ON THE KEYWORD TRAIL: HELPING eTAILERs TOP PROJECTIONS AND EXCEED EXPECTATIONS

How Atrinsic Interactives Business Intelligence Detectives Dramatically Increased Campaign Performance for a Major eTailer and Unraveled the Mystery of Better ROI

Overview

With the economic recovery still sluggish, retailers continue to be rigorous about online marketing campaign performance demanding far more precision and ROI from their online campaigns than they do from their offline marketing efforts. Quick access to data - and the ability to track consumer behavior through keyword performance - generates the efficiency advantage of online campaigns. But this also means that etailers demand laser-accurate performance projections from online agencies before signing on the dotted line often without providing access to key internal metrics, such as specific keyword performance. With billions of pieces of data floating around cyberspace, what kind of business intelligence methods/tools are necessary for agencies to generate projections blind? And, once those projections are accepted, what tactics should be utilized to meet and exceed them? This case study demonstrates how one top search agency, Atrinsic Interactive, literally turned its team into business intelligence (BI) detectives, following the clues they needed to make precision projections to win the account of a category-leading etailer who had provided them with almost no data clues; and then, once the account was in hand, to significantly ramp up performance. The study also reveals key best practices that helped the AI team not only meet projections, but exceed them and within six months.

Atrinsic Interactive turned its team into business intelligence detectives to make precision projections and significantly ramp up performance.

http://atrinsicaffiliatenetwork.com/agencies/
2011 Atrinsic, Inc. All Rights Reserved

June, 2011
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On the Keyword Trail:

Helping etailers top projections and exceed expectations

Client X
The retailer used in this case study (Client X) is an industry-leading retailer and one of the top brands in its vertical, generating upwards of $1.7 million per month in revenue and over 1 million visitors a month from Pay Per Click alone.

The Mystery Client X was achieving moderate, but inconsistent, returns on their online campaigns, averaging about $1.50 for every $1 they spent. Client X approached Atrinisc Interactive (AI) for help improving their online campaigns but, before signing AI, the client required the agency to project campaign performance over the next 12 months and to determine if there was room in their market for growth. The Atrinsic team was given a spreadsheet of basic top level data on the previous years campaign - Impressions, Clicks, Cost, Conversions, ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) but little else as the client was prohibited from sharing proprietary information with an agency before it had been contracted on the account. This meant that AI had zero access to prior/current keyword performance; no information on what the client had been buying and how much they were paying; no data on landing pages, and absolutely no direct data they could use to identify where they could improve performance. Essentially, the agency was operating blind with only the most generic of trails to follow. First Impressions Because one of the clients key concerns was whether or not they actually could grow in their online space - i.e. was the available market already tapped? - the Atrinsic teams initial focus was on impressions, a success metric that the agency would not normally focus on. However, the team knew that once they were able to assess the available impressions and the growth opportunity, they could then utilize that impression data to project increases in traffic and potential revenue. The projection formula they used went like this: increase available impressions + optimize for best performance = improve click through rate + improve conversion rate = increased revenue and better ROAS.

Atrinsic projection formula: increase available impressions + optimize for best performance = improve click through rate + improve conversion rate = increased revenue and better ROAS.
Case Study: How Atrinsic Interactives Business Intelligence Detectives Dramatically Increased Campaign Performance for a Major eTailer

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On the Keyword Trail:

Helping etailers top projections and exceed expectations

Trail of Clues

With little information to go on, the Atrinsic teams first task was to detect the data clues they needed to make the projections, which meant taking a granular look at the space that Client X operated in. Using Atrinsics BrandLock technology, their competitive crawling GENOME, and numerous third party tools the AI business intelligence team was able to crawl the major keywords they determined were used by the client in order to pull relevant data, as well as to crawl and analyze Client Xs key competitors to see what keywords these competitors were buying, understand how many impressions they were garnering on given keywords and how much they were spending.

Genome

After compiling this data, and then looking at Client Xs top level data, the AI team was able to identify a value per impression and per click of Client Xs existing accounts. Now that they had a realistic idea of how many impressions were available, they were able to project a strategic growth in impressions. Measuring current optimization strategies for the client, they projected a slow growth in click through rate, and calculating forward from this click through rate, they projected a baseline conversion, revenue and ROAS.

With this data in hand, AI then looked at the impact a restructure of the account might have on the baseline projections, and were able to calculate that they could quadruple the number of impressions over twelve months, along with the corresponding increase in click through rates, baseline conversion, revenue and ROAS. Next, utilizing technology partner Kenshoos proprietary ad copy crawler, the Atrinsic team identified competitor ads, pinpointed the best performers in the space, and then projected an increase from the current 3% in click through rates to 3.5%. The team also analyzed landing pages with poor conversion rates to see if there was room to increase sales. They discovered that there was, enabling them to not only increase revenue projections, but, importantly, to make them more precise.
Case Study: How Atrinsic Interactives Business Intelligence Detectives Dramatically Increased Campaign Performance for a Major eTailer

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On the Keyword Trail:

Helping etailers top projections and exceed expectations

The 525+% Solution. Client X was presented with the Atrinsic teams projections, which significantly exceeded prior performance metrics. Skeptical at first, when presented with the trail of evidence developed by the AI team, the client agreed to sign on and watch for performance. At this point, the Atrinsic team was provided with access to the clients proprietary data.
As anticipated, a deep dive by AIs production team, made up of former Yahoo! strategists, revealed that the account needed a full restructure to ensure that all keyword gaps were filled. This would ensure that every brand, category, sku, product, and more, were in the account and able to perform at their peak. AIs production team was able to break out the account, building out keywords, keyword groups, long tail keywords, etc. into every variation imaginable, which in turn enabled extremely targeted ad copy. With the help of AIs in-house design team and intelligence from the account breakout, a more successful landing page strategy was implemented, all of which resulted in increased quality scores and click through rates and, ultimately, a better consumer experience. Bottom line: consumers were landing exactly where they wanted to, which naturally brought them closer to a sale and the client to better, more efficient conversion rates.

After six months, the Atrinsic team had hit an ROAS of over 525+%, surpassing the 12month business goal of 350%.

Bid Algorithm
With the impressions doing well, the team turned again to Kenshoo to help them create unique multiple model-based bid policies, so that different portions of the account had corresponding rules or models running. With data records stretching back for months, as well as real-time reporting, the team was able to understand the return on each keyword or keyword grouping, so they could assess whether, for example, to bid up a keyword and gain more volume, or if they could lower the bid and still achieve volume all of which prompted critical increases in performance and cost efficiency. Kenshoo also enabled the AI team to track the path to conversion, i.e. algorithmically attributing portions of each conversion to each click that occurs in the conversion funnel. After six months, AI had hit an ROAS of over 525+%, surpassing the 12-month business goal of 350%.

Path to Conversion

Case Study: How Atrinsic Interactives Business Intelligence Detectives Dramatically Increased Campaign Performance for a Major eTailer

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On the Keyword Trail:

Helping etailers top projections and exceed expectations

The Pay Off

With smarter bids, sharper projections and a clear path to conversion, the account rapidly exceeded projections and client expectations. Keywords were receiving massive impression and click increases and, within four months, AI had exceeded its twelve-month goal on impression level and click level, exceeded revenue goals and increased client return to 525%, an increase of more than 300% . While these results were great, they represented the beginning, not the end, of the road, as optimization is an ongoing process. But, with a restructured account, better analytics and greater ROAS, the client was now well-positioned to invest more resources into continuing to scale their business.

Case Study: How Atrinsic Interactives Business Intelligence Detectives Dramatically Increased Campaign Performance for a Major eTailer

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On the Keyword Trail:

Helping etailers top projections and exceed expectations

Tips for Success from Atrinsic Interactive

Know Your Space: Understanding what the competitive marketplace looks like is the first step in controlling a space or vertical. SEM isnt just about what youre doing, but also what your competitors are doing. For example, are all your competitors undercutting your price, or are they giving away free shipping? Staying up to date with the competitive landscape will not only keep you in the game, but it can help push you ahead. Give Consumers What They Want: The easier it is for a consumer to get to the exact product they want, the more likely they are to buy. If someone is looking for a black leather couch, dont just drop them on a page with leather couches - put them on a page with all your black leather couches. The less consumers need to think and search the more likely they are to buy.

Understanding
what the competitive marketplace looks like is the first step in controlling a space or vertical.

Run the Full Keyword Gamut: Ensuring you have identified every possible keyword combination, misspelling, etc. will help reduce overpriced CPCs and cut down on affiliate hijacks. Dont let an affiliate or competitor take away your sales just because you missed out on buying a keyword. Track the Path to Conversion: Kenshoos Path to Conversion revenue attribution models helped scale this clients business, while still keeping them within the return constraints. If you want to know whether or not a broad keyword (i.e.: Insurance) is having an impact on your business then the Path to Conversion is the solution. Get Granular: There are no magical short cuts to search, just constant strategy, analysis and optimization. You need to think analytically, utilize available tools, such as Kenshoo, and optimize accordingly.

For More Information on this Case Study, Contact sales@atrinsic.com, or Call (212) 716-1977 ext. 247
Case Study: How Atrinsic Interactives Business Intelligence Detectives Dramatically Increased Campaign Performance for a Major eTailer

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