Software Promotion in the USA. Lean Promo Case Study

Brand Traffic

The amount of brand traffic in conjunction with the target query "macos antivirus."

Activity

The activity of brands in the search results for target queries.

Volume

The volume of traffic on websites and the overall frequency of competitors' brand queries.

Top

Trendmicro, Norton, Eset.com, Webroot, Avira, AVG, Sophos, Avast, Malwarebytes, Bitdefender

Middle

Kaspersky, Comodo, Symantec, McAfee, Clamav

Other

Clario, F-Secure Safe, Airo, ClamXav, Intego

Cold

macos built in antivirus;
mac inbuilt antivirus.

Goal - To spark interest in studying an alternative in the form of our antivirus, emphasizing the comparison of the promoted product with the macos inbuilt antivirus in ads and landing pages.
Conversion: Interest, Free Trial.

Problem Awareness (Info)

what antivirus should I use for mac; what antivirus to use for mac; does the MacBook air need antivirus.

Goal - Promotion of landing pages with an answer to the question, concentrating on the advantages of our solution, including using articles on authoritative resources written for our product (macworld, cnet, etc.).
Conversion: Reading, Transition to product page, Free Trial.

Problem Awareness (Ratings)

which is the best antivirus for mac; which antivirus is best for mac; what is the best antivirus for mac os x; itc.

Goal - Promotion of content on comparison articles, ratings, descriptions, video reviews both on our blog and in authoritative publications.
Conversion: Reading, Transition to product page, Free Trial.

Solution Search

airo antivirus for mac review; bitdefender antivirus for mac reviews; dr antivirus mac review; intego mac review.

Goal - In ads and landing pages, emphasize our strengths, centered on the advantages and disadvantages of the competitor in the query we are promoting in.
Note: Clients have not fully decided on purchasing an antivirus yet but have approached this stage, so they are looking for more detailed information about the competitors' product.
Conversion: Reading, Free Trial.

Targeted (Targeted Ratings)

mac antivirus free best; best free os x antivirus; best free antivirus for mac os x; best free mac antivirus.

Goal - To implement the same working principle with the campaign as in "Targeted (Solution Choice)," but with an emphasis in ads and landing pages on "why our solution is the best of all free ones."
Conversion: Free Trial.

Traffic (Warm Competitors)

uninstall norton antivirus os x; remove norton antivirus mac os x; uninstall symantec antivirus mac os x; itc.

At this stage, users are trying to remove a competitor's antivirus. By working with the reasons for this decision, we can interact with this audience by offering an alternative.
Conversion: Reading, Free Trial.

Competitor Traffic

Target competitors – download Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac; Trend Micro Antivirus for Mac download; etc.

Goal: To develop awareness of our brand and highlight it as the "best alternative" to the antivirus the client is interested in.
Conversion: Reading, Free Trial.

Important!

The result of each campaign, ad group, and key phrase was evaluated by its influence on the final revenue and product purchases. To do this, we synchronized our internal User_ID with the Google Client_ID and ensured the transmission of transaction information back to the advertising accounts based on this connection.

Testing, strategy division of advertising campaigns by region into the West Coast, East Coast, Seattle, South, and central states was planned.

Month 1

Campaigns: targeted (solution choice), targeted ratings.

Month 2

Campaigns: info ratings, competitor ratings.

Goal - Interest: visiting certain pages, etc.

Funnel Stage - Solution Search

At the solution search stage, a potential client is not always ready to perform a target action (e.g., register) due to low brand trust or poor conversion elements on the landing page. Therefore, it is important to track all users who are potential clients by the "signals" they leave during interaction with our product. Note: This allowed us to work with this audience using remarketing tools: fighting objections, developing trust, recognition, and encouraging further action.

Goal - Activation (registration, subscription, question, chat, etc.)

Funnel Stage - Solution Choice

This metric determines the final quality of all elements of advertising campaigns: targeting, landing page, registration forms. At this stage, we are not aiming to sell at any cost. Our task is to familiarize the buyer with the product, let them try it out, and then convert them into real revenue using further in-product tools and remarketing communications (including emails or direct contacts).

Payment

Funnel Stage - Purchase

A target action to determine which segment of buyers interacts with a particular tariff. This will allow us to form the correct offer and budget (with bids) at the early stages of client acquisition.

Recommendations: promo codes, referral programs

Funnel Stage - Evaluation

Assessment of product quality and remarketing communications.

Tools for evaluating intermediate results and advertising campaign quality

We used the following types of metrics for evaluation:

Targeting

We used historical data from the project's advertising accounts, as well as statistics from Google Analytics, Amplitude, or the company's CRM to determine the following parameters and set up targeting:

conversion and profitability by age/gender;

user effectiveness depending on the region or city;

conversion depending on the type of user device (model, OS version, etc.), for example, desktops only;

days and time frames (at which periods and moments the conversion rate to registration is highest).

Additionally, to create observation audiences, we conducted an analysis of:

the effectiveness of Google audiences in Analytics (by interests and intentions);

creating audiences by intent and interests based on lists of key phrases;

creating "similar audiences" based on the automatic buyer audience, as well as the list of buyers' email addresses/phone numbers.

Bidding Strategies

Launching campaigns in manual mode:

The bid in the first days is 30-40% higher than the average. Otherwise, we would get a low ad quality score, and it would later be difficult and expensive to bring it up to the average level. This would critically affect the increase in cost per click in the medium term.

Daily evaluation of results and adjustment of bids and targeting.

Segmentation of campaigns and key phrase groups by client type, geography, and profitability.

After stabilizing the results in manual mode and obtaining sufficient data, we switched to automated strategies "Maximize Conversions." Note: With auto-strategies, all metrics and auto-targeting of intellectual algorithms were fixed: placement, age, time, topics, audiences. We took “snapshots” and standardized the models so that everything could be copied in manual mode. Testing of various strategies in A/B test mode was also conducted periodically.

Search Remarketing

Priority display of ads for target queries to the audience that interacted with our offer and showed interest.

Cascading Advertising Campaigns

With a chain of ads for each funnel stage the client is at, with displays at intervals that do not exceed the moments of purchase decision-making.

Demographic parameters

Gender (average distribution):70 % — men,30 % — womenAge:18-24 — 15 %,25-34 — 30 %,35-44 — 25 %,45-54 — 15 %,55-64 — 10 %,65+ — 5 %.

Top Audience Interests

Technology — 62 %,
Media & Entertainment — 34 %,
News & Politics — 27 %,
Shoppers — 25 %.

Publishers List

Analysis of platforms and websites where competitors place banners most frequently and in the largest quantities.

Top Publisher's Categories

Computers & Electronics — 62 %,Internet & Telecom — 55 %,Arts & Entertainment — 34 %,Online Communities — 29 %,News — 27 %.

Creatives and Ads

The most frequently used ones.

Audiences

Audiences were created based on the following information:

according to data obtained from search advertising campaigns (which we could track during the observation stage)

audiences by intent and interests, according to key phrase clusters by analogy with the structure in search campaigns (with the separation of individual audiences for each competitor);

audiences by intent and interests, according to competitors' visited pages;

audiences by intent and interests, by url, according to key pages, resources, reviews, etc., that are most frequently found in search results for target queries;

audiences by Google interests that competitors focus on most (based on analysis);

audiences similar to the lists of registered users and those who bought a subscription (using automatic lists and uploading lists of email addresses or contact data).

Note: Remarketing audience categories were excluded, and cross-exclusion was applied depending on the stage of the purchase decision.

Targeting

Campaign: Cold (broad)

Audiences by Google interests, audiences similar to client lists

Ad Groups:1. Selling the problem.
2. Building trust and recognition.
3. Value of the solution.
4. Free version offer.
5. Push offer.

Campaign: Problem Awareness

Audiences by KP Problem Awareness / solution search / ratings

Ad Groups:
1. Building trust and recognition.
2. Value of the solution.
3. Free version offer.
4. Push offer.

Campaign: Solution Choice (broad)

Audiences with broad and general queries by KP with the ability to segment by macos versions

Ad Groups:
1. Value of the solution.
2. Building trust and recognition.
3. Dealing with objections.
4. Free version offer.
5. Push offer.

Campaign: Targeted

Audience looking for an opportunity to get a free version of antivirus or download it

Ad Groups:
1. Free version offer.
2. Value of the solution.
3. Dealing with objections.
4. Building trust.
5. Push offer.

Campaign: Competitors

Audiences by key phrases for individual competitors and competitor urls, reviews

Ad Groups:
1. Comparison with competitors.
2. Building trust and recognition.
3. Free version offer.

Campaign: Test (MacBook buyers)

Users who are searching for and want to buy MacBooks

Ad Groups:
1. Selling the problem.
2. Building trust and recognition.
3. Value of the solution.
4. Free version offer.
5. Push offer. Example: offering special conditions when buying a new MacBook.

Location — According to the targeting (target value — presence: people who are in the target locations or regularly visit them);

Languages — English;

Bids — Maximum number of clicks with a set maximum cost per click limit;

Ad Schedule — Limited, based on historical data;

Goals — Depending on the campaign's place in the funnel or chain;

Excluded Content — Bottom of the page and parked domains;

Targeting Expansion (in ad groups) — zero.

Types of Creatives

7 days

Combination of manual strategies with the automatic strategy "Maximize Clicks" to obtain the maximum volume of traffic for all active audiences and evaluate micro-conversions for further segmentation.
With A/B testing of "activation" creatives for users. Rotation of ads during this period with the setting - do not optimize ads, alternate without time limit. Additionally, an audit and optimization were carried out through the prism of post-view conversions and correlation with the dynamics of CTR in search campaigns of a similar segment or group of key phrases.
Budget size - 30% of the maximum.

30 days

When a sufficient amount of data and attribute optimization was obtained, we reassembled the structure of advertising campaigns and ads according to the priorities of "profit/return on investment term." More segments were allocated within one funnel stage for different types of buyers. Additionally, an audit and optimization were carried out through the prism of post-view conversions and correlation with the dynamics of CTR in search campaigns of a similar segment or group of key phrases.

The "Maximize Conversions" strategy for registration (free trial) was launched. In the presence of restrictions on the cost per conversion for a particular segment, considering its profitability, we set the strategy "Target Cost per Conversion" with the choice of payment per conversion (which was especially relevant for campaigns aimed at user registration and stimulating action).

Our goal was to find the ideal sequence of creatives for separate buyer segments with communications during the period when they are most ready to interact with the offer.