Google Online Marketing Challenge

Post Campaign Report

Executive Summary
So Delhi.com is a one stop portal for all information pertaining to New Delhi, the capital
city of India. Since there has been an enormous increase in similar information providing
web portals, the primary aim of the campaign was to increase brand awareness. Keeping
this in mind 7 campaigns pertaining to different search areas such as travel, food, tours,
events, etc. were created. Keywords related to the vast variety of structured information
which the portal contained were shortlisted based on trend studies and estimated search
potential. The major challenge faced was to optimize keywords keeping in mind the daily
budget constraints. To face this challenge, a systematic approach consisting of three steps:
Planning, Execution & Monitoring and Optimization was followed. The campaign
succeeded in generating close to a hundred thousand impressions. The number of clicks
obtained were 1,581.



Among the 7 campaigns, we included 2 innovative campaigns focused on trending topics,
such as the IPL and Delhi Events. It was observed that these campaigns performed better
than the others. Hence, we recommend to include more recent content in the portal as
blogposts or articles. Also, considering the competition and future goals, it is highly
recommended to continue using AdWords to further increase brand awareness. Further
innovation in targeting or execution strategies like adopting a period based priority model
can help achieve better results.
As a team, we had put in our best effort in understanding the AdWords tool and also built a
process to effectively manage changes. We are satisfied with the outcomes, and believe that
we have achieved targeted client goals. Overall, the learning experience was unique, and
has left us reflecting.

7
1,581
97,369
Impressions
Clicks
Campaigns
Impressions




Industry Component
So delhi.com contains well-structured information pertaining to Delhi, the capital of India.
Its database of travel information, shopping, hotels, etc. comprehensively encompass most
of the traveller information needs. However, recent increases in user generated content
based (niche) sites like zomato (for food) or travelguru (for travel) have shifted focus from
contain-it-all sites to niche sites. Hence, the objective of the campaign focussed on
increasing brand awareness of Sodelhi.com so that sodelhi.com is referred to by people
querying for Delhi based information. The queries pertaining to information in the site
would be higher in number due to the holiday season in India during summer, thus
providing considerable traffic for brand awareness.
Brand awareness can be increased by:
1. Increasing visibility in search results
2. Increase in incoming site traffic
3. Increase in user engagement within site
Our Campaigns were directed towards maximizing reach, i.e. leverage the full search
potential to generate maximum impressions and CTR. The strategy followed here:

Planning
We Categorized information in the website and mapped them to popular keywords with
established search behaviour. This was done using tools like Google trends and Adwords
Keyword tool. We wished to capitalize on high traffic & relevant keywords to increase site
visits, and hence brand awareness.
Planning
Execution &
Monitoring
Optimization



Thus, the optimized set of keywords (campaigns) had to be created. Based on the
information category, we ran the following campaigns simultaneously

The planning initially included fewer campaigns with multiple ad groups, but we discovered
that monitoring is easier and quicker if campaigns were created in the above manner.
Innovative Strategies in Campaign Planning
We also planned to drive traffic to the website from relative search keywords, which were
trending at that time in Delhi. For example, since IPL was a major event in India during the
campaign period, we drove related search traffic of IPL keywords mapped to relevant
information in the website. Also, we leveraged other useful tools that Adwords offered us,
such as our Best of Delhi Ad which used the user input as keywords to drive traffic to the
website. The website comprehensive information scope provided us the bandwidth to
strategize innovatively.
Executed innovative strategies - ads snapshots

Execution & Monitoring
We set up rigorous monitoring schedules to better analyse daily outcomes. The Campaigns
were executed simultaneously for the entire period to capture maximum possible search
impressions. Targeting was optimized to reach the right audience. While certain campaigns
like dine and shopping (more relevant to Delhi Audiences) were targeted specifically for
Delhi & NCR (National Capital Region), others with a more generic search intent (e.g. see
& do) were targeted at whole of India.



Keyword Optimization
Optimizing the keywords to achieve stable CTR rates while controlling the costs was a
major task. We managed to control escalating costs by pausing/deleting keywords, and
optimizing bid amount. The graph below shows a stability in costs (for all campaigns) after
initial spike in cost. This stability was achieved by our optimization techniques.

Weekly optimization techniques
Week-1: Objective: Branding & Visibility
The campaign was started with 5 broad
categories which are relevant to the people of
Delhi. Auto Bidding was used in the first week
to understand search behaviour and
performance of the keywords. We were able to
achieve more impressions than we planned in
the first week itself.
Week 2: Objective: Increase CTR
All the non performing keywords with a low
CTR were paused in order to effectively
increase the clicks and thus improve CTR
while optimising the budgets. New relevant
Ads & Ad groups were introduced. The CTR
successfully increased by more than 100%.
Week 3: Objective: Increase impressions while
maintaining a decent CTR. Since we had
almost achieved our targets, the focus now was
to gain maximum visibility in the remaining
budget. Thus all campaigns were optimised
accordingly.
Week 1 Timeline
Creating Ad groups
Adding additional Keywords
Week 2 Timeline
Adding Template Ads
Refining Text in Ad Groups
Changes in CPC
Refining Budgets Campaign Wise
Week 3 Timeline
Refining Budget Amount at Campaign Level
Pausing low Performing High Cost Keywords
CPC Changes
Analysing stability



Key Results
Since, we goal was to increase the brand awareness, we targeted an average of 500
impressions per ad group per week (approx. 30,000 totally) with an average expectation of
4% CTR.
We managed to exceed the expectations set, and achieved a total of 97,369 impressions
with 1,581 clicks.
Impressions
Achieved (Total)
Impressions
Targeted (Total)
Change
97369 30000 224.57%

Each of our Campaigns exceeded the CTR expectations, thanks to our plan-monitor-
optimize model.
Information Type Campaign Target CTR Max. CTR
Achieved*
Events in Delhi

Events 2.53%
Things to do in
Delhi
See & Do 3.52%
Shopping in
Delhi
Shopping 2.48%
Eating out in
Delhi
Dine in Delhi 1.50%
Tours &
getaways
4.69%
Ongoing Event
driving Search
traffic #2
Trending 5.00%
Ongoing Event
driving Search
traffic #1
IPL 6.10%
*Max. CTR Achieved during the campaign window
Clicks Achieved Clicks Targeted
(4% on 30,000 impressions )
Change
1581 1200 31.75%



Conclusions & Recommendations
We believe that near to a hundred thousand targeted impressions would certainly increase
brand awareness. Thanks to the campaign, there has been an increase in the number of site
visits. As mentioned before, our competitors majorly include user generated content
websites (e.g zomato) pertaining to a specific area (like food in the case of zomato), thus
making it easier for them to optimize with lesser keywords and higher bid for the same
amount. Since SoDelhi.com has a vast amount of information encompassing several search
behaviours or areas, prioritizing with an optimized basket of keywords is one of the key
techniques to successful campaigns. During the course of the campaign, we realized that
trending events like that of IPL gave better performance than generic search areas like dine
in or tours. (Max CTR of 6.1% for IPL vs.1.50% for dine in). Since SoDelhi.com has
articles and blogposts uploaded on a regular basis, we recommend them to update content
on trending events or topics, and map those pages to relevant keywords in the adwords tool.
The Website contains very good content, and a correctly targeted user is bound to visit
multiple pages and spend more time per page. Hence, targeting should be done innovatively
(e.g. tour based Ads to traveling people by displaying in mobile/tablets). Another Strategy
that can be used is the period wise targeting model. Here, A
particular campaigns can be given priority for a given period, after
which other campaign can be given. However, We felt that 3 weeks
was a shorter time duration to test this model. We also tried a hand
at the display network but due to low CTR potential, we did not focus on the same.
SoDelhi.com also plans to include new functionality to the website in the forthcoming
months. To further popularize the same, it is highly recommended to continue using
Adwords.









Learning Component
The GOMC Ecosystem
Our team was new to the GOMC Ecosystem, but we understood the dynamics of the system
through inputs from our professor and through secondary research sources. We understood
that we needed to apply concepts learned in the marketing course and drive positive results.
We are very thankful of this opportunity, which has left us longing to understand more and
in depth.
Key learnings while planning
Mapping online behaviours to keywords was a new challenge. We understood the
requirements of digital personas and their online behaviour to come with optimized set of
keywords. We realized that satisfying intent is a need, which can be sufficed by matched
content or creative engrossing related content. Once the campaigns were created, we
provided near equal budgets to all, which we learned was not optimal; since optimized daily
budgets of ad groups are to be taken into consideration before allotting a cap to the
campaign budget. We found that a bottom up approach in budget allocation proved more
effective.
Group Dynamics & Effective Collaboration
Post creation, continuous monitoring was a challenge, since the team members had to take
time off their schedules filled with academic requirements. However, we effectively
managed our schedules by taking turns, and brainstorming whenever necessary. We
informed each other of the slightest change, and considered all teammate suggestions.
Maintaining a healthy client relationship
Our initial dealings with the client, the marketing manager of SoDelhi.com involved
understanding the business needs and operating models. Subsequent meetings focused on
goals and strategies to achieve them. Understanding the exact client need and mapping the
same to a goal in the digital world was a key takeaway in the process.