Search Engine Marketing Case Study: Analytical Investing - Results
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Analytical Investing’s Internet traffic doubled in May 2004, the month we launched their initial PPC ad campaign. In subsequent months, the traffic quadrupled and then quintupled from the level of traffic for the month prior to implementing search engine marketing. The number of free trial subscribers climbed each month as we expanded their search engine advertising campaigns. In June, there were 86% more new subscribers than in May. That’s not cumulative. The total number of subscribers tripled from May to June. The June to July comparison saw 25% more new subscribers and July to August saw 26% more new subscribers. And that’s during the summer months, which are a traditionally slow period for the stock markets.
Comparing the PPC advertising campaigns across the three search engines yields some interesting results. For the month of August 2004, here are the average CPCs for the search engines:
• Google: $0.12
• Overture: $0.15
• FindWhat: $0.10
Over that same time period, Google accounted for 41% of the paid traffic and 43% of the new subscribers, Overture accounted for 43% of the paid traffic and 36% of the new subscribers, while FindWhat accounted for 16% of the paid traffic and 16% of the new subscribers. Clearly, the number of sales (signup of free trial subscribers) was proportional to the traffic paid for. It is worth noting that 5% of new subscribers came from free hits, either natural search results or people who typed the site url directly. What’s particulary interesting, however, is to track the CPA (cost per action / acquisition). For the month of August 2004, here are the average costs per paid search engine to acquire a free trial subscriber:
• Google: $7.38
• Overture: $11.92
• FindWhat: $6.79
Clearly, then, FindWhat is the most cost effective source for new subscribers. Every $6.79 of ad spend on FindWhat resulted in a new subscriber. However, since it only brought 16% of the paid traffic whereas Google brought 43% of the paid traffic and at a still reasonable CPA, Google is arguably the best source for new subscribers. Surprisingly, Overture brought in the largest amount of paid traffic but this internet traffic did not convert as well as either Google or FindWhat.
Conclusions
• Do list on both Google and Overture to target a wide audience.
• Do not forget about smaller search engines like FindWhat and Searchfeed.
• Do extensive research to find keywords that convert to sales at a low CPC.
• Do not keep a narrow list of keywords and get in a bidding war with competitors.
• Do optimize a site after gathering data from PPC ad campaigns.
• Do track CPA to determine where to focus future efforts.
Future Work
Our work for Analytical Investing is far from over. We have yet to launch a Searchfeed ad campaign and perform SEO work for the entire site. Effective search engine marketing is a job that’s never truly completed. There are always new keywords to be discovered, bids to be managed, ad copy to be edited, web pages to be optimized, links to be gathered, results to be tracked and various other tasks to be performed. What’s important, though, is that Internet marketing via the search engines is a cost effective means of advertising for our clients.
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