Objective:

Our client whose is in the competitive Vintage Collectibles business was fairly new to Search Engine Marketing and as with any collectible retailer, has significant inventory turnover. The client was interested in what Search Engine Marketing could provide, but wanted to reduce risk and exposure, by allocating a small budget.

Understanding the factors and their business, our primary goals for the campaign were primarily related to driving traffic to its physical brick and mortar location. Our client identified items that showcased the largest potential and those were the products we promoted with Search Engine Marketing, where they hopefully will draw visitors to visit the location and purchase advertised items and/or other antiques.

Inventory turns over quickly, so ads for a specific item are only run short periods of time. Particularly unique or high ticket items are a draw to the store, but rarely stay in the showroom for more than 3 weeks, thus limiting their long-term traffic acquisition viability. This ephemeral inventory prevented us from earning significant quality score and other cumulative metrics that provide greater return with Search Engine Marketing. We needed a way to efficiently advertise new products at a low cost.

Strategy:

Each item advertised in Adwords was in some way unique, so individual ads were created for each item. Since these items were sold frequently, this necessitated the constant creation of new ads and the removal of ads for items now sold. Given the significance of historical data in Google’s algorithm, constantly introducing new campaigns, ad groups, and ad leads to a high CPC and reduced potential profitability for the client.

Our strategy had a Quality Score first mindset, to help us lower CPCs and improve CTR. The first thing we did was restructure the account specifically to help preserve uninterrupted run time for ads so we could establish more data and a longer ad history. Originally, the account had one campaign with a constant flow of new ads being introduced and old ads being removed. By transitioning to a model with a campaign for each brand/manufacturer, we were able to write more generic ads for each campaign. A generic ad in each ad group allowed us to run at least one ad per ad group consistently. The new structure also aligned each keyword list, ad, and ad group within a campaign, leading to better relevancy within the account.

Results:

Aligned campaigns, ads, and keywords helped the account impression-weighted Quality Score grow from 6.4 to 8.1 over 5 months. These increases in Quality Score improved CPCs by 25% and increased CTR by 50%, thus making the campaign and endeavor with Search Engine Marketing a profitable one; while improving foot traffic to the retail store.

Case Study Highlights

Industry: Vintage Collectables

Goals:

  • Decrease cost per click
  • Increase Quality Score

Results:

  • Optimizing for Quality Score improved each of its factors, helping the client achieve a higher CTR and ad rank, all at a lower cost per click