Online ads that don’t make the cash register ring
“Home decorating” is a concept that could include the purchase of lamps and fixtures, but as a paid search term, it’s too broad to make the cash register ring for an online seller of lighting products. That insight is just one of the learnings that have helped LampsPlus.com grow its business while reducing its cost of customer acquisition by more than 30% since it began using web analytics from Omniture Inc., according to the company.
California-based Lamps Plus Inc., which has more than 40 stores in addition to its web site, maintains 2,000 to 3,000 keyword listings on the pay-per-click search engine of Overture Services Inc, plus other online marketing programs. Prior to implementing Ominture’s hosted analytics service, “we couldn’t tell which online advertising channels were giving us traffic and which were giving us revenue,” says CEO Dennis Swanson. “Using SiteCatalyst, we were able to determine that this keyword drove a significant amount of traffic, but the traffic didn’t translate to purchases so the keyword was dropped.”
Similarly, if analytics show other marketing campaigns aren’t hitting defined goals, they’re pulled in favor of devoting those resources to programs that perform better. In addition to showing which campaigns aren’t delivering results, the tool shows which ones are, as LampsPlus can use it to track each ad’s impact on revenue. For example, a previous one-month trial campaign on search engine LookSmart boosted traffic, but its cost per acquisition was unclear. “After implementing SiteCatalyst, we decided to try it again,” Swanson says. “It was quickly apparent that LookSmart provided us with one of the lowest costs per acquisition so we decided to expand our program.”
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