Page Contents
Problem Statement
- To stand out in the highly competitive and seasonal market for different products
- The client was unable to scale up the campaign performance, revenue, as well as the budget, spend on Google
Case Study Strategy
More quality traffic at lower CPC from DSAs
The bottom line of this Google Ads case study strategy was to bring in more quality traffic at a cheaper rate and later, curate and remarket the audience based on the buying behavior at different stages of the purchase funnel. However, the first hurdle itself was bringing in more quality traffic.
We were running a Google display campaign to bring in more Top of the Funnel (ToFu) traffic but we observed a very high bounce rate and low engagement from those audiences. So, we decided to test a DSA campaign. Because DSA runs on the search network, it brought in more qualified traffic based on search-intent compared to Google Display Network traffic. Also, the CPC from the DSA campaign was comparable or even sometimes cheaper compared to the Google Display Network campaign.
Furthermore, we controlled the average cost per click using the ECPC bidding strategy during the initial learning phase of the campaign. We monitored the traffic from DSA for the first two weeks. Traffic from DSA was more engaging with a lesser bounce rate and higher session duration along with with pages/ session compared to traffic from the display network. So, we began shifting the budget slowly from display network to DSA campaign and after almost a month, we had no campaigns running on the Google display network.
From ECPC to Maximize Conversion
After we had enough data and the campaign had started to perform, we switched the bidding strategy from ECPC to Maximize conversion for the DSA campaign while keeping the branded search campaign as it is with Manual CPC. Changing from ECPC to maximize conversion bidding strategy for the DSA campaign was the toughest decision because sometimes, changing the bidding strategy often impacts the campaign performance negatively. We were skeptical of that.
Also, since DSA does not offer you an option to draft and experiment with the campaign, it was even harder for us to change the bidding strategy. Before switching over to maximize conversion bidding strategy from ECPC, we made sure to talk to a Google Ads rep and also, Google ads platform recommended to change the bidding strategy to maximize conversion bidding strategy. After we switched to maximize conversion, we did not see any fluctuation.
Caution from Maximize Conversion
However after we switched to maximize conversion, we saw a sudden bump in traffic and little decline in ROAS. That was because the maximize conversion bidding strategy started bringing a lot more of intent-based traffic compared to ECPC at the same cost or lower CPC. We had to contain irrelevant traffic by effectively utilizing the negative keywords and negative dynamic targeting. That was a necessary step.
Branded search terms increase
We also saw an increase in the branded search terms in the search console, so we had to allocate more budget to our branded campaign which helped us uplift the ROAS further.
Countering the seasonality
We countered the seasonality by driving some in-store traffic and pumping in some monthly offers during those times. In the graph, you can see two bumps around May and December because we pumped in more dollars during those times to bring in more people, In-Store and On-Site.
Breaking down DSA by categories
To have more control over the DSA campaigns, we gradually broke down the campaign into different ad groups based on the major categories and sub-categories present on the Ecommerce Website. It gave us a huge relief in terms of overall campaign data analysis and negative keywords and dynamic targeting optimization. If you have some experience with the DSA campaigns, you would know what I am talking about. This further helped maintain the performance and contain unwanted search terms and landing pages by a great deal.
Utilizing RLSA, similar and in-market audience
We had also included some in-market audiences at the ad group level targeting along with some remarketing audiences strategies as well. RLSAs were layered at different ad groups in sync with the audience at the different stages of the funnel. We also utilized a different bidding percentage to further bolster the campaign performance.
That’s how we were able to achieve the overall account conversion ROAS boost from 7.5X in the month of January to around 11X ROAS in the month of December while the average ROAS was around 9X for the whole year with total revenue of around $3 Million.
Case Study Outcome
- Amount Spent: ~$335,053
- Conversion Value: ~$2,950,280
- ROAS: 8.81
Resources for you:
- DSA campaign best practices
- Local Store Visit Campaign Best Practices
- Advanced RLSA strategies with Examples
- Some Basic automation rules on Google Ads