How we increased Shoe Zone’s AdWords ROI by 196% in just one month

Today, we’ll show you step-by-step how Limelight Digital helped Shoe Zone plc to achieve the best AdWords returns in its history.

Online shoe retail is a highly competitive space. Large shoe retailers bid against each other to appear at the top of Google’s popular searches for specific phrases. Direct competitors for Shoe Zone’s search phrases include; Asda, Debenhams, Next, Schuh, Monsoon and many more. Each company has to carefully manage their advertising spend to ensure it provides a strong ROI.

This is a common situation for many of our clients at Limelight Digital We use all our experience and knowledge (as accredited Google Partners) to find the best solution.

In this case study, we’ll show you EXACTLY how we achieved an increased ROI by 196%, step-by-step.

So, how did Limelight Digital almost double Shoe Zone’s AdWords ROI in November 2015?

In June 2015, Shoe Zone’s AdWords were converting at 2 x ROI, essentially this means that for every £1 of Google advertising cost, Shoe Zone made £2 in additional revenue.

Shoe Zone calculated that to achieve financial targets it required a 3 x ROI. In this competitive space, that level of increase is not an easy challenge.

Using our expertise, in November we tripled the 2 x ROI they were typically achieving, increasing it to a 6 x ROI. The client was, of course, thrilled.

And here’s how we did it….

Step 1 - Identify the best placement for adverts

From June to October we optimised adverts in the highly competitive bidding at the top of search results. We saw month on month small gains by doing this.

However, the huge stepped change (196% in one month) occurred in November, so what did we do?

We identified Google’s Shopping campaigns as a more appropriate placement, with the following benefits:

• Lower cost per click
• An image of the shoes appears in search results
• A higher conversion rate to buy (once visitors land on the website)

Here’s an example of how Google’s Shopping adverts appear:

Step 2 - Optimise keywords for campaigns

Google Shopping campaigns work quite differently from normal AdWords campaigns. Normally, we define the keywords to target and write our own titles and descriptions for the adverts. However, Google Shopping automatically selects product titles and descriptions directly from the website. In theory, this should make it easier to set up.

However, to maximise ROI, product titles and descriptions must be re-written to appear in search results and increase website conversion.

To achieve this we worked closely with Shoe Zone to edit custom labels to create helpful descriptions which are in line with how their target audience search and buy.

Here’s an example of the finished advert - all content is provided from the product titles and description information, hosted on the Shoe Zone website.

Step 3 - Targeting a specific audience

Shoe Zone has over 10,000 SKU’s on its website, we are able to target specific shoe types to maximise ROI. To achieve this, we replicated the website structure into the product feed so we can filter what we are targeting down to individual product types.

Filters include:

• gender
• types of shoes
• season
• limited stock/ plenty of stock
• in sale/ not in sale
• increase conversion rate

We can also filter out certain SKU’s. For example, if the product is flagged as ‘limited distribution’. This ensures Shoe Zone does not waste marketing spend on SKU’s that are unavailable.

Conclusion

By optimising Google Shopping campaigns we were able to almost double Shoe Zone’s ROI in just one month.

This case study requires the following health warning:

Not all e-commerce websites respond to Google Shopping in the same way, but with our skill and experience, you will see improvements.

We’ve been in the digital marketing industry for long enough to know that all businesses are unique and need bespoke solutions.

Unlike most agencies, Limelight Digital spends time to continually optimising AdWords accounts to achieve business objectives. As accredited Google Partners we learn about new Google products before the majority of other agencies and have a superb team of qualified Google professionals on hand to work closely with you through every step of the campaign.

If you are interested in taking your PPC account to the next level, call the team on 01509 631 136 or email [email protected] and let’s chat about your ambitions and how we can help.