1. Background
UK based eCommerce business selling personal care products (deodorants, soaps, antiperspirants, hand creams, etc) but with no real revenue yet. This company has never used Google Ads to drive traffic to their website. They were getting some clicks from organic search and social media but the number of visitors was relatively small. Google Ads was seen as a way to boost traffic to the e-shop and start selling online. Therefore, they have contacted me to discuss about it. After a couple of calls, I had enough information to prepare a plan. It was sent within a few days.
Then we had a call again so that I can walk them through the plan and explain the advertising strategy. The plan was approved at the end of the call and I have started working on the campaigns the very next day.
2. Objective
The manager at this UK eCommerce business was a bit nervous about trying Google Ads because they have never used it before. There were some doubts that it can be effective but at the same time, he wanted to test it and see if it works. The main objective was to make sales.
3. Strategy
To meet the objective I have implemented campaigns in 3 different phases:
Phase 1: Google Shopping to show product listings on Google Search results’ page, often above organic search results at the very top. The campaign was launched first as it usually has the most potential to bring sales fast. Plus, the settings for this campaign are half-automatic. The setup that is required to make it work takes some time but after that usually only maintenance and small adjustments are required.
Phase 2: Remarketing to re-target people who have visited the website before and performed or did not perform a specific action on the website. This campaign went live next. It was targeting all previous visitors who have visited the product pages but did not purchase.
Phase 3: Google Search to target specific search phrases that people may use to find products that the business is selling. This campaign was the last to launch as it required the most work. Additional keyword research allowed me to organize the campaign into different ad groups. Those ad groups had their own set of keywords and ad copies.
Plus, before the campaigns went live I have implemented conversion tracking in Google Ads and eCommerce tracking in Google Analytics which allowed me and the client to get a better understanding of campaigns’ effectiveness. In Google Ads the client was able to see not only the number of conversions but also the total revenue that each sale made.
4. Results
Results after the first 30 days:
** conversion – a sale of a product/single transaction;
- The conversion rate was a whopping 10.27%
- The Return On Ad Spend (ROAS) was 291%
Results after 60 days:
- The second month was even better. The Cost per Conversion has slightly increased but it was compensated by the increase in overall revenue which grew by £6,100 and reached a total of £8,380 in just two months.
- Conversions increased from 114 to 488.
- The average conversion rate has dropped from 10.27% to 6.28% but it was still a very good eCommerce conversion rate. It could have been better but it was brought down by various tests that I implemented. Some of them worked and benefited the account during the coming months. Some of them did not which in turn has affected the average conversion rate for the whole account.
Summary
All in all, the overall setup worked really well. From zero presence on Google, the client went on making hundreds of sales and several thousands in revenue in just 60 days. These Google Ads campaigns delivered better results than the client has anticipated. The company became much less dependent on other traffic sources.