adCenter Blog Has Moved To - www.adcentercommunity.com: Customer Showcase

Advertisers' adCenter Success Stories: ForSaleByOwner.com

Tue, 17 Jul 2007 11:18:05 GMT

Targeting your campaigns in Microsoft adCenter can be crucial to your success and to getting the best return on your investment.

Whether it’s having your ads run only on certain days of the week or times of the day, pinpointing searchers in particular geographical locations, or raising your bids on your target demographic, focusing on when and where people are most likely to want your product or service is very important.

As promised, Kevin from the adCenter Marketing Team brings us another adCenter case study from an advertiser who is using adCenter targeting tools to the max.

Today, part two of this series: ForSaleByOwner.com

Thanks,

Mel

adCenter Community Team

ForSaleByOwner.com: Increasing conversions in the online For-Sale-By-Owner real estate market

ForSaleByOwner.com helps owners complete home sale transactions efficiently, by offering their properties to prospective buyers on the Internet and by providing sellers access to advice and research tools. The company’s marketing objective is to maximize revenue by driving home buyers and sellers to ForSaleByOwner.com.

Results

By using adCenter, ForSaleByOwner.com achieved:

9.8% overall click-through rate (CTR)
1% conversion rate
30% CTR on main search terms
283% return on investment (ROI)

For more information, check out the complete ForSaleByOwner.com adCenter Case Study

Thanks!

Kevin McCabe, adCenter Marketing Manager

Advertisers' adCenter Success Stories: CSN & Logoworks

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 16:08:42 GMT

This week, Kevin from the adCenter Marketing Team, shares the latest adCenter case studies from adCenter advertisers.

Today, part one of this series: CSN and Logoworks case studies.

Thanks,

Mel - adCenter Community Team

CSN Stores

CSN Stores develops and operates online businesses that are focused on niche products and services offered direct to the customer. The network of web stores consists of over 35 home furnishings, commercial furniture, and audio/video supply stores. They worked with their ad agency, Efficient Frontier (EF), with the objective of targeting female customers to increase conversions.

CSN Stores success metric is average daily margin and they hoped to increase this substantially.

The results for increasing conversion margins were successful. The campaign produced:

A 23 percent increase in the click through rate (CTR).
A 12 percent increase in average daily clicks.
A 68 percent increase in the average daily margin even with an 11 percent increase in cost per click (CPC) and 19 percent increase in average daily cost.

Additionally, CSN Stores increased engagement with their targeted demographic and improved return on investment (ROI).

The female 25+ demographic saw a two percent increase in estimated impressions.
There was a 6 percent increase in estimated clicks.
A 22 percent increase occurred in estimated CTR
CSN Stores drove 391 percent in incremental ROI

Read the CSN Stores adCenter Case Study to learn more.

Logoworks

Logoworks is one of the largest logo design firms in the world. They worked with the Microsoft Search Media Operations team in response to a news article in the September issue of Inc. Magazine that listed Logoworks in Inc’s top 500 businesses.

Their objectives included taking advantage of offline press to drive traffic to the Logoworks website, and attracting visitors who might be looking for information on Inc. Magazine’s articles.

Logoworks employed demographic targeting with adCenter to boost bids on their target demographic. Their results:

The target group was 25- to 50-year-old men. Of the top four performing targeted ad groups, this target ad group had the highest click through rate (CTR) and delivered the fourth highest number of impressions in only nine days—compared to ad groups running since July.
Targeting Inc.’s reader demographics resulted in more than 20 percent CTR and two percent more clicks than a non-targeted campaign.

Learn more about their methodology and results in the Logoworks adCenter Case Study.

Improve the relevance & ranking of your ads with our best practice documents:

In my next post, I’ll share results from ForSaleByOwner.com.

Thanks!

Kevin, adCenter Marketing Manager

Microsoft adCenter Customer Showcase: Affiliate Marketer, Jeremy Palmer

Fri, 23 Mar 2007 16:11:01 GMT

We are introducing a new regular feature to our Microsoft adCenter blog — adCenter Customer Showcase. Our first showcase is QuitYourDayJob.com. I recently met with Jeremy Palmer, owner of QuitYourDayJob.com, an educational resource site for affiliate marketers. A successful affiliate marketer who recently launched a free Microsoft adCenter webinar, Jeremy shared with me some of his affiliate marketing experiences as well as his recommendations for best practices for both affiliate marketers and SEMs. We hope you enjoy this new feature, and if you are interested in being interviewed, let us know.
Jeanie DuMont, Microsoft adCenter Community Team

Jeanie DuMont (JD): So, tell us how you discovered affiliate marketing and a little bit about your business.
Jeremy Palmer (JP): Well, a few years ago, I was a webmaster at a financial services company, and I was responsible for lots of different things, including programming, maintaining the site, etc. Our company had an affiliate program in which we would pay for leads from our affiliates. I noticed how successful some of our affiliates were and started looking at some of the affiliate websites. I soon realized that affiliate marketing is something that I could try doing myself. So, while I was working at my day job, I started building out affiliate sites. I first focused on building dating sites using some of the online dating industry’s affiliate programs such as Match.com. Within just a few months, I was making as much as my day job. So, soon after, I quit my day job so that I could focus 100% on building out successful affiliate marketing sites.

As I continued to work on my affiliate sites, I decided to start QuitYourDayJob.com so that I could share best practices and help others be successful at affiliate marketing. This site offers people the opportunity to learn how to promote their affiliate sites by using tools such as Microsoft adCenter.

JD: What do you like best about your work and affiliate marketing?
JP: It gives me the freedom and flexibility to work from anywhere and be involved with e-commerce. It’s very compelling.

JD: What are your areas of concentration?
JP: I really follow trends. Right now, I’m focused mostly on online services, such as web hosting, VOIP, and promoting service and software providers.

JD: How do you find the right niche to focus on?
JP: Finding good niches is one of the most important areas for success. If I’m promoting online personals, the lifetime value of the customer or subscriber is more important to the merchant than to the affiliate marketer, and the margins are low. So, I have to find niche keywords and target the long end of the tail. I’m also constantly evaluating the competition, what the keyword bid prices are, and how much search volume is available. I also keep informed by signing up for newsletters, blogs, and other media resources associated with the companies and products that I’m promoting.

JD: How does Microsoft adCenter fit into your business strategy?
JP: I had been advertising with MSN Search [now Live Search—JD] for a long time and was one of the advertisers who participated in the pilot last year. With my affiliate business, I found that I had immediate success with adCenter and I continue to see higher ROI than on the other engines. Two of the things that attract me to adCenter are the consumer demographics and the way that Microsoft users appear to use search and MSN. It seems like they use it as a shopping portal. For QuitYourDayJob.com, I’ve also created a Microsoft adCenter webinar that shares best practices and is written from the perspective of an affiliate marketer. I plan on trying to create a lot more educational videos in the future.

JD: So, Jeremy, just one last question. What three things would you tell other advertisers to help them be successful?
JP: Hmm. There are quite a few things that advertisers and affiliate marketers should focus on, but if I have to narrow it to three… First, match your offer with your landing page. It surprises me that even some ‘big name’ advertisers will bid on very specific search terms and have great ad copy, but the landing page is generic or goes to a generic category page. I just can’t emphasize this point enough—always have a customized landing page that matches your offer. Second, use your display URL for more than just a URL. By using keywords in your display URL, it makes it more relevant. Last but not least, I recommend that advertisers always be specific in the ad copy. If you are promoting a particular ad or service, use your ad copy to qualify visitors. For instance, if you are selling shoes, maybe list the price of a particular shoe brand that matches the keyword search. Or, if you are offering free shipping, include that in your ad copy. This helps set expectations for potential customers. If your product isn’t what they are looking for, they won’t click your ad, thus saving you money. But, if it is what they are looking for, you have a much better chance of a conversion.

JD: Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Jeremy. This has been really helpful.