Table 1: Pre-Campaign Goals and Actual Campaign Performance

Transcription

1 Executive Summary Campaign Overview. The business the team partnered with for the Google Online Marketing Challenge was Myers Sports Medicine and Orthopaedic Center (Myers), an orthopaedic center based out of Atlanta, GA. Goals: The qualitative goal was to attract potential consumers to Myers Sports Medicine and Orthopaedic Center s website and to familiarize them with the services offered by the orthopaedic specialists. Operational Details: The three week campaign expanded from from only four ads to 12 ads which all targeted the Atlanta, GA metro-area. The team utilized 168 keywords and seven ad groups. The team monitored the account daily to see what progress was being made. Within Google Adwords the Keyword Tool was utilized, as well as Traffic Estimator, and the Opportunities Tab in order to produce the best results. Budget: The team distributed the $250 budget evenly throughout the three week campaign with the goal of maximizing the budget in the client s best interest. Originally manual bidding was utilized but eventually the team switched to automatic bidding. This allowed the campaign to be more competitive by allowing for a higher spend on the top performing keywords. Key Results. Orthopaedic Services was the highest performing campaign, with both Table 1: Pre-Campaign Goals and Actual Campaign Performance ad groups in this campaign outperforming any other ad group deployed. Orthopaedic Services was also the name of the top performing ad group with 2,354 impressions and 13 clicks. One of the top performing keywords was atlanta orthopedic center with a CTR of 5.26% (3 clicks for 57 impressions). The team found the word orthopaedic without the letter a (orthopedic) was a higher searched keyword despite the name of the business. Conclusion. Myers can gain insight from Google Adwords on how to successfully market their business to potential customers. This can be done by utilizing the Opportunity Tool, tracking software, and using the trial and error method with different ads. Future Online Marketing Recommendations. The team would recommend that Myers continue to use Google Adwords, as it is a very useful tool in getting name recognition out among potential consumers. The team also believes that the business could benefit from updating their blog to include popularly searched keywords. 1

2 Industry Component Campaign Overview. Myers Sports Medicine and Orthopaedic Center is an orthopaedic center based out of Atlanta, GA. The strategic goals set at the beginning of the campaign were to increase website traffic for Myers and to potentially draw customers to the business. The team also hoped to develop helpful recommendations to provide to Myers regarding ways to improve their website based on consumer needs. Since Google Analytics was not utilized by the business there was no measure for conversions. The team set four main metric goals. These goals were to obtain at least 5,500 impressions, 110 clicks, a click through rate (CTR) of at least two to three percent, and spend roughly $.50 per click. The goal for achieving these metrics was to allocate the budget over the three week campaign, to maximize the potential for receiving clicks and impressions. Over the course of the campaign, the team implemented 168 keywords, seven ad groups, and 12 text ads. The top performing text ad is shown. The ad achieved metrics of six clicks, 519 impressions, a 1.16% CTR, an average CPC of $3.09, and an average position of 3.5. When it came to choosing keywords, since the word orthopedic is spelled orthopaedic in the business name, the team chose to include both versions of the keyword. The team also chose to use strategy of broad match keywords since the orthopaedic sector is very competitive in the Atlanta, GA metro-area. The team was informed that Myers didn t want to turn away people who needed orthopaedic services. Myers did tell the team though that they prefer to not work with patients suffering from chronic pain, so it was decided to use one negative keyword chronic, throughout the three week campaign. The campaigns ran from April 5 to April 24, 2012 and spent a total of $ The team divided the budget allocating $63 each to the knee and shoulder campaigns, $52 to the orthopaedic services campaign, and $42 to the $ $ $ $0.00 Table 2: Best Performing Ad Copy SpendbyCampaign Projected Spend Actual Spend SportsRelatedInjury ShoulderServices KneeServices OrthopaedicServices Figure 1: Projected and Actual Spend by Campaign 2

3 sports related injury campaign. The actual spend ended up being $29.88, $16.43, $34.63, and $25.11 respectively. Of the four campaigns implemented, three of them featured two ad groups as shown on the next page. Table 3: Overall Structure of the Campaign The team met every other day, if not daily, to check on the progress of the account and the team also monitored the account on the weekends by at least one of the group members checking on the progress made from the day before. Any changes made to the campaigns were discussed with the entire group before implementing them. Evolution of the Campaign Strategy. Week One (4/5-4/11) During the first week of the campaign the team created four campaigns each with one ad group that contained one text ad. The Orthopaedic Services campaign focused on patients needing orthopaedic assistance, whether it be surgery or routine services. The Knee Services and Shoulder Services campaigns were specific to those types of injuries. The Sports-Related Injuries campaign was designed for non-operative specific injuries. The team set up keywords within each ad group and used geotargeting for two ad groups based on zip codes for Week One Results Impressions Clicks CTR Cherokee, Fulton, Cobb, Figure 2: Week One Clicks, Impressions, and CTR and Gwinnett counties and set up a 30-mile targeting radius around Buckhead, Atlanta, GA for the other two ad groups. Keywords were added throughout the week and the budget was also increased minimally. The efforts during the first week results in 146 impressions and one click, costing the team only $.48. Week Two (4/12-4/18) During the second week of the campaign the team added over 80 keywords and were at a total of 168 keywords Week Two Results overall. The team did utilize Google s Opportunity Tab several Impressions Clicks CTR 3 Figure 3: Week Two Clicks, Impressions, and CTR

4 times throughout the course of this week to implement potential keyword search terms. Three more ad groups were also added to the campaign and one ad was added to each of those ad groups, totaling seven ad groups and seven ads to cover all services offered. The team also increased the budget for the campaigns by at least $1.00, depending on how the ads were performing. On April 18, the team switched from manual to automatic bidding, the cost per click was also increased from $.50 to $.75. The team switched the targeting strategy for all campaigns to target a 30-mile radius around Buckhead, Atlanta, GA. The week two efforts resulted in 1,161 impressions, 4 clicks, and a total cost of $2.49. The average click through rate (CTR) for this week was 0.31%. Week Three (4/19-4/24) During week three, the budget was increased to $8 for the Orthopaedic Services and Sports- Related Injuries campaign. An increase was made to $7 in the Knee Services campaign and only to $6.50 for Shoulder Services. The team also developed and executed six new text ads with the goal of increasing overall clicks and impressions, although one was still under review at the end of the campaign. With these changes the number of impressions and clicks increased five-fold in week three, primarily due to the overall budget increase. The week three efforts resulted in 6,167 impressions, 41 clicks, and an average CTR of 0.61%. The overall budget spend was over $100 higher in week three compared to the first two weeks and is shown in the figure below. Week Three Results Figure 4: Week Three Clicks, Impressions, and CTR Budget Breakdown $0.48 $2.49 Impressions Clicks CTR Week One Week Two Week Three $ Figure 5: Weekly Budget Breakdown 4

5 Key Results. Overall the campaigns did not perform as well as the team had expected. The Orthopaedic Services campaign was the top performer with 3,743 impressions and 21 clicks. The overall key metrics that were tracked are shown in the table below. Table 4: Key Performance Indicators by Week Of the seven ad groups, all of them received multiple impressions and at least two clicks. Orthopaedic Services was the top performing ad group with 2,354 impressions and 13 clicks; the average cost per click was $1.72 with an average position of 3.9. The group implemented 168 keywords in total, using mostly broad match to obtain the widest search possible. Seven of the top performing keywords are shown in the table below. Table 5: Best Performing Keywords by Campaign and Ad Group Some of the most effective keyword combinations were those with the keyword orthopedic and Atlanta. The top three keyword combinations have over 300 impressions each. Some of the most ineffective keyword combinations were cross-fit injuries and keywords dealing with specific sports injuries, such as football and volleyball injuries. The team was surprised to see the knee and shoulder campaigns not perform as well as expected. The greatest success of the campaign occurred once the team implemented automatic bidding; the number of impressions and clicks increased dramatically by allowing a higher spend than was originally anticipated. The team also found success by varying the best performing keywords, such as orthopaedic, atlanta, and doctors. Conclusion. Over the course of the Google Online Marketing Challenge, the team did not reach the target goal for the number of clicks, likely due to the fact that the team had to spend more than the original budget allocated. Even with the understanding that 5

6 orthopaedic services is a highly competitive industry in the Atlanta, GA area, the actual spend was still more than expected, with an average cost per click of $2.31 when the team had originally budgeted for only $.50 per click. The team had to overcome this problem by diversifying the text ads as uniquely as possible. The 46 clicks received are still a good margin for the team, because all of the keywords bid prices were listed higher than what the team had budgeted for. Future Recommendations. Learning many of the ins and outs of a Google Adwords campaign, the team feels the following suggestions would be very helpful in attracting future consumers to their website and increasing overall traffic flow into their business. Continue to Utilize Google Adwords. The team believes that Myers should continue to use Google Adwords to help with their online presence. To achieve the best results from future adwords campaigns Myers should definitely enrich their website with potential keywords that could be used to create more relevance to what future clients could be searching for. Also, the team believes it would be extremely beneficial to utilize a tracking software, such as Google Analytics. Use More General Keywords Terms. Throughout the Adwords campaign the team found that there are many people searching for orthopaedic doctors, but they weren t using keywords specific to common orthopaedic injuries. The client mainly focused on providing knee and shoulder services, but when the team ran the campaigns specific to knee and shoulder services, it showed that most people were looking for just general orthopaedic services and not searching specifically for knee and shoulder services. The team also believes they should focus future marketing efforts on the other services that they offer until they get more recognition for their specialties, like knee and shoulder injuries. Use Budget Lessons Learned. The team believes that if Myers was to use the numbers and budget information regarding the current Adwords account, they would be able to allocate a higher budget to the campaigns that were served the most. They might also be willing to pay more for the various keywords that have a higher bid price and that were most effective, which could help them in their overall marketing efforts. The team would also suggest implementing automatic bidding right away to allow for the highest number of impressions earlier on. Enrich the Website. The team believes that enriching their website with more content and keeping their blog up to date with current procedures they are performing could be extremely beneficial in producing potential new keywords that could generate an extensive amount of search traffic for Myers. The team also believes that creating an online form for 6

7 potential customers to fill out to get initial contact with the business could be beneficial in not only creating a new landing page, but also allowing for those patients unsure of what their next step should be to get in contact with a doctor and decide on the most appropriate form of action for them to take. One last suggestion for the website was to provide more detail on the atmosphere of the facility, so future clients can get a feel of what they will be walking into when they enter the business. Learning Component Learning Objectives and Outcomes. During the course of this competition, we had certain main objectives we had hoped to obtain, some of those were to learn more about Google Adwords and how it works, learn how to successfully use Google Adwords to market a business to potential customers, and to use the Google Adwords Tools to optimize our campaign to obtain the best results possible for our client. We believe throughout the course of the campaign, we have learned a substantial amount about Google Adwords, the tools it has to offer, and how to successfully write ads that attract individuals to our client s website When we started the campaign we initially expected to get a large number of impressions and clicks right away, but we learned it takes a lot of hard work and monitoring the account to improve the number of clicks and impressions obtained. One of the biggest lessons learned during the course of the competition was to not expect everything to happen right away, it takes a lot of changes and monitoring the account in order to get to an optimal state in the campaign. We also learned to closely watch our budget, we expected to use up our daily budget immediately and were surprised when that did not happen, so we switched our budgeting method from manual to automatic and received a highly unexpected jump in the number of impressions and clicks received but at a much higher than anticipated cost. During the course of the competition we learned how to use the Opportunity Tab on our Google Adwords account, and we also learned how to utilize the Keyword Tool and Traffic Estimator Tool. As a team we will remember that to increase our clicks and impressions it would probably be best to utilize Google s option of automatic bidding, so that Google uses its resources to help increase our account statistics. Group Dynamics. Our group consisted of three members and as a team we communicated very well amongst each other. From the first meeting we discussed the crucial tasks that would make us a successful group, agreeing that we would divide the work evenly, we began planning right away. We agreed that meeting multiple and frequent times weekly would benefit our campaign work. 7

8 Challenges faced were creating meeting times that would be convenient for all of us over the course of the three week campaign, with varying schedules from week to week we were able to find times that worked for all three of us. There were a couple times where one of us could not make it to a meeting, so in order to overcome this challenge, we left it to the responsibility of the two members present to decide what the work for the absent member would be and sent out an to that person. We ensured at the end of each meeting to have at least one future meeting set and we often times guarantee two future meeting times. By planning ahead, we seldom ran in to scheduling conflicts. One unexpected outcome was just how well our group worked together; each time we met we always had a productive meeting and were able to come up with new ideas to optimize our campaign. Client Dynamics. When working with our client, Myers Sports Medicine and Orthopaedic Center, we encountered several problems. The main problem was our communication and location issue, in order to communicate effectively with our client; we were set up with a video conference call. Due to technical difficulties we all had to squeeze into one computer screen. There was an effort to avoid this by having two computers set up, but the video screen was incapable of allowing both cameras to work during one call, luckily the one computer used for the call sufficed. Our other difficult issue with our client was our lack of information on the location of Myer s Sports Medicine and Orthopaedic Center. Without physically being in Atlanta, GA, we had a hard time deciding on the demographics of our campaign. Through trial and error, we were able to be somewhat successful with radius-targeting. One unexpected outcome occurred when we sent our pre-campaign report via , and they were unable to open it in the correct format, but by sending it through a different computer we were able to get them access to the report. Future Recommendations. In the future, we would probably implement Google s automatic bidding right away, once we implemented that our impressions and clicks doubled. We would also do more work learning every part of our Google Adwords account, we did work with the account extensively but there were still parts of it that we should have used but didn t during the course of the competition. We would also strongly recommend that our client implement Google Analytics, if we had had access to some type of tracking software it would have been much easier to make changes to our account and to understand the moves that potential clients made once they clicked on the text ad. 8