Who is eligible? Anyone managing a campaign with at least 15 conversions in the last 30 days
The Conversion Optimiser: The Perfect Pair!
UK Tights uses AdWords Conversion Optimiser to reduce cost per conversion by over 50%
Based in Cheshire, England, UK Tights is one of the leading retailers of hosiery products in the UK. From selling from a living room when UK Tights was founded in 2005, the company is now doubling the size of its warehouse in 2008 to accommodate its phenomenal year-on-year growth. Summer 2008 also saw the launch of a second online retail store, offering additional product lines through UKBeachwear.com.
Jonathan and Dawn Barber, the founders of UK Tights, had been looking for a way to build their own business and become self-employed. After Dawn proposed selling tights online, Jonathan, a successful web development consultant, created the site and UKTights.com was launched. Three years on, the company now has a worldwide, loyal customer base.
From day one we have used Google AdWords. I don’t think we would have got anywhere without it."
"When we first started, we were wondering who we’d sell to outside our home town and now it’s very much a global, international business. Google is like our shop window, as it were," recalls Jonathan. UK Tights made its first sale as a result of their AdWords campaign and Jonathan and Dawn have continued to use Google AdWords to drive their business. "From day one we have used Google AdWords. I don’t think we would have got anywhere without it!"
Jonathan uses a wide range of AdWords tools to ensure the performance of their campaigns. "At one time, I had to say, 'I want [my ad] to be in such a position,' so I had to monitor what my competitors where doing and adjust accordingly," notes Jonathan. In March 2008, Jonathan discovered the Conversion Optimiser, a new bid management feature within AdWords that adjusts CPC bids based on conversion goals, and now he spends less time monitoring his campaigns.
After seeing the results, Jonathan is now a complete convert to Conversion Optimiser. For the initial weeks after enabling the bid management feature, there was a little fine tuning to be done to ensure everything worked well. "After the first month, we got things running well and saw an increase in sales and it more than halved our cost per conversion. Twice as many sales for the same cash has got to be good."
After the first month, we got things running well and saw an increase in sales and it more than halved our cost per conversion."
UK Tights saw more conversions in June than they had in February 2008, even though the expectation would be that the sale of tights would slow down in the run-up to Summer. According to Jonathan, this is 70-80% down to Conversion Optimiser driving conversions and spending wisely. "Normally in May and June things are very quiet, that’s why we decided to do UK Beachwear, but we are selling as much stock as we did at Christmas."
Since using the Conversion Optimiser, UK Tights has seen a massive 52% decrease in its average cost per conversion and Jonathan hopes to use Conversion Optimiser for their new UK Beachwear campaign as soon as possible. "The idea is, as soon as we meet the required conversions, we will look to turn it on. I am loath to move away from using Conversion Optimiser... bidding is hard work without it."
About Conversion Optimiser
The Conversion Optimiser is an AdWords feature that manages your advertising costs around specific conversion goals. Specify a maximum cost per acquisition (CPA) bid and the Conversion Optimiser manages your CPC bids for you, making adjustments based on the likelihood of a conversion in each ad auction. In addition to saving time in monitoring and managing your CPC bids, Conversion Optimiser advertisers may see better performance than manual bidding alone because it factors in different conversion rates such as search query, user location and conversion history of particular sites for each CPC bid. For more information about Conversion Optimiser, visit https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=60150&hl=en_GB.
About Google AdWords
Google AdWords is currently used by thousands of businesses worldwide to gain new customers in a cost-effective way. AdWords uses keywords to target ad delivery precisely to web users seeking information about a particular product or service. The programme is based on cost-per-click (CPC) pricing, so advertisers only pay when an ad is clicked. Advertisers can take advantage of an extremely broad distribution network and choose the level of support and spending appropriate for their business. For more information on launching your own campaign or getting expert help, visit https://adwords.google.co.uk.