad groups based on keywords that were both relevant and affordable. Seeing that a keyword relevant to your business has high search volume is exciting, but making sure its estimated cost per click (CPC) falls within your budget is crucial.

Sample Scenario

  1. Keyword 1 costs $12 per click.
  2. Keyword 2 costs $3 per click.
  3. Both keywords are highly relevant to your business and/or product.

If your daily budget is set at $48, for example, keyword 1 gives you four chances to convert while keyword 2 gives you 4x that number with 16 chances to convert. Finding a wide variety of keywords similar to keyword 2 will increase the likelihood of returning a positive ROI.
With this campaign, we paired our best keywords with terms that described the service, as well as with specific cities and states which were relevant to the product/service.

Negative Keywords

Adding negative keywords is vital to the success of any AdWords campaign. With this client—as is the case with most online tools or softwares—it was important to include negative keywords such as cheap, free, download, torrent, etc. More specifically, this client does not offer information on venture capital, so it was important that that and all related words were added to our negative keyword list.

Landing Page Optimization

This was touched on briefly in the beginning of this article, but campaign optimization is only half the battle; if your landing pages aren’t formatted properly and if they don’t include a strong call to action, your campaign will rarely get the kind of results you’re after. By simplifying the process, reducing the length of the page and including one clear call to action, conversions increased dramatically when compared to the first six weeks of the campaign.

Questions? Comments? Leave a comment below or contact us to discuss your AdWords campaign.

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