The Problem
Aligning PPC and SEO
Adido has worked with Godminster on a number of projects since 2016.
In 2020 we were tasked with a brief to launch an integrated search campaign. As experts in both SEO and PPC, we understood that the most effective strategy would be to align these two digital marketing channels.
Our challenge was to focus on selling individual products, as well as their delicious range of gifts. We had a clear objective to increase revenue of their award winning cheese by highlighting their top selling products and were more than ready to tackle the brief.
Usually the 'cheese wedding cake' is a hero product, but due to a huge reduction in weddings throughout 2020 (due to Covid-19) the new strategy had to compensate for lost revenue from this core product.
The priority was to push PPC activity towards the gifting and products pages, as well as the ‘heart shaped’ cheese products, an offering Godminster is renowned for.
Immediately we made some changes to the Google Ads account, starting by slimming down the number of campaigns. The budgets meant running very strict activity, and as a result broad match activity was quick to be culled, with exact match activity becoming the go to match type. We were responsive and quick to pause any weaker activity even within the exact campaign and adapt to the best automated bid strategies. Budget prioritisation was crucial for Godminster; we needed to funnel the budget to the best areas, at the right times to extract the highest revenue possible.
With the PPC account running more efficiently, the organic strategy looked to back it up, focusing on page optimisation for key product pages, such as ‘heart shaped cheese’ and the numerous gift sets available. This was a vital component of the two channels complimenting each other, if we could optimise the page content, it could also benefit the PPC ads, increasing quality scores and landing page experience. A mixture of practices were involved to ensure the on page optimisation complimented both the Godminster brand, as well as driving more conversions.
Product pages had additional content added to push for keyword rankings. All new content was based on a term frequency inverse document frequency (TF-IDF) approach. The layout was also altered to enable for this additional content to be shown, without deflecting from the products themselves.
Whilst all this work was going on, we were quick to realise that ecommerce was booming, and competition for this sector was rife! We therefore knew we needed a new avenue to gain more exposure and drive conversions. Google shopping campaigns were created, this was something Godminster had never tried previously, though the feed was in place. With our knowledge of ecommerce campaigns, we were confident shopping could be a great revenue stream, with such a visually aesthetic product range. Shopping ads proved effective immediately, returning the highest ROAS from all activity within the Google Ads account, and put us in a great position to succeed during the busiest Christmas season Godminster has ever had!
The Results
It doesn’t get cheddar than this!
With 15 newly optimised pages, ongoing technical and keyword analysis for key products and gifts, we saw a significant increase in organic traffic to product pages. Up 246% YoY!
We also saw a number of PPC keywords within Google ads benefit from the organic work. ‘Heart shaped cheese’ saw it’s quality score jump from 6/10 to 8/10. Numerous keywords and pages saw their landing page experience scores increase whilst click through rates and conversion rates also improved, further solidifying how SEO and PPC can work together to achieve results.
With increased quality scores across the board, PPC activity went from strength to strength. The introduction of Google shopping provided a huge injection of traffic and transactions, and became responsible for 71% of all paid transactions during the peak shopping months.
A key product and therefore a focus for our strategy was ‘heart shaped cheese’. The keyword had been floating around the top 3 organic positions when we took on the project. Now the keyword is consistently ranking 1st in the organic listings in 2021, with page views up 959% YoY from all organic traffic. PPC activity has targeted the keyword as well, with an absolute top impression share of 80% over the year and the highest CTR of any campaign within the account.
Paid activity culminated in Godminster having their most successful December ever! Finishing with a ROAS of 16.82 & more conversions in December than the rest of the year combined. #MerryCheesemas
