Google Adwords Promotion / Case Study

[inbakumar]

Hi all,

We need some help with our one and only google adwords campaign. We launched this test campaign in January this year and have paid nearly £200 to google so far. Even though we have had some successes, the leads generated were of poor quality in general. The campaign synopsis is as follows:

Main keywords: equipment leasing, equipment finance
Total keywords: 20
Maximum click per cost: 35 pence each
Average click per cost: 24 pence each
Daily budget: £1.50
Click through rate achieved: 0.9%
Average position for keywords: 4-5

Based on the test campaign, we have modified the ad itself and the landing page.

(1) Our new ad reads as follows:

Save on Equipment Leasing
Competitive finance solutions for
equipment valued > £7k. Expert help.

(2) Our new landing page is as follows:

equipment leasing finance

We would very much appreciate the thoughts of the forum members on the effectiveness of the ad and the landing page. Moreover, we would like to know how they can be IMPROVED. We are competing with some very large banks with deep pockets for these keywords therefore we need to be extra careful otherwise we will lose our shirts in no time .

All help and suggestions appreciated.

Regards,

Joel

[sharp]

My gut reaction to improve your adwords response and efficacy is to set up a whole raft of separate ads that address what specific groups of potential clients might be looking for....so for example, one (or more than one) ad for medical equipment leasing, one for agricultural equipment leasing, one for commercial vehicles and so on.

Don't try to cram too much in one ad, just create another separate ad group for a specific target group....People respond much much better to ads that contain EXACTLY what they were searching for. So for example, you might have a separate ad group for commercial vehicles, one for coaches and a third for taxis.

Moving on to the number of keywords....20 just isn't enough. I could come up with a list of several hundred words/phrases in an hour or so...just based on perusing your website...I don't have any knowledge of your business sector. And I'm suggesting you split out your campaign into at least a dozen different ad groups each with a keyword list in the hundreds of words. You really need to get creative here and do some serious research. A big - but targeted - keyword list will ramp up your CTRs.

Next suggestion is to create individual targetted landing pages that respond to what the visitor is looking for. Meet their needs. Tell them what they want to hear.

Next suggestion - and a faster thing than the point made above...if you have to have your home page as the landing page for all your ads, then make sure you have a very clear call to action right there in an in your face way. Your objective presumably is to get visitors to your site to phone you...so that once you've got a dialogue going, you're in with a chance of winning the business...so ask them to call you for a one-to-one no obligation consultation on their business leasing needs.

On a slightly different note, and apologies if I'm more frank than you were expecting or inviting....your site could do with being a bit livelier visually, and for ease of use and search-engine optimisation reasons, you could do with losing the frames-based design.

If any of that doesn't make sense....shout. More feedback available if required....hope it helps....I'm a pretty big fan of Adwords....we spend a lot lot more than the figure you quoted in your post. Every month. We operate in a retail arena with several retail websites, where average transaction values are way lower than I imagine for your sector. We spend the amount we do, because we know categorically that it will return to us 15-20 times that amount in sales. But we put a lot of work into Adwords to get the results out.

Good luck!

[inbakumar]

Hi Sharp,

Thank you very much for your reply. Much appreciated indeed for your honest suggestions.

I take your points re our ad. They make sense. The problem is though that trying to create hundreds of ads and landing pages involve a lot of administrative work, which means high cost. Hence we tested the campaign with some general search phrases like 'equipment leasing' to see the click-throughs and conversions. These general keywords are searched hundreds of times a day and therefore can produce the volume we need to succeed. You may also interested to know that the margins involved are wafer thin due to high competition. Hence the reason for mentioning the minimum deal size.

Moving on to the landing page you suggested the following:

"... create individual targetted landing pages that respond to what the visitor is looking for. Meet their needs. Tell them what they want to hear."

Could you please help us a bit more on this? How would you change the content, layout etc. Our biggest problem with the test campaign was getting the people who have clicked on our ad to contact us. We have changed the content of the landing pages a fair bit but obviously it didn't appeal to you much!

You suggestion regarding the frames also valid as many people have suggested this to us before. However, our problem is that we are ranking highly for some of the competitive search terms already in Google UK, Yahoo, MSN etc generating a lot of traffic without any expense . e.g. (property development finance). That is why we are loathe to change the web site design. However, the colour scheme, graphics, font etc could be changed without any impact to our natural rankings I guess. Again any thoughts on this matter would be much appreciated.

I totally agree with your comment about the Adwords. Properly used, I'm sure it can generate good business for anyone. In our case, we want to use it to generate traffic for an area of business where we are not doing so well in natural rankings. Also developing a competency in Adwords could also act as an insurance policy in the event our natural rankings slip up, for reasons beyond our control.

Thanks again.

[Enigma121]

In my (humble) opinion, the landing page needs a few more examples, perhaps some images of the sorts of things that you are leasing. What do you mean by "warehousing equipment", what sort of "graphic equipment"?. Some commonly hired examples would help to illustrate what you are looking to hire out.

I agree with the comment above on the scrolling frame. It hides the majority of your content and the user has to "go look for it". I think you could confidently change this without upseting the search engines. They LOVE plain text pages where the content can be readily read, so chances are you'll actually improve your ranking.

The best thing that you can do to improve your rank and guarantee you don't get a negative effect in the SERPS is build backlinks to your site. Have you considered exchanging links and establishing a links page on your site? If not, it's really the best thing that you can do to get noticed.

How about adding a "call me to discuss my needs" feature, allowing you to drive sales calls to the clients, rather than waiting for them to call you. This technique works well in some industries, and is likely to in yours because you really need to start a dialogue as soon a possible.

Hope this is of some use...

[sharp]

Hi Joel,

What I meant when I said you should have distinct ads pointing to distinct targeted content pages is this:

People who are looking to lease a commercial vehicle want to arrive at a page that says, yes, we do leasing of commercial vehicles, here's how it works, and this is what you need to do to take things further. They want detail that is specific to their needs. They don't want to read something general and see that commercial vehicle leasing is just one in a long list of things that you handle. So create a page that talks specifically about commercial vehicle leasing, outline how it works, tell them the benefits of leasing over buying a commercial vehicle, tell them about tax implications, cashflow implications and so on....get them feeling warm and fuzzy about how great it will be when they lease their vehicle through you. A page of content dedicated to their specific needs will be worth so much more than just upping the cost per click that you're prepared to spend.

Create a targetted page for each niche group you want to talk to....one for commercial vehicle leasing, one for agricultural equpment leasing, one for medical equipment leasing and so on....on each page go through why it's a great idea to use leasing/finance (from you) for this deal. Tell them how quickly and easily you can set up a deal tailored just for them. Can you give them a quote within 10 minutes, 2 hours, 24 hours? If so, tell them this. Tell them they could have the cash within a week (or however long) and that they can be getting on with their real business instead of wading through finance deals and form-filling. Or whatever you believe they need to hear (and that you can actually deliver). And make the call to action big, in the top half of the page, and then repeat it at the end of what you've got to say.

That's what I meant about meeting their needs. One message doesn't fit all...people want to feel you know exactly and specifically what they want. Not to be lumped in with all sorts of other people whose needs are quite different.

So, I'd go for a dozen or so tightly constructed content pages with lots of detail about your offer to that segment and with a clear call to action...this should also have a positive effect on your search engine rankings too, by the way.


I'd then match the target pages with very targeted ads - one for each page of content. For each ad, I'd create a very specific ad that clearly showed that you dealt with exactly what the searcher was after. So, I'd have an ad that mentioned in the title and the body of the ad (for example) commercial vehicle leasing. I'd also split test the actual ads themselves to find what works best. And for each ad, I'd make sure the keywords matched tightly to what the ad and the landing page are about. Any more general keywords can still stay in your original ad, but you should be able to rely on this general ad less and less as you create these new super-focused ads. The more focused the ad, and the keywords that go with them, the less you'll find yourselves paying in the end. And I'd rather have 10 very tight leads a day that actually turned into something, than 100 leads a day from people who aren't really ideal customers, who are low-grade leads or time-wasters or who are great customers whose needs you can't actually meet because they thought you were offering something other than what you are offering.

As for layout and design, this is a very subjective area and I can only give you a personal opinion....but for me, I'd lose the grey background and go for white every time....it just looks so professional. And the frames set-up should go. Those two things would be the best things to fix....

if you were looking for a complete makeover.....I'd look at the biggest players in the financial markets and emulate the best of those....look at sites for ease of use, confidence and quality. A day spent looking at other people's sites will help identify what you like or don't about your own. But always look at the very best out there and ask yourself why they are doing stuff that way....basically because it works. I looked at egg.com and db.com - these (sadly) were the two that stood out for me as being professional, articulate and easy to use (although db.com was a little dull). Quite a lot of sites in the finance sector don't look that great which is a shame....it must have an effect on the efficacy of the sites in attracting business. If you shop online yourself, you'll appreciate how quickly you become a snob about the appearance of websites....if it doesn't catch your attention visually and it isn't immediately easy to use, then you're off to somewhere that is.

Hope this is useful feedback.

A.