SEO & SEM
AD GROUP
I started off with three ad groups, the basic Canon, GoPro Hero, and Panasonic camera. I realised that the amount of impression was not very high as they were below 700 and the clicks were low, so I had to do something about it. So, in Round 2, I added four more ad groups to find out what my customers wanted and once those impressions and clicks came in. The best performing brand was Nikon, hence, I started to look at what Nikon cameras I can sell.
I kept the ad groups consistent throughout the rounds and categorised them by brands. However, in Round 9, I decided to try out something new and redid all my ad groups and I categorised most by camera models instead. Both my CTR and profits dropped from 2.99% to 2.89% and from $36,203 to $35,808 respectively from Round 8 to Round 9. This was a mistake!
Hence, in Round 10, I went to change it back to categorise based on brands and removed the brands that I think wasn’t doing well. In the last round, the ad group that worked best is Nikon with 92,503 impressions and 2,722 clicks.
This was a huge step up in this campaign because when I started, the cameras had very little impressions and clicks, so I thought it was the way I described the cameras or displayed the information in the ads but it was just not the camera that they wanted.
Round 1
Round 2
Round 10
ADS
Round 1
In Round 1, I wasn't sure of what an effective ad was. Hence, I just added words like "Buy", "powerful" and "get". All 3 ads got less than 15 clicks and I only got 1 conversion for each ad. I realised my ad was too general as I did not specify the camera model in the header but ad lands the customer to a specific product. For example, the header of the GoPro Hero advertisement sounds like I am advertising GoPro as a brand itself, however, I directed the customers to the Go Pro Hero 7's landing page instead. Hence, I edited one ad and added more ads in Round 2 hoping to see an improvement my clicks and conversions to earn more revenue.
Round 2
In Round 2, I added 4 more ads to test out what kind of ad would increase the performance of my campaign. I edited the GoPro advertisement to target GoPro Hero 7 and linked it to its landing page and added "Best Deals" to attract customers. My previous results for GoPro in Round 1 was 681, 6 clicks and 1 conversion and it rose to 9,388 impressions, 308 clicks and 20 conversions. This shows that the advertisement should be more specific and should be linked to the right landing page.
Round 9
In Round 9, I changed my ad groups to specific camera models. I decided to create 3 ads for each ad group, which means that I had 3 ads each for each camera model.
Round 10
In Round 10, I optimised my ads further to make sure the keywords in my ads were under my keywords section like "high definition" and "beginners" to relate it to Nikon D5500. I tried to gain traffic by using words like "Sale" and "Best Nikon DSLR". In Round 9, I did not include the "high definition" keyword in the ad and I got 3,605 impressions, 96 clicks, and 5 conversions. However, in Round 10, I added "high definition and the results jumped to 56,000 impressions, 1,698 clicks, and 84 conversions. This shows that having keywords in your ads is very important and allow your ad to become more effective. Also, all the ads that were performing better had a Call To Action such as "Buy Now!" and "Today Only!" and the ads should include the main product information to entice people to click on the ad.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
In creating a good ad
These are the things that I learned to create a good ad. Also, in every round, I would check the insights to see if my keywords were relevant to my ads and if the bid amount was okay. By doing so, I would know if my ad quality is good or bad. If its bad, I would make changes to my ad to ensure that my ad quality would be good.
Add keywords with high searches to increase impressions
Add a Call To Action in ads (e.g Buy Now! Click here to find out more!)
Using Promotion to increase clicks (e.g. Up to $200 off, Black Friday Sale)
Include the the main attractive features of the product in the ads
KEYWORDS
When I started Mimic Pro, I was unsure of what keywords to use, hence I started by adding general keywords like "best 4k camera", "buy go pro", "buy digital camera" in Round 1 hoping that I would attract people. However, I realised that the impressions were low, hence in Round 2, I added more relevant and specific keywords like “Nikon d5500”, “Nikon d5300” and “canon” which had higher searches. By doing that, I managed to increase my ad impressions and clicks which then increased my conversions. However, in round 7, I changed my ads based on each camera model and since I am unable to reuse keywords for different ad groups, my keywords for each ad became lesser. This reduced my conversions as the keywords were too specific.
In round 10, I arranged the adgroup based on brands and different camera models under each ad group. This allowed my to increase my total impressions of my ads and conversions. For example when they key in “Nikon d750” camera, they might receive my ad for the Nikon d5500 models since they are in the same group. This might result them to be interested in the Nikon d5500 camera and purchase it even though they wanted to look for Nikon d750 initially.
Also, throughout the rounds, I made keywords adjustments by observing the conversions of each keywords. I would remove those keywords that are not making any conversions. I made a mistake in round 10 not removing all of the keywords that were not making any conversions as I wanted to try my luck and see
round 1 keywords
round 2 keywords
round 10 keywords
round 1 keywords
BID AMOUNT
When I started Mimic Pro, I created the bid amount based on the suggested bids. I set all of my bids a little higher than the suggested bid for Round 1 to Round 6.
In Round 7, I added new cameras and decided to increase the bid amount for the new cameras, most of my bid amount was $1.50 to $2.00. I thought that bidding at a higher bid would increase the overall performance of my campaign. However, there weren’t any significant changes in my earnings.
I then realised that reducing the bid amount allows me to maximise the profits. Hence, in Round 9 & 10, I decided to reduce my bid amount so that it is near the suggested bid amount.
I can conclude that the bidding amount didn't matter. It was based on the number of searches for the keywords.
CTR
Click Through Rate (Click/Impression)
It is said that a higher click-through rate would be better and help determine if my campaign is successful. However, for me, it wasn't that case. I had some keywords which had high CTR and I made $0 in profits. in Round 10, my highest CTR keyword was Samsung digital profits at 9.09 CTR with 2 clicks, 22 impressions, $0 profit. However, another keyword, Sony only had 2.92 CTR, had 587 clicks and 20,100 impressions and managed to earn $5399.82. This could be because I was bidding too general words or the keywords I used were not relevant to the advertisement.
OPTIMISED LANDING PAGE
On-site SEO
At the start of my Mimic Pro, I did not optimise my landing page fully as I did not add-in Call To Action and the product details were not linked to the advertisements created. I only realised the importance of landing pages in round 9. It was the last point before making the customer purchase, hence, it should include all the product information and good deals to entice them to purchase when they look at the landing page. In Round 10, I made sure that all the ads that I made had an available landing page. And I edited the landing page information, such as changing linked my landing pages to advertise the page title and making sure it is relevant to my ads. I also added a Call To Action like "Click here to buy now!" and using a limited period offer so that they would make the purchase after seeing it. This helped me increase the conversions and I did well in my last campaign.
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION
At the start of my Mimic Pro journey, I didn't realise the importance of landing pages which would determine the buyer's decision to purchase. Hence, I just googled the details of the cameras and added it in for Round 1 to 8.
I only realised the importance of landing pages when I reach Round 9, hence, I made sure all my ads would direct them to the correct page. For example, my ad for Nikon cameras would lead them to Nikon’s landing page and not Sony’s landing page.
When I finished round 9, I wasn’t satisfied with my results as I noticed all these changes created relatively small increases in my clickthrough rates and conversions so I did some research on how to further improve my campaign performance with SEO. I found out that the information on my landing page wasn’t appealing enough. Hence, I analysed the results to see which were the potential cameras that I can push further to increase the profits.
I went to optimise the landing pages for cameras like Sony Cybershot WX80, Nikon D3X and Sony A99 by adding keywords and Call-To-Action. I made sure that if I included “20% discount” or “ Black Friday Sale” in my ads, I would include it in my landing page to make it relevant to the ad to increase conversions as those words might be the reason that lead to the click in the first place. By doing so, I managed to increase the conversion from 306 to 346 even though I managed to increase the number of cameras I was promoting, which helped me to gain more profits.
Thus, I conclude that landing pages are very important as it is the final place customer will see before purchasing the camera. Hence, it is essential to optimise your landing pages to maximise profits.
SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING
At the start of my Mimic Pro journey, I was quite lost, so I just added the keywords. I only noticed the importance of keywords after completing 3 or 4 rounds as the keywords are the ones that brings impressions to my ads. I then chose ads based on the monthly searches hoping that my impressions and clicks would increase. That was one thing I learnt to help me increase my impressions.
As I mentioned above, the amount that I bid did not affect my results greatly. I learnt that I could just bid close to the suggested bid so that I could spend the remaining amount to maximise profits.
I learnt from Google Ads Search Skillshop that I should have at least 3 ads per ad group, which I thought didn’t really help at first because I did it in Round 9 and I created 3 ads for every product I was promoting. It was a mistake! I spent the whole entire day doing it and my profits decreased. I then realise I couldn’t reuse the keywords in different ad groups.
It’s the last round! I got to make sure I do this properly, if I change everything, my profits would drop even more. However, I took the risk and redo everything. I changed my ad groups to the brand itself and I had to redo the ads. I paused more than 20 ads in round 10 and for my keywords, I used as many keywords that are related to the ad groups. For example, for the Nikon ad group, I had 4 ads, one for the Nikon brand, Nikon D3x, Nikon D5500 and Nikon D5300 each. I added keywords like “Nikon D750”, “Nikon D5200” which I didn’t promote but was similar to the ad group and I gained profits from there. I earned $1,372 from the “Nikon D750” keyword. Hence, this taught me that I should add keywords that are similar to the ad group like different camera models under the same brand to maximise my profits.
In conclusion, SEM plays a huge part in a marketing campaign as it is the part that drives traffic to the website which leads to conversions. During my Mimic Pro journey, Google Ads Search played a part in teaching me how to create an effective ad and optimise ad. Thus, I was able to further improve my ads which is why I managed to gain the highest profits during my last round.
CONCLUSION
Search Engine Optimisation and Search Engine Marketing plays a huge role in the campaign as it drives traffic and brings revenue to the company. Both SEO and SEM have to work together, from coming out with keywords, choosing the bid amount, creating an effective ad leading to the landing page for a complete buyer’s journey, which is 1 conversion. I linked SEO & SEM together to create a message match. After doing so, the performance of my overall campaign in round 10 improved. Hence, SEO & SEM is very crucial in a marketing campaign.