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Smart Projects Case Study
Improve the Cost per Conversion by 50% Smart-projects.net success story
Software: Isobuster
Site: www.isobuster.com| Download the PDF version (528KB) |  |
Smart Projects, industry leader in optical media file rescue & recovery
Smart Projects is a software development company, specialized in optical disc recovery tools that rescue valuable data from damaged CDs/DVDs/BDs.
The challenge
Smart Projects already had an AdWords campaign handled in house which resulted in high expenses per conversion and an unsatisfying ROI. The main objective was to increase smart-projects.net's ROI (Return on Investment) for the PPC AdWords Service by decreasing costs per clicks and improving sales by driving more traffic and downloads from Google.
The plan
After evaluating the results of the in house campaigns, we decided that the best strategy was to develop a campaign with better focused terms.
Avangate optimized the keyword selection
Objective: Find the best keyword selection that will assure better conversion rates at lower prices.
Smart Projects activity mainly consists in developing highly specialized CD, DVD, BD and HD DVD data recovery software.
Initially, Smart Projects started their PPC campaigns with 269 keywords and combination of keywords from "cd recovery" and "dvd recovery". Not taking full advantage of "broad match" or "exact match" keyword combinations options was costing Smart Projects the clicks that didn't convert.
Our first mission was to identify and eliminate (or optimize) all the keywords that didn't produce conversions or that had the conversion cost too big.
Using keyword research tools like Wordtracker or Trellian, we went on a quest to identify keywords that better fit Smart Projects. After eliminating around 100 keywords combinations and adding 68 new keywords together with 51 matches options (broad or exact) for the existing keywords, we ended up with a list of 295 keyword combinations.
However, this was just the first phase of the optimization. Using Google Analytics data and researching different keywords variants, we discovered that some keyword combinations were still producing clicks but no conversions.
Our next step was to come up with a list of negative keywords to limit this specific behavior as much as possible.
This resulted in a list of around 100 negative keywords that cut the cost per conversion by half of what it used to be before starting the optimization.
We optimized the Ads and Ad Groups management
Objective: Come up with personalized ads for different narrow groups of keywords.
The next step was to come up with different ads to test on narrow keyword groups. We organized them in more than 15 different Ad Groups.
The repetition of the search word in the title and, where possible, in the text of the ad had a positive impact over the person initiating the search, convincing that the link he is about to enter is the one he is looking for. Furthermore the AdWords will make the matching keywords bold, making them easier to spot.
That's why we matched the keywords the users were looking for with the ad titles as much as possible, just as shown in the image:
We used up to 5 variations of ads per Ad Group and tested which works best.
We optimized the delivery for different countries
Objective: Create campaigns for different segments of public according to their country of origin.
Smart Projects is a Belgian company, but its product is designed for worldwide audiences. The website itself has 6 different language versions. Creating ad groups and selecting keywords for each language assured that all the users understood the ads and the landing pages they were directed to.
The results
The numbers speak for themselves. At the start of the PPC campaign, the conversion rate was 0.32%. Six months later, the difference was over 78%. The costs per conversion dropped more than 50%, just like the image shows:
The difference that Avangate made is even more impressive if we go one year back: the difference was over 180% in conversion rate, a reduction in terms of costs was of almost 70% while the total conversions increased by 7%.
Here is how the campaigns cost dropped over the last 6 months:
What do all these numbers mean?
In May 2007, Smart Projects was spending $29 for each product sold via a Google ad. In the case of the personal license there was no profit as Smart Projects spent the gross revenue completely on advertising (not taking into consideration the extra revenue from the visitors (support, newsletter subscribers, upgrades, renewals, etc)
One year later, with the Avangate optimization, Smart Projects spends at the most $10 for each product sold via a Google ad. That means that Smart Projects grossed $19 on a sold personal license and $39 on business licenses.
In theory, for each 1000$ invested in AdWords there could be a gross profit between 1900$ and 3900$.
Now that's what we call a successful campaign!
How Avangate can help you
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