Shoes.com cuts staff time, boosts keyword returns with search automation

Internet shoe retailer Shoes.com was able to cut the manual labor needed to manage keyword campaigns on multiple search engines while lowering its cost of sale with a suite of online marketing tools from Go Toast, the applications provider says.

Prior to implementing BidManager, ProfitBuilder, and other management applications in the product suite, Shoes.com was spending up to three hours a day to manually monitor and update bids on hundreds of keywords. Today, it’s cut that time to about one hour a day, aided by the single interface Go Toast provides for viewing all campaigns.

In addition, a rules-based bidding feature in the new applications helped the online retailer lower its keyword spending while driving higher results by automating bidding to parameters that worked best for its business. For example, Shoes.com had previously maintained high bid rates on key engines throughout nighttime hours in the U.S., when most online shoppers are browsing from ex-U.S. locations. Because Shoes.com does not ship outside the country, however, they were paying high rates for many unqualified nighttime shoppers. Go Toast`s BidManager application now adjusts bids to maintain optimal positions during the hours most important to its U.S. audience and lowers bids when those customers are less likely to be online.

Greater efficiencies in managing keywords on pay-per-click engines not only decreased staff time required to manage the campaigns, but decreased Shoes.com’s cost per sale ratio from 40% to 20%, Meanwhile, with tighter campaign management, revenue driven from pay-per-click keywords has more than tripled, while Shoes.com has increased its keyword spending by only 30%. Without significantly increasing overhead or staffing costs, Shoes.com has been able to double the number of ad outlets it uses by using Go Toast’s automated applications, the company says.