Post campaign summary report for 2008's google challenge competition. Ten pages for reporting how campaign was performed and the goals the team was able (or not) to achieve during the three weeks of adwords advertising.

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 website that we strongly suggested for
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
Ctr 0,11% TUTORIAL 247 0,08% 2,32$ 81,75$ 316.518
Avg Cpc $ 0,25
PROMO 72 0,19% 0,21$ 15,03$ 36.288
Avg Cpm $ 0,28
$ REC. HW 3 0,01% 0,23$ 0,68$ 26.018
Total cost 181,12
REC. VG 345 0,25% 0,26$ 90,86$ 135.701
CINEMA 49 0,03% 0,24$ 11,78$ 128.606
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.

2. Gruppo di Parola CPC Posizione
Campagna annunci chiave Impressions Clic CTR medio Costo media
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:
PERIODO
Pre-campaign Campaign Tasso di
03/4 – 24/4 25/4 - 16/5 Incremento
N° totale visite 7530 10.315
N° vistatori / giorno 342 469 +37%
Tempo medio di permanenza 3:24 4:02 +24%
N° visitatori unici 2.351 3.597
N° visitatori unici / giorno 106,8 163,5 +53%
N°download pdf 176 349
N°download pdf / giorno 8 15,86 +98%
N° giorni considerati 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

3. 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 (incresing webzine’s download) has been reached.
Following data are up to confirm the achieving of another stated target, that is the increasing of
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.
FONTI DI TRAFFICO
PRIMA DELLA CAMPAGNA DOPO LA CAMPAGNA
1. Traffico diretto 62,50% 1. Motori di ricerca 65,36%
2. Siti di provenienza 27,08% 2. Siti di provenienza 18,35%
3. Motori di ricerca 10,42% 3. Traffico diretto 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

4. Magazine” as a product. That being said, and considering:
 reached goals
 product's features,
 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:
PAGINA VISITATORI %
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):
PAGINA VISITATORI %
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

5. 1. Learning objectives and outcomes
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

6. 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.
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

7. 3DMansion is a purely informational magazine, so by means of many negative keywords we ruled
out some contexts supposed to come out in users' searches, but anyway irrelevant to site's activity.
Search terms including words “prezzo”, “acquista”, “sconto”, “offerta” ecc.. (price, offer, discount,
buy and other trading situations) have been set out to avoid useless impressions.
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 “promo” 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

8. 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 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

9. 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
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

10. Fig. 4 – Account's snapshot for first week
Fig. 5 - Account's snapshot for second week
Fig. 6 – Account's snapshot for third week