Google Challenge: documento di post campagna EN

1. Our campaign was focused on getting new users for “3dmansion.it” site, ensued by an increase in the
magazine’s downloads. Aside from a beginning accident (we talked about in on our gomcha blog), we
spent all of our budget away during the three weeks, achieving 32 average clicks per day.
Our client unfortunately didn’t set up those changes to websi e that we strongly suggested for
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usability and search engine optimization. We could just insert a banner in the home page, redirecting
to webzine’s download section. This allowed us to low down the bounce rate form the initial 60% to
the final 49%. Other typical marketing initiatives has not been make possible by the client, so we just
relied on magazine’s content all through the campaign.
1.2 - Key results
We are going to show our results as adwords performance and then as website’s traffic increases.
1.2.1 - Campaign
Regarding campaign, here are the results at the moment of its conclusion, beside with details of
performance for each group of ads.
Clicks 716
Clicks CTR Avg. CPC Cost Impressions
Impressions 642.080 81,75
Ctr 0,11%
TUTORIAL 247 0,08% 2,32$ $ 316.518
Avg Cpc $ 0,25 15,03
Avg Cpm $ 0,28
PROMO 72 0,19% 0,21$ $ 36.288
$
Total cost 181,12 REC. HW 3 0,01% 0,23$ 0,68$ 26.018
90,86
REC. VG 345 0,25% 0,26$ $ 135.701
Most earning ads have been the “videogame” sections’ ones. Amongst these, the best has been:
As most productive keywords we had “3d”, “autocad”,
“animation”. They’re fairly generic, quite expensive too, only
introduced at half of the campaign gone, as we feared to waste
our budget in a too short time and not to reach an interested
target. However the increase of downloads detected after inserting these keywords seems now to
prove their productivity.
Avg Avg
Campaign Ads’ groups Keyword Impressions Clicks CTR cpc Cost position

2. Campagna Recensioni
n. 1 videogames 3d 17714 139 0,78% $0,23 $32,32 3,2
Campagna Recensioni
n. 1 videogames animation 2702 40 1,48% $0,42 $16,65 3
Campagna Recensioni
n. 1 videogames autocad 5942 30 0,50% $0,28 $8,39 5,7
Campagna Recensioni
n. 1 videogames arte 7025 19 0,27% $0,27 $5,11 3,9
Campagna
n. 1 Tutorial disegno 3d 426 14 3,29% $0,25 $3,53 3,1
Campagna Recensioni 3D Studio
n. 1 videogames Max 1229 14 1,14% $0,18 $2,59 1,9
1.2.2 – Site’s traffic
Concerning websites’ traffic, in order to have a reliable comparison, we took into consideration the
three weeks right before campaign, along with the period of the latter:
PERIOD
Pre-campaign Campaign
03/4 – 24/4 25/4 - 16/5 Increase rate
N° total visits 7530 10.315
N° visitors/day 342 469 +37%
Avg time spent 3:24 4:02 +24%
N° inique visitors 2.351 3.597
N° unique visitors/day 106,8 163,5 +53%
N° download pdf 176 349
N° pdf download / day 8 15,86 +98%
N° time slot for comparison (days) 22 22
On the chart you can notice that daily visitors number raised of 37%. The average time spent on the
site has increased too (+24%). It may not be so much, and we think that may depend on the incoming
flow of users from adwords. Infact these visitors are just new and not yet steady exposing the site to
,
more bounces and short surfing. Lastly, we have +53% of unique visitors during campaign time. We
can so state that first goal, traffic improvement, has been reached.
Since the opening of the site (2004) until this time, we have 8.379 magazine’s download (fig. 1 App.).
During three reference weeks, before campaign downloads are 176 (8 avg per day), whereas with
adwords running they go up to 347 (15,86 avg per day), with a 98% increase (App., fig.2). So we feel
safe saying that second goal (incresin webzine’s download) has been reached.
g

3. Following data are up to confirm the achieving of another stated tar et, that is the increasing of
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registered users:
 359 registered users before beginning of campaign
 41 new users signed in (+11,4%)
 400 total members at the end of campaign
Upon the whole three years that site’s been running, the first digit gives 17 average new members
each three weeks. Since we’ve got 41 new members during campaign, that is 24 over the average in
previous term, we also reached our third goal. At a total cost if 181,12$, we have a 7,5$ cost per new
user.
Concerning Analytics, the system suffered a data loss relating period going from 30/4 to 5/5.
Moreover our client removed by mistake the monitoring code from the site, hence we couldn’t use
Google Analytics for a full results comparison with the log file we took from the site’s server.
TRAFFIC SOURCES
BEFORE CAMPAIGN AFTER CAMPAIGN
1. Direct traffic 62,50% 1. Search engines 65,36%
2. Other sites 27,08% 2. Other sites 18,35%
3. Search engines 10,42% 3. Direct traffic 16,29
1.3 - Conclusions
To sum up, we've been able to achieve each of submitted goals:
1. Unique visitors +53%
2. Average time spent on site +24%
3. Magazine's downloads +98%
4. Registered users +10%
5. Cost per new signed user $ 7,5
Adwords instruments strongly helped in juicing up web traffic to the site, as also in raising up
magazine's downloads, leading us to reaching most of suggested goals. Surfing experience still hangs
as a critical point, although we're now sure that users do have interest in “3D Mansion Magazine” as a
product. That being said, and considering:
 reached goals
 product's features,

4.  outstanding usability issues affecting the site
 narrow budget at our disposal
 team's lack of experience in using adwords
we're deeming truly satisfied for campaign's outcoming.
1.4 - Recommendations for your client’s future online marketing
Here are our suggestions as strategic priorities:
 Improve website's usability
 get the site some more lively, mainly through user's hands-on
 enhance contents' categories
 set up partnerships with other players of same industry
 advertising and (users) outlining – website and magazine based ads, aimed to registered and
other trade users.
Here's an account for main incoming pages. Our advice is for the client to focus his attention upon
them:
PAGE VISITORS %
Home page 1116 11.86
La guida di vray 73 0.78
Forum 43 0.46
UBoat U-47 in 3DS Max 41 0.44
Eventi 40 0.43
Newsletter 36 0.38
Here instead are some top outgoing pages (attention also required):
PAGE VISITORS %
Home page 900 9.57
Feed RSS 69 0.73
La guida di vray 64 0.68
Download - Speciali 62 0.66
Downloads 55 0.58
Nuovo numero di 3D Mansion Magazine (10) 50 0.53
Learning component
1. Learning objectives and outcomes

5. Our main target was to learn most useful skills for working with Google adwords. All of us member
of the team judged the experience as qualifying and strongly fitting with our working domains,
enabling us to shift from the simple search-engine experience through the professional advertising
tool. Learning has been both theoretical and practical: first we applied to gain as more instrument's
features, then with campaign running we strove for testing our new knowledge with the real issue of
the client. Especially in this second phase, a steady supervising of campaign performance has been
necessary, so that we could react promptly and forcefully to matters as they little by little started
appearing.
Solutions often required commitment and synergy from the whole team, teachers and client.
2. Group dynamics and client dynamics
The troubles we met during our campaign might be sketched in two categories:
Client's website: Before the beginning of the challenge we had some meeting with our client, turned
to both improve our knowledge of his needs and targets, and to check any problem that could affect
the good outcome of campaign.
We could see outcropping several boundaries through all website, which is still now the unique
distribution channel for our client. That's why we suggested some changes, in particular with
reference to overall usability as well as to some specific sectors (such as forum), in attempt to
enhance appeal and so we hope conversions too.
Here are some of our adivces for modifications:
1. Make stick out login and sign-in feature, pointing up the services available to users
through these operations.
2. Set up a space for hosting users' contents
3. launch some contests
4. provide a blog to users
5. make more functional the download area of the site
6. improve forum's usability and appeal
7. Get graphic's professionals involved, maybe with a dedicated section
It has to be said that against a usability analysis document given by us to client, no changes has been
brought to website during campaign. Lately given access to site, we could just insert a banner into
homepage, telling users to sign in for downloading magazine's pdf.

6. Adwords results (ctr and related issues):
During first step impressions keep raising up at thousands a day, most of all generated by content
network, and giving us a very low ctr. We considered the following strategic options, which will be
examinated closely in the next paragraph:
 use of different ads options
 intervention on ad groups
 use of content network
 choice of several time slots for displaying ads
 raise of bids for keywords
3. The evolution of the campaign strategy
Ads groups, keywords, costs and clicks
In the first place campaign was composed by five ad groups, each of them associated to a specific
kind of magazine's content. Many keywords has been get observing the sort of material present in the
magazine, with also specific names of reported products – e.g.: kind of article “tutorial” + “vray” as
subject: “tutorial vray”. To these we added some keywords derived from an interview with a group of
people operating in graphic industry. The resulting keywords have been submitted to our client for a
last opinion. After that we tested keywords with adwords tool such the traffic estimator and the
keyword one, with first purpose to check if they allowed us to stay into daily budget, complying also
with our wished clicks. For displaying we first set two time slots: 12-15 e 20-23.30, both of them
corresponding to most intense traffic hour on the site.
Search and content network
In the beginning we also activated the content network, at a cpc higher then on search network. For
the latter the cpc has been set dividing the daily budget by the number of click we hoped to get. Since
this amount was fair enough for most of keywords, we had some budget left that we spent setting a
higher bid for content network, as we were also sure that this would have not affected our chance to
get wished clicks.
Negative keywords
3DMansion is a purely informational magazine,so by means of many negative keywords we ruledout
some contexts supposed to come out in users' searches, but anyway irrelevant to si e's activity. Search
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terms including words “prezzo”, “acquista”, “sconto”, “offerta” ecc.. (price, offer, discount, buy and
other trading situations) have been set out to avoid useless impressions.

7. 1st week
During first week we had a very low ctr, mainly because of the impressions generated by three of the
groups: “tutorial”, “videogames” and “cinema”. First two however also gave us a high number of
clicks. So we started working on two sides: in primis testing new keywords, deleting the less
profitable and modifying less clicked ads. On the other hand we noticed that content network was
bringing thousands of impressions for each group, therefore through placement performance reports
we took care of cutting off sites with lowest ctr, or anyway those not generating any click – we
already used in the very beginning adwords' tool for sites and categories exclusion.
2nd week
In the half of the second week we tried to rule out the content network. Our concern in doing this was
far most clicks coming from this network. We finally convinced ourselves because we risked to join
the end of the campaign with a very low ctr. On the first day we understood that this way displaying
and clicks go much more slowly (App., fig. 3, for overall comparison between two networks), so in a
few hours we decided to extend ads' exposure time. Time slots got bigger, becoming now 11-15 and
16-24. In the meantime we kept trying new keywords, also setting on pause two groups: “recensioni
hardware” and “cinema”, given their high impressions and few clicks. Situation for these groups did
not get better on search network, where magazine's content asked for too expensive keywords in our
ads. Anyway overall results has been positive, seeing that compared with first week clicks went down
of just 10%, while impressions decreased ten times then before! Ctr shows remarkable increasing,
going from first week's 0,04% to current 0,43% (App., fig. 5).
3rd week
In the last week we went on trying new keywords in the place of less profitable ones. Ad groups has
been reduced to three, and now to two, having been “pro
mo” suspended too. Clicks increase of nearly
20%, going back to first week rate, while at the same time impressions decrease of 33% - so we now
have a 0,73% ctr (App., fig. 6). This way we proceeded until the end of the campaign, being able to
fix some opening errors and the low ctr caused by the content network.
4. Future recommendations
In case of a new campaign, we'd surely start ruling out content network and getting sure we could
really influence website's dynamics. A lacking web environment, infact, highly decrease the
opportunities given by each click.
Here are some advices for our client, in case he decided to go on with online marketing:
 using users' informations to know better site's target consumers, so to create more precise ads

8. and other initiatives
 exploit site as advertising channel, selling space for ads both on pages and 3D Mansion
Magazine
 partnership with other industry's player, such as link and content trading
 have graphic's professional blogger talking about site and magazine, promoting it around
dedicated circuits
Appendix
Rank Title Downloads
1 3D Mansion Magazine free Numero 6 2990
2 3D Mansion Magazine free Numero 7 880
3 Speciale regali 2007 557
4 3D Mansion Magazine free Numero 5 520
5 3D Mansion Magazine 12 471
6 3D Mansion Magazine free Numero 3 466
7 3D Mansion Magazine free Numero 4 460
8 3D Mansion Magazine free Numero 2 377
9 3D Mansion Magazine 11 368
10 3D Mansion Magazine free Numero 1 331
Fig. 1 - Top 10 download ever

9. Title Downloads
3D Mansion Magazine N°12 65
3D Mansion Magazine N°11 46
3D Mansion Magazine N°10 25
3D Mansion Magazine N°9 17
3D Mansion Magazine N°8 16
3D Mansion Magazine N°7 17
3D Mansion Magazine N°6 14
3D Mansion Magazine N° 5 16
3D Mansion Magazine N°4 10
3D Mansion Magazine N°3 13
3D Mansion Magazine N°2 10
3D Mansion Magazine N°1° 18
3D Mansion Magazine N°0 16
3D Mansion Magazine – Speciale Natale 2007 64
Totale 347
Fig. 2 - Top downloads during all campaign time
clicks ctr avg cpc cost impressions avg. Pos.
TUTORIAL Search network 63 0.84% 0.46$ 28.99$ 7.484 3,3
Content network 192 0.06% 0.28$ 53.05$ 309.034 3
PROMO Search network 60 0.83% 0.21$ 12.41$ 7.162 3,4
Content network 12 0.04% 0.22$ 2.62$ 29.126 4,3
REC. HW Search network 1 0.09% 0.26$ 0.26$ 1.108 2,7
Content network 2 0.00% 0.21$ 0.42$ 24.910 3,9
REC. VG Search network 315 0.73% 0.26$ 83.36$ 42.972 3,7
Content network 30 0.03% 0.26$ 7.75$ 92.729 3,9
CINEMA Search network 13 0.41% 0.20$ 2.54$ 3.149 2
Content network 36 0.02% 0.26$ 9.24$ 125.457 3,6
Fig. 3 – Overall ad groups results at the end of campaign in both search and content networks
Fig. 4 – Account's snapshot for first week

10. Fig. 5 - Account's snapshot for second week
Fig. 6 – Account's snapshot for third week