A Case for PPC: Measuring Online Ad Spend with Web Design Best Practices

Digital marketing’s multi-prong approach is not simply a critical feature of national campaigns and promotions. It’s the animating and driving force.

A Sherpa! Web Studios client sponsored a national television campaign with product placement and ad buys earlier this year. The client engaged Sherpa! to develop a unique pay-per-click campaign and destination landing page to make the most of the publicity.  When the search user landed on the page, they were served targeted content based on their geolocated IP address that spoke to the cable audience’s interest and expected needs.

The results prove how crucial this holistic digital component was in attracting and ushering visitors into the sales funnel.

• Referrals from the TV program website lifted leads 15%
• Non-branded organic search increased as well, serving as the source of ⅓ of all leads by increasing visibility of the product offering
• Leads were more than twice as high as the same month over last year

These efforts required strategic planning across key phrases, content, communications timing, and devices targeted. To those ends, Sherpa! put in place the following parameters and, based on performance, optimized key features accordingly.

• Analysis of paid search data using Day Parting. This metric allowed Sherpa! to identify (1) the four-hour period when 30% of daily traffic visited the site, (2) the two days when 40% of traffic occurs, and (3) the days visitors were most likely to convert. Action Taken: Pre-scheduled communications, both social media and email, were updated for delivery one hour prior to high likelihood of conversion times.

• Keyword volume vs. effectiveness. Sherpa! further determined the key phrases resulting in most volume vs. those that converted the most leads. Action Taken: Content updated around top-volume, top-converting phrases. While traffic could decrease, the number of conversions would ultimately increase.

• Targeting regions. Region-specific ad copy had little-to-no effect on click-through rates, a typical success metric for paid search. However, the cost per conversion was significantly better. Action Taken: Reduced regional ads to only those performing as high as national campaign benchmark.

• Device-based paid search. Mobile traffic doubled since the same period last year. Targeted devices and found behaviors were different between desktop vs. mobile vs. tablet. Not only did they behave differently on the site in terms of time spent and pages viewed, but they had different likelihood of bouncing or converting. Action Taken: Updated campaign to reflect findings.

How do you support and measure the success of your campaigns? Curious how to refine your metric for better targeting? Contact a sherpa and let us know!