Challenge/Objective

Vongo, an online movie download company, has been utilizing pay per click management for some time. They have tested several innovative strategies over the years and continually strive to optimize bidding techniques. To effectively maximize their return on ad spend, Vongo aimed for increased conversion rates and lower cost per downloads (CPD).

The search engine marketing agency (SEM) handling Vongo’s campaign was taking advantage of search engine syndication partners. Essentially, this service replicates the initial pay per click campaign and distributes text ads to numerous partner website within the search syndication network. If the advertiser has previously designed a comprehensive pay per click campaign, syndication defaults to active. However, there is no editing capability once syndication is live.

Oftentimes, this automation does not cause issues; the campaign runs smoothly through all syndication partners. On occasion, however, bid automation through syndication can present problems. Vongo found themselves faced with one of these problems.

By evaluating conversion data using web analytics, Vongo’s SEM agency found that the campaign syndicated swimmingly through all partners except two—Shopping.com and DealTime. Were these two teammates trivial, it would not have been a major issue; however, these partners are integral to the syndication network, accounting for approximately 16% of traffic for Vongo’s campaign. Yet, even with the great deal of traffic they generated, very few leads occurred.

Vongo had to find a different way to take advantage of the syndication service, yet reach their conversion rate and CPD goals.