Adwords Case Study... Using Adwords to Sell Vuvuzelas in RSA and Worldwide

This information is provided to show exactly what is possible using Google Adwords and more importantly how you can measure the results of an Adwords campaign. I have kept the article brief.

Introduction:

On the day the world cup was announced some 5 years ago I registered 2 web domains: vuvuzela.com and vuvuzela2010.com. I did this in anticipation of a possible interest that the vuvuzela would enjoy as the World Cup 2010 approached.

When the Confederations Cup was played in South Africa in June/July sure enough interest in the vuvuzela reached a peak.

I started an Adwords campaign targeting South Africa and a separate campaign targeting the rest of the world. The objective of the campaign was to get people to download my vuvuzela PDF catalogue and price list which you can see here. This was done to allow people to compare products and prices and to decide if they wanted to persue the matter further.

My campaigns were targeted at trade users and as such my ads deliberately discouraged the ordinary consumer from clicking my ads... for example I stated minimum order 50 units in the Google ads displayed. We also have a minimum order value of R650 + VAT.

I ran both a Google search campaign and also a Google content network campaign.

The campaign started on June 21st and is still running (September 29th as I write this). The table below shows the results obtained so far: I have only reported on the search network and not the content network.

Summary of performance to date:

For a total spend of $267 (less than R2,000) total RSA sales alone have exceeded R150,000. In addition the Adwords campaign has reached 36 different countries. We have partnered with 2 major EEC distributors and sampled 5 other countries. All this within the space of 4 months.

Bear in mind we do not stock these products, nor do we sell on credit and in most cases do not get involved in distribution of the products. We have formed relationships with different manufacturers.

In the process we have collected 581 leads to whom we can market other 2010 world cup products over the next 9 months or so.

In my mind, without using Adwords, it is unimaginable that there this any other remotely possible way of achieving this market reach and sales success within such a short space of time for an Advertising spend of less than R2000 This success has only been made possible through being able to set up and manage optimised Google Adwords campaigns.

On the content network we were able to obtain clicks at only $0.03 compared to $0.088 on the search network The content network is  a powerful medium but mastering this is quite different from mastering a Google search campaign. Very few people know how to tame the content network as we do.

Conclusion

The conclusion for any commercially minded organisation spending any money at all on advertising is to look seriously at implementing a Google Adwords campaign.

If you want to know more about how we can help you improve your own online marketing efforts call Tony Roocroft on 011-454-0105.

Have you considered attending our next workshop? I am thinking of holding the next one in Cape Town. For workshop details download the catalogue here.