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A push to perfect a paid search campaign during
the past year has delivered Smith Micro a 70%
boost in sales for three quarters, and a 14% increase
in sales from Apple Mac users. Both are unusual
gifts to end a rather tumultuous economic year.
Smith Micro, known for the popular compression
software StuffIt Deluxe, logged a 23% quarter-over-quarter
increase in paid search results, about an 80%
uptick in delivery of trial products, and a 3%
lift to 18% in paid search e-commerce revenue.
Getting those results was not easy. Digital
River has supported Smith Micro's paid campaign
for four years, but it wasn't until search, analytics
and Web technologies matured in the last year
that Smith Micro began to see significant return
on investments.
Digital River faced numerous obstacles. Smith
Micro challenged the Eden Prairie, Minn. agency
to increase conversions and associated revenues
from paid search, optimize keyword use to increase
return on investments, connect Mac users directly
to Mac-specific product pages, provide global
paid search optimization to European markets,
help achieve the goal to increase annual revenue
by 20%, and support multiple upcoming new product
introductions.
The strategy required Digital River to tie the
paid search campaign to ecommerce stores, known
as micro sites, built around the Smith Micro products.
"So, when consumers in Google's search engine
click on our ad, they'll land on a micro site
without the typical Smith Micro navigational stuff,"
said Jim Wehmann, SVP of marketing at Digital
River. "They land on the micro site through category
and branded keywords such as compression utility
software and StuffIt.
Wehmann said Digital River doesn't introduce
the numerous branded products on the landing page
because they find it easier to keep control of
where potential customers go from there.
Consumers searching on StuffIt for Mac or StuffIt
for PC made it easy for Digital River to identify
and direct the click to the correct landing page,
but what if the keywords were more generic?
Digital River solved the problem by identifying
the operating system as consumers click on paid
search terms. Landing the consumer on the correct
page gave Smith Micro "14% of the 20% overall
lift in sales," Wehmann said, explaining that
the platform making it possible combines Fireclick
analytics, with licensed and propriety technologies.
Initial efforts focused on Smith Micro's StuffIt
Deluxe compression software for Mac and Windows
PCs. Attention then turned toward other products,
ranging from CheckIt Diagnostics for PC performance
testing to OfficeReady for creating designer-quality
business documents. Now the company is working
on paid search campaigns for Anime, Poser, and
Manga.
Successful paid search campaigns play off the
strength of the brand, but companies that have
new or lesser-known products can benefit, too.
Campaigns can introduce new brands to consumers,
but Wehmann advises creating awareness through
generic category keywords first, rather than branded.
After all, consumers don't typically key in new
brand names into Google, Microsoft Live or Yahoo
engines unless they specially search for the products.
Although a bit skewed in his thinking by the
services Digital River offers, Wehmann said companies
should "use search as a primary direct-marketing
channel." Putting the emphasis on performance,
however, the company works from a revenue-sharing
model. "If our clients do well, we take a piece,"
he said. "If we don't drive sales, we don't get
paid much at all."
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