This time we sat down with Patrick Wang, Manager Online Marketing & Technologies from the search engine marketing company LeadQual, which implemented View-through conversion tracking to successfully demonstrate the positive impact of display advertising to Chegg, an ROI-driven textbook rental company founded in 2007 to help college students reduce their book purchase costs.
Here's what Patrick shared:
What was the client's goal?
Chegg was looking to expand its customer base for both rental and buy-back orders. It had more than doubled its growth year / year and had already heavily invested in search, yet had not been satisfied with the success of past display campaigns. We therefore needed a solution that provided reach while also being measurable and cost-effective.
What Google solutions did you use to meet the goals?
We ran display campaigns on the Google Content Network, and used view-through-conversion tracking to demonstrate the additive value of display to growing Chegg's user base.
Can you describe the implementation process?
Chegg provided the display creative, with variations by season. We then developed contextually-targeted campaigns around themes such as "textbook," "used textbook" as well as target student groups like "fraternity." From there, we used the placement performance report to see which sites performed well, and moved them into management placements campaigns.
To receive view-through conversion statistics, we made sure that conversion tracking was set up.The campaigns began running in fall 2009 and remain active.
How did the Google solution perform?
By using view-through conversion tracking, we were able to show the client that the sales driven from the display campaign were within its cost/order metrics. We found that a quarter of the conversions came from people who had viewed, but not clicked, on one of Chegg's banner ads. If we simply looked at conversions directly from clicks, the cost-per-conversion would have been well above Chegg's goals.
If you did not use this Google solution, how would things have been different?
Without view-through conversion data, we would have had a difficult time convincing the client to invest in display.
For more information on view-through conversion tracking, please visit the Help Center.
