Improving e-commerce marketing

ConRes Test Equipment, a division of ConRes IT Solutions, is one of the founders of the test equipment rental industry. For more than 60 years, the business has both sold and rented test equipment used for standards, technical, and industrial testing across aerospace, automative, education, and other industries.

A Problem with Paid Searches

ConRes Test Equipment, a division of ConRes, Inc., believed their existing agency-run paid search advertising campaign was neither cost-efficient nor effective in promoting their high-margin offerings. Therefore, they employed Sudden Impact Marketing with the task of implementing a new paid search campaign with a focus on individual product groups for success via impressions, click-through and conversion rates, cost per conversion, and other key metrics.

This analysis revealed that ConRes Test Equipment was routinely being outbid for critical keywords. In terms of conversion rate, ConRes Test Equipment experienced success with a Dynamic Search Campaign; however, most of their conversions were for low-profit products that did not provide a strong return on their keyword investments. Additionally, their previous advertising agency had been running ads over weekends—a strategy that was not supported by weekend conversion rates.

Setting the state for optimal results

The success of any paid search campaign is highly dependent on the quality and efficiency of the site that is being promoted. In our experience, sites and landing pages that are maximized for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will see significant improvement in their organic search results while also maximizing the results of their paid search campaigns. Therefore, we utilized a dedicated team of specialists to focus exclusively on improving SEO for ConResTestEquipment.com. This work incorporated SEO analytical applications to determine the most effective revisions to existing site content. We also focused on improving meta descriptions for optimized tagging, and adding quality backlinks to improve the overall SEO score for the site.

Shifting the focus

Our analysis revealed key issues in the ad-spending strategy as well as important actions for the client to take. Dynamic Search Campaigns require up-to-date website information to create responsive search ads. Accordingly, ConRes Test Equipment made it a priority to continually maintain their site, and we added further safeguards against the possibility of promoting low-profit products.

We also developed new ads to highlight the benefits of the higher-priority products, along with eliminating geographic areas of the country that had click-through performance but failed to increase lead conversion. This allowed ConRes Test Equipment to redistribute their ad-spending to areas of success. Furthermore, we stopped all weekend spending while simultaneously adjusting the budget to focus on specific product lines for each paid search platform.

Results

Short-Term: Without any increase in ad-spending, ConRes Test Equipment experienced an 18.8% increase in conversions for their higher-priority products. This result was supported by a 10-20% across-the board increase in ad optimization scores.

Long-Term: Due to the success of our revised Dynamic Search Campaign, ConRes Test Equipment has adjusted their ad-spending over the past two years. This has led to an expansion of new marketing channels via email and event-based marketing that has allowed Sudden Impact Marketing to develop and strengthen a lead database. We have continued monitoring KPI data, competitive factors, keyword bidding, and conversion success.

Continued Monitoring

Dynamic Search Campaigns are not a “set it and forget it” paid search method, which means that client campaigns require constant monitoring—not just the routine checking of performance analytics. To optimize paid search campaigns, agencies must account for changes in competitor approaches as well as the fact that successful keywords and search terms are liable to change from month to month.

As Sudden Impact Marketing continues to work closer with ConRes Test Equipment, we will develop an even stronger understanding of their target audience to better adjust ad copy, imagery, and keyword bidding. This will help us to continue to optimize ad-spending as we continue to highlight unique and defendable client offerings. Finally, long-term work with ConRes Test Equipment’s paid searches will allow us to target specific geographic locations more effectively by either excluding or hyper-focusing on specific areas.

Audience

Target Audience by Title: Electric Engineers, Engineering Professors, Mid-Level Building and Construction, and Manufacturing Executives.

Industry Targets: Education Sector, Aerospace and Defense, Auto Manufacturing, Industrial, Government and Regulatory, and Cell and Wireless.