About the Google Content Network
The Google content network comprises millions of high-quality websites, news pages, and blogs that partner with Google to display targeted AdWords ads. By choosing to advertise on the content network, you can expand your marketing reach to targeted audiences – and potential customers – visiting these sites every day. There’s no larger network for contextual advertising in the world. For more information, visit www.adwords.google.com/select/afc.html.
Golf Smith
Paid Search and Marketing Analyst for Golfsmith
Who they are:
- Over 70 superstores across the US
- Online storefront
- Golf and tennis equipment and apparel
What they needed:
- To promote local stores online
- To build on the success of their Google AdWords campaign
What they did:
- Added Google local business ads to their existing Google AdWords campaigns
- Created local business ads for each of their 70+ storefronts
- Promoted their store locations onGoogle Maps and Google.com
What they accomplished:
- Increased overall AdWords impressions and clicks
- Achieved over 6% click-through rates on their local business ads
- Drove new customers to local stores while maintaining online conversions
Google Analytics Case Studies
By using Google local business ads to promote their 70+ store locations on Google Maps and Google, Golfsmith built on their search marketing success, driving more visits to their stores and more clicks on their website.
Innovation on the links and on the web
Throughout their 40+ years in operation, Golfsmith has grown to become a leader in the specialty golf retail space through a spirit of continuous innovation. That innovation remains as an essential part of the company’s DNA. It shows in their 70+ (and growing) stores, which provide Golfsmith “Guests” with hightech playgrounds in which to learn about and try out new equipment. It shows in a sophisticated, aggressive approach to integrating web-based, store-based, and print catalog experiences. Innovation also shows in Golfsmith’s embrace of Google AdWords and Google local business ads to reach potential customers on the web.
Golfsmith and Google get local
As Paid Search and Marketing Analyst for Golfsmith, Dillon Smith knows that Google AdWords is a valuable part of his online marketing tool kit. For example, Smith can create an ad, or sponsored link, to appear when a Google user searches for “new golf clubs.” Golfsmith only pays if someone clicks on their ad, and online tools easily track the company’s return-on-investment. Smith knew Google AdWords was driving sales to the Golfsmith online store, but he had another question: What about our store locations? Can Google help us bring customers to our physical stores as well as our virtual one? .
That’s when Smith discovered Google local business ads, a unique type of AdWords ad designed just for storefront locations. Smith created local business ads for all of Golfsmith’s 70+ global locations. That way, when people search Google Maps for golf-related terms, they can see Golfsmith ads for nearby locations. Not only does each of these ads include an address and phone number, but Golfsmith’s customized logo and photo also appear right on the map. And Golfsmith still pays only when someone clicks through to their website.
Local business ads also help Golfsmith reach local customers on Google.com and Google’s network of partner websites. That’s because a text-only version of the ads can appear to Google users who are near a Golfsmith store location (as identifi ed by their computer’s Internet Protocol address) or to users who enter a local search like “Palo Alto golf stores”.
Going for the green
Local business ads have been a hit at Golfsmith. Says Dillon Smith: “Local business ads are useful in multiple ways – yes, they’re going to drive traffi c to our site. On top of that, they’re one more way to say, ‘Hey, we have a store right around the corner from you.’ We’ve found them to be a tremendously useful way to drive traffic to our brick-and-mortar locations.”
Smith and his team don’t see local business ads replacing their regular AdWords ads, which continue to promote their online storefront. Instead, they attract a different kind of prospect: one searching online, but ready to browse or buy in person. The Golfsmith team created their local business ads with just these customers in mind, including ad copy such as “Order Online, Pick up in Store!” The strategy has paid off. “We’ve seen a steady increase of both ad impressions and clicks,” says Smith. Indeed, Golfsmith’s local business ads have achieved clickthrough rates – that is, the percentage of viewers who ultimately click the ad – of upwards of 6%.
A hole-in-one (sorry, we couldn’t help ourselves)
Thanks to the strong customer response, local business ads have become an established part of Golfsmith’s search marketing strategy. Smith mentions another advantage, too: ease-of-use. The Golfsmith search marketing team can promote store locations across the country with a single Google AdWords campaign. They can apply the same ad text to all locations, or try different messages in different regions. All in all, local business ads are an “easy to implement and effective cross-channel marketing solution.” “Local business ads have built on our overall great results from AdWords,” summarizes Smith, “by increasing ad exposure and promoting our individual stores.”
Aeria Games & Entertainment
Chief Marketing Officer, Aeria
The Gaming Community Site
Gaming community site Aeria Games derives over 35% of their conversions from image ads on MySpace and other social media sites in the Google content network
Let the Games Begin!
Started in late 2006, AeriaGames.com is not only a free-to-play massively multiplayer online (MMO) gaming site but also a community that connects both regular and casual gamers. In the past 2 years, Aeria Games has released five Free-to-Play MMO games and licensedthem for North America, including competitive racing game Project Torque, anime role-playing game Dream of Mirror, and fantasy game Shaiya, which was voted one of China’s
most anticipated games in 2006 by Chinese gaming portal 17173.com.
Level One
When Aeria Games first launched their site, they looked to Google Search to reach users looking for interactive online games. “It wasn’t long before we decided to try the Google content network,” says JT Nguyen, Chief Marketing Offi cer at Aeria. “We really wanted to connect with users browsing the web and looking for interactive content online, and what ultimately drew us to the content network was the ability to run display ads, which offered more fl exibility for creative and appealing campaigns.” Starting with contextual targeting, JT and his team trusted Google’s technology to place their ads on relevant pages in the content network. “To optimize our contextually-targeted campaigns and drive more user registrations on our site, we needed to understand which sites were driving valuable traffic and which ones weren’t meeting ROI goals, so we began running Placement Performance Reports,” explains JT. These reports, found in the AdWords Report Center, provide site-by-site
performance metrics for all content network campaigns, and can be a great resource for figuring out which sites to exclude and which ones to target more aggressively.
to figure out exactly what works to drive conversions and where.”
Developing a Social Strategy
“When we fi rst considered putting our message on social networking sites to promote Dream of Mirror Online, an anime-style role-playing game, we were a bit skeptical. We understand how engaging these sites can be and how many things compete for users’ attention, but given the social nature of our games, we thought we’d give it a try.” JT expected social networking sites like MySpace to perform on par with search and the rest of the sites in the content network.
“We decided to kick off our social media campaign with text ads on MySpace,” explains JT, “but we were seeing very low conversion rates and an extremely high cost-per-conversion.” The team decided to try out image ads to give users a visual representation of Dream of Mirror and to more effectively engage with them on these sites. “Text ads simply didn’t do justice to multiplayer games.” When JT re-ran the Placement Performance Report and looked at the results, he was shocked to see that MySpace was actually delivering the majority of conversions.
Tips and Tricks
By switching to image ads, Aeria Games saw a 2000% increase in conversions and a decrease of over 90% in cost-per-conversion. MySpace, YouTube, and IMVU.com are some of Aeria Games’ best performing sites. Together, they’ve delivered over 10,000 conversions over 3 months for the Dream of Mirror campaign, averaging conversion rates of approximately 10% and cost-per-conversions of a less than a dollar. According to JT, there are definitely some best practices when it comes to creating display ads on social networking sites. He advises to use as little text as possible, grab the user’s attention with visually appealing creatives, and emphasize the fun and social nature of your site, product, or service. Since MySpace and YouTube users value interaction, it’s important to have a clear call-to-action around the type of engagement you can offer them on your site.
No contest
“Hands down, sites like MySpace and YouTube have had a much higher conversion rate for us and at a lower cost per conversion than any other site we’ve been on.” Tools like the Placement Performance Report have proved invaluable in understanding and optimizing Aeria Games’ campaigns on the content network and have also exposed that social media sites, like GaiaOnline.com and IMVU, are yielding good results. “With Google, we can really slice and dice and go down to the site level to figure out exactly what works to drive conversions and where.” Furthermore, Aeria Games has its own proprietary reporting tools that provide visibility into how much money users are spending on their site and which site they came originally came from when registering. “We’ve found that users coming from social networking sites spend quite a bit of money in our games by purchasing virtual items and engaging in microtransactions while they’re playing to improve their ingame experience.”
Playing to Win
“We currently have over two million members in our gaming community,” JT says proudly. “About 25% of them are 30-day actives who spend around 20 to 30 hours a week playing our games online.” As Aeria Games’ community continues to grow, so do their plans to work with Google. “We are astonished at the vast set of tools that Google provides for creating, maintaining, and optimizing our campaigns. In the near future, we plan to expand our placement targeted campaign and start our video ad and newspaper campaigns.”
