Sayu reduced Admits cost per click and increased traffic

After working with Sayu for just 30 days, ADMIT Services Ltd has seen their Cost per Click (CPC) reduced by 22% and the number of clicks increased by 28%.

ADMIT wasn't unhappy with their Google adwords campaigns prior to handing over their management to Sayu, but they were not sure that they were getting the best possible return for the money they were spending. "I knew we were getting clients by advertising on Google but I wasn't able to devote enough time to the Google campaigns nor did I fully understand how to optimise my adwords campaigns" says Keith Burns, Managing Director of ADMIT Services, "We are experts in helping people find the right rehab clinic - what we are not is Internet advertising experts"

Prior to Sayu getting involved ADMIT had approximately 50 keywords, their ads were usually in the top three results and they were paying around £1 per click.

"After analyzing ADMIT's adwords account we were confident that within our 30-day free trial period we could increase the number of clicks and reduce the cost per click" said Dr Gerda Arts, Head Data Analyst at Sayu.

"During the free trial we expanded the keyword list, separated keywords into different adgroups and modified bids to get more traffic at the set daily budget."

Keyword expansion

The keywords used before we started the trial were very general, like 'rehabilitation', 'rehab', 'drug rehab', 'alcohol detox'. We expanded the keyword list by using these terms in combination with 'treatment', 'clinic(s)', 'centre(s)', 'UK' and others.

In addition we separated the keywords into three groups, one adgroup for keywords containing alcohol related keywords, one for keywords containing drug related keywords, and one for general keywords, without the term drug or alcohol.

By expanding the keyword list (to around 1500 keywords) we were able to set an appropriate bid for each keyword phrase. In other words, rather than only having one bid for the keyword 'rehab' (with varying positions depending on the actual search), we could set different bids for 'rehab', 'rehab UK', 'rehab clinics', etc.

The optimal bid amount for a keyword depends greatly on what the click through rate (CTR) is for that particular ad. By carefully tracking the ad we can monitor the CTR rate accurately. If the CTR is sufficient it is possible to reduce the CPC without an ad dropping many positions. This was the case with ADMIT. By bidding on specific keywords where the CTR is high and the CPC is low we have been able to reduce the overall CPC by 22% and get 28% more clicks for the same daily budget.

Many of our clients have a limited daily advertising budget for Google, which often is fully spent. In this case lowering the CPC usually results in more traffic at the same daily budget. This was the case with ADMIT Services. Their daily budget was often reached by the early afternoon and their ads stopped showing. It's worth noting that although Google say they will spread the budget over the whole day, our experience is that this rarely happens in practice. Having lowered the CPCs we have been able to get more traffic for the same daily budget.

After the initial trial ADMIT decided to continue using Sayu to manage their adwords campaigns.

Subsequently Sayu created new campaigns to advertise in other countries and set up conversion tracking.

Measuring results

We are tracking traffic to ADMIT's website, and record all visitors that complete an enquiry form. This conversion tracking helps us determine which keywords are converting well and we use that information to modify bids accordingly.

The actual keyword phrase the visitor types in when they search Google is also recorded. This information is used to find negative keywords that can be applied to the account. The use of negative keywords avoids traffic that is not relevant to ADMIT's offering. In addition this actual keyword information is used to determine new words that can be added to the campaign.

"For example, with the conversion tracking we discovered there were many searches for the services in London, Wales and Essex. We therefore created new adgroups for each of these locations, with a targeted ad text mentioning the Location. The CTR for these location specific adgroups is around 40% higher than for the general adgroups. We also found people were looking for free rehab services. As ADMIT only provides help in finding private clinics, their website is irrelevant to people looking for free services. We therefore included 'free' as a negative keyword to avoid this kind of traffic."

Conclusion

In summary during the initial phase Sayu have achieved the following:

• During a 30-day free trial period the CPC has been reduced by 22% yet advert position and CTR has only dropped slightly. Following the free trial period Sayu have reduced the CPC by a further 10%
• At the limited daily budget, the reduced CPC implied an increase in visitors of 28%
• Added conversion tracking, which resulted in new keywords and information useful to determine optimal bids for maximum revenues
• Added new campaigns to advertise services in other countries

Ongoing monitoring, modification and control will ensure that ADMIT services Ltd. maintains this improvement and hopefully increases returns over the coming months.