TOBEA ft. Google Online Marketing Challenge 2014

Prereport

Profile Market Analysis

Profile

Current Marketing Conclusions Strategy Budget Objectives

TOBEA Ltd is a company founded in 2012 on a mission to design and manufacture a specific device which improves the quality of life for the disabled people. It is a spin-off scheme and the product of a research program carried out in the year of 2009 by Applied Mechanics Laboratory of University of Patras, Greece. The project involved the designing and manufacturing of a device that could grant access to the sea for people with kinetic disabilities. The project was assigned to AML directly by the former Prefecture of Achaia.

After the successful outcome of the project, the work was continued and the device received further development to form a product, SEATRAC, that had the readiness level for commercializing. The company’s product portfolio will be further developed to provide differsified products for people with kinetic disabilities. Several needs for other services and products concerning the life quality improvement of the disabled were not faced efficiently by the state or the society. This reality gave rise to the need of founding a company that could achieve these goals, which due to their nature were outside the activities of the Laboratory and the University in general. The product’s unique selling proposition is based on the accessibility and autonomy it provides with to people with kinetic disabilities while entering the sea.

Furthermore, the structure is not permanent. It can be easily dismantled at the end of the summer and it does not alter the natural sea landscape permanently. It is patented in Greece, Europe and USA. Founders of TOBEA Ltd are Ignatios Fotiou and George Sotiriadis.

Along with Professor Vassilis Kostopoulos they formed the research group that carried out the collaborative project of AML and former Prefecture of Achaia. The initiator of the project was Gerassimos Fessian, vice-prefect at that time. All four of them along with the University of Patras are holders of the European Patent (pending) that covers the SEATRAC product. Tobea maintains a Facebook Page (www. facebook.com/tobeatld) currently with 79 Likes as of May 15, 2014.

Profile Market Analysis

Market Analysis

Current Marketing Conclusions Strategy Budget Objectives

The originality of Tobea product SEATRAC has defined the company as a growing company with leadership potential in the local emerging market as regards the turn-key solution provided for access to the sea for people with kinetic disabilities. As a matter of fact, there is currently no competition in the Greek market in this specific field.

Furthermore, the energy autonomy feature (use of solar energy) of the SEATRAC platform further enhances the originality of the product.

Historically, Tobea has targeted people or families including people with kinetic disabilities for all ages, without geographic restrictions, inside Greece. According to Tobea’s data, the younger market (age groups 18-24 and 25-44) show the highest potential, since the diffusion of digital technologies and the use of Internet is bigger in the aforementioned populations in Greece.

Profile

Current Marketing

Market Analysis Current Marketing Conclusions Strategy Budget Objectives

Tobea shifted their efforts towards targeting the young market through digital platforms. Tobea currently uses its website mainly as an information hub for prospective clients. According to Google Analytics, the site attracts an average of 177 daily Page visits, 94% of who are from within Greece. Since Tobea has yet to use AdWords, 89% of its visits are organic search leads and the rest are direct visits and referrals from other sites. The website is filled with relevant information, but still has a lot of room for improvement in the areas of site navigation; ease of access, particularly in its online booking interface; location of call-to-action (bookand-pay) buttons; mobile support and overall aesthetics and design. Around 85-90%[1] of Tobea’s business was generated through direct marketing actions, participation in innovation competitions, word-of-mouth, company tie-ups and presence on local conferences and events, none of which, however, promote the website URL. [1] CPC’s were computed based on budget allocation (90%-10% search-display allocation) and average Greek search and display CTR’s.

Profile Market Analysis

Conclusions

Current Marketing Conclusions Strategy Budget Objectives

Google AdWords is the next logical step for Tobea in order to increase product awareness as well as to secure lead generation in the digital ecosystem. Online information gathering is a key part of the buying decision making process, particularly in the sensitive industry of people with disabilities. This current consumer behavior, in combination with Tobea’s low awareness and consideration among the target market, provides us with a big opportunity to optimize the corporate online marketing particularly with Google AdWords.

Profile Market Analysis

Strategy

Current Marketing Conclusions Strategy Budget Objectives

The primary goal of our online marketing campaign for Tobea is to drive awareness for SEATRAC product. The secondary objective is to boost company sales in both volume (number of visitors) and revenue (in euros). To reach effectively these goals, we created highly targeted campaigns with distinguished AdGroups in each.

The campaigns are divided based on a general-to-specific model that aims to provide an expansive reach of audience. They are also segregated according to the offerings of Tobea that targets the individual interests of customers such as those searching “Sea Disabled” to even those looking for “Solutions for Kinetic Disability”. Moreover, these campaigns provide optimal targeting in each segment of the Consumer Purchase Lifecycle (from awareness to lead generation and purchase) to influence them at every point in their buying decisions and even beyond.

Besides comprehensive Search Campaigns, a Display Campaign for people with disabilities will be utilized as it is of paramount importance to capture the interest of many potential customers due to the high traffic that Greek websites such as blogs, advisory sites, or non-governmental organizations for people with disabilities, forums etc. have through Topic/Managed Site Targeting.

Apart from this, we will utilize keywords that are interest-specific (e.g. “Swim”, “Beach”, “Disabilities”) to have widespread visibility.

To prevent untargeted customers on clicking our ads, negative keywords will be used to exclude them from the campaigns. Sample negative keywords on SEATRAC (“-”; etc.), services not provided by Tobea (e.g. “-beach bars” or “-water sports”).

The branding process will be combined with the product awareness and exposure to the target market. Thus, due to the peculiarity of the industry and the need, primarily, for awareness in the untapped target market, there is no need to create a branding campaign for Tobea.

Profile Market Analysis

Strategy

Current Marketing Conclusions Strategy Budget Objectives

A comprehensive list of new keywords as well as any negative keywords will be generated through the use of Keyword Tool, Searched Query Reports and Contextual Targeting Tool in Google AdWords.

After the first 7 days, we will pay attention to CTR and CPC metrics of the first week. Poor performing keywords with low CTR and high CPC will be taken down and optimal keywords suggested by Google under the Opportunities tab will be used. The Bid Simulator Tool will also be utilized in order to recalibrate CPC bids for our keywords and to optimize the campaigns running.

Our Ads will utilize strategies such as the use of questions, capital letters at the start of each word and Keyword Insert Tool to easily capture the interest of viewers. Before and after the promo period, generic search and display ads will be used and will be consistently monitored for their CTR’s and subsequently modified through the “Optimize for Clicks” option.

[2] As per 2014 Tobea Sales Data

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Profile Market Analysis

Budget

Current Marketing Conclusions Strategy Budget Objectives

90% of the budget will be allocated to the Global Search Network in anticipation of a higher CPC than in the Global Display Network as a result of more expected clicks and tighter competition for keyword bids and ad positions. Due to the low search rate of products and solutions for people with kinetic disabilities, we are not in the position to set the budget for each one of the keywords utilized, since we may need to replace, add or eliminate specific keywords, depending on the metric analyzed after the first week.

The budget allocation will be on a 33%-33%-34% weekly basis.

Sample Keywords Used: “Disabled people”, “Kinetic Disabilities”, “Disabled people report”, etc in Greek language.

[3] CPC’s were computed based on budget allocation (90%-10% search-display allocation) and average Greek search and display CTR’s.

Profile Market Analysis

Objectives

Current Marketing Conclusions Strategy Budget Objectives

We expect to generate product awareness for SEATRAC. We also aim to achieve improved corporate website traffic versus before-campaign data. Since this will be Tobea’s first AdWords campaign, average Greek CTR of 0.5% and 0.05% for GSN and GDN, respectively, were set as baseline targets, with respect to the low search rate of relative keywords. The team set Key Performance Indicators of approximately 50,000 GSN impressions (250 clicks) and 100,000 GDN impressions (50 clicks) with CPC’s of approximately $0.40 and $0.20[4], respectively, for total CTR of 0.2% and CPC of $0.38.

[4] CPC’s were computed based on budget allocation (90%-10% search-display allocation) and average Greek search and display CTR’s.

End of Prereport

Executive Summary

Campaign Overview Industry Component Learning Component Impact Statement Acknowledgements

Campaign Overview

Campaign Overview

Industry Component Learning Component Impact Statement Acknowledgements

TOBEA Ltd is a company founded in 2012 with capabilities and activity in designing and manufacturing of specific devices for improving the quality of life for the disabled. It is a spin-off scheme and the product of a research program carried out in the year of 2009 by Applied Mechanics Laboratory, University of Patras, Greece.

The project involved designing and manufacturing a device that could grant access to the sea for people with kinetic disabilities (SEATRAC). The Tobea AdWords Campaign ran for 14 days and the main objectives were to generate product awareness for SEATRAC and improve corporate site traffic.

Three campaigns were created evolving: • Targeting clinic, hotels, schools, camps and individuals with kinetic problems • Targeting cities and locations (London, California, Michigan, Boston etc.)

• Generic and Multilingual targeting The objectives for the ad groups were: average CTR of 0.5% and 0.05% for GSN and GDN, respectively, with respect to the low search rate of relative keywords. The team set Key performance Indicators of approximately 50,000 GSN impressions (250 clicks) and 100,000 GDN impressions (50 clicks) with CPC’s of approximately $0.40 and $0.20, respectively, for total CTR of 0.2% and CPC of $0.38.

Campaign Overview

Key Results

Industry Component Learning Component Impact Statement Acknowledgements

Our AdWords campaign improved the global exposure of SEATRAC in multilingual environment and in young target audiences improving the TOBEA’s brand awareness and site traffic. The overall campaign objectives were achieved; however there can always be improvements on the landing page in order to maximize relevance with the ads created. The Google Online Marketing Campaign (GOMC) has allowed the understanding of the AdWords platform and the development of optimized online campaigns for the company.

Campaign Overview

Conclusions

Industry Component Learning Component Impact Statement Acknowledgements

We have spent $248,36 out of our total available budget of $250.

We have succeeded in our goal and we have achieved 437 clicks, 79.860 total impressions, 0,55% total CTR with average CPC $0,57. We have exceed our goal for 50,000 GSN impressions reaching to 79.860 GSN impressions and achieved 437 clicks, although we didn’t manage to achieve our goal for GDN impressions (for 5 GDN impressions,) due to team decision making to pause GDN. The average CPC was higher than estimated and we decided to focus on the Search and Search Network. This success can be attributed to constant monitoring of our campaign account and to the use of Google Tools such as Opportunities Tab, Traffic Estimator and Keyword Tool in order to optimize budget.

Campaign Overview

Future Recommendations

Industry Component Learning Component Impact Statement Acknowledgements

Given the increase of the number of impressions and site traffic we recommend TOBEA to continue using the Google AdWords in order to reach out young target audience and improve their online marketing campaign. The best campaign was “Multilingual keywords� with 197 Clicks and if TOBEA is committed to improve its brand awareness and global exposure, the future onine campaigns could generate sustainable positive results with an increased budget allocation.

Campaign Overview

Industry Component

Industry Component Learning Component Impact Statement Acknowledgements

Overview. The overall objective of the campaign was to generate product and brand awareness for SEATRAC, as well as to improve corporate site traffic. In our effort, our team utilized Google Adwords as a key tool for TOBEA SEATRAC corporate objectives.

Campaign Overview

Operational Details

Industry Component Learning Component Impact Statement Acknowledgements

The account was active from May 25, 2014 to June 9, 2014. It was active twenty four hours per day for the three week online campaign. Keyword bidding was converted from automated to manual after 8 days of the campaign duration. Furthermore, Rules were used in order to facilitate the micromanagement of certain advertisements, keywords and Ad Groups displayed and optimize the campaign results for the budget given. As regards optimization of ROI over budget, we will stop the “Standard Budget Per Day� strategy and will work towards dynamic assignments of max CPC bid (as an input) per Ad Group, by considering the Challenge as an approximate LP problem, with respect to most recent academic bibliography (publication results utilized: Mehta et al. - AdWords and Generalized On-line Matching). During the first week, our target was to increase CTR to 0.2% with no impression limits and for the second week our target was to increase CTR to 0.4% with at least 30.000 impressions. The target for the third week was to reach the overall campaign objectives, as aforementioned.

Campaign Overview Industry Component Learning Component Impact Statement Acknowledgements

Evolution of Campaign Strategy The campaign was adjusted according to CTR and average CPC. The campaigns targeting Florida, Kent and South England were deleted because they were ineffective due to low search volume and consequent low CTR, adjustments were made in keywords in order to maximize CTR according to Keyword Planner’s suggestions using broad match and negative keywords.

Campaign Overview Industry Component Learning Component Impact Statement Acknowledgements

Evolution of Campaign Strategy (Week 1) During the first week, the “Schools and Camps” Ad groups had the best CTR of 0.41%. At the same time, the ad group for Individuals has the most impressions, however the CTR was lower. After trying to revitalize the campaign for individuals with additional keywords provided by the Keyword Planner in order to get better CTR (equal to 0.41% of the other ad group of “schools”) for these more impressions, we formed a new Ad Group “Schools special needs” which achieved CTR of 1.19%. The Ad Groups “Clinics” and “Wheelchair” didn’t operate as expected but they didn’t cause any damage to our CTR as well, so we chose to try to improve their keywords. However, the Ad Group “Hotels” had high impressions but very poor CTR, thus statistically hurted our whole campaign. Last but not least, during the first week of the campaign we paid 1.18$ per click.

Campaign Overview Industry Component Learning Component Impact Statement Acknowledgements

Evolution of Campaign Strategy (Week 2) During the second week, our CTR was 0.45%, but in order to further improve our CTR we added geolocation targeting and negative keywords along with the “Disabled habits� campaign in order to target more areas and increase impressions. As a result, we removed the campaigns targeting to schools and camps and targeted cities and locations such as California/ US, Florida/ US, New York/ US, Michigan/US, London/ UK, Kent/UK, South England (Weymouth, Bournemouth, Portsmouth, Brighton). Afterwards, we decided to set manually the bids for ever keyword in order to improve our quality score and our CTR.

Campaign Overview Industry Component Learning Component Impact Statement Acknowledgements

Evolution of Campaign Strategy (Week 3) During the third week, we decided to reposition all running campaigns and create two new campaigns “the Physiogeographic” and “the World” campaign by using “Generic and Multilingual targeting” in order to increase both CTR and impressions. Within one 1.5 day we managed to increase CTR of active campaigns to 0.4% and CTR of overall (active and non-active ones) campaign to 0.31% from 0.22% and at the same time we reduced CPC to 0.55$. The campaign that had the best CTR then was “Disabled habits” of 0.47%, the campaign “English Population” had not the expected results in terms of CTR 0,41% (expected CTR of 0,47%), and the campaign “Multilingual” had the lowest CTR of 0.37 but many impressions: 13,758.

Therefore, we decided to allocate more budgets on successful campaigns in order to increase overall CTR for fewer impressions and decreased the budget of the inefficient campaign. At the same time, we adjusted our keyword in the successful campaigns in order to improve our quality score and our CTR. All campaigns were running with manual bidding with max CPC on good CTR keywords for better results. We initially made bid adjustments for mobile devices but we disabled impressions for mobile devices at two campaigns due to bad CTR. We also decided to exclude from the location targeting USA, Philippines, UK and Australia for campaign “Disabled” due to low CTR and for “Multilingual” campaign, we excluded USA, UK, Australia, Argentina, Canada and France in order to achieve better CTR.

Campaign Overview Industry Component Learning Component Impact Statement Acknowledgements

Evolution of Campaign Strategy (Week 3) In the Campaign “English keywords” we included in location targeting India, Iraq, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago, United Arab Emirates, Egypt excluding at the same time Bangalore (city in India). For the Campaign “Multilingual” we included Brazil, Colombia, Palestine, Guatemala, India, Iraq, Israel, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Uruguay, Venezuela and Yemen and at the same time we excluded certain Brazilian cities like Recife/Pernambuco, Curitiba/ Parana and Sao Paulo. This geolocation targeting was a result of monitoring where the clicks came from at the previous campaign stage. All campaigns were paused when we reached $248,36 of our total available budget $250, with 79.860 impressions and 0.55% total CTR. The Best Campaign in terms of clicks was “Multilingual keywords” with 197 clicks and the most efficient keyword was “personas discapacitadas” with 117 clicks. The location targeting was mostly successful in Ukraine (paused), Brazil, and India, in general Hispanic & Arabic countries. The most successful advertisement in the “Multilingual campaign” was the trilingual ad with CTR of 2.99%.

Campaign Overview

Key Results

Industry Component Learning Component Impact Statement Acknowledgements

Before the Google Online Marketing Challenge, according to Google Analytics, the TOBEA’s site attracted an average of 11 daily Page visits, 94% of who are from within Greece. During the three weeks campaign, we managed to increase up to 437 clicks, (27 clicks per day more than before) with an increase in corporate website traffic of 71%. Furthermore, we achieved 79.860 total impressions, 0.55% total CTR with average CPC $0,57. We have spent $248, 36 out of our total available budget of $250.

In the beginning, on March 25, 2014, targeting schools, hotels, clinics and individuals for impressions was effective but with low CTR. Afterwards (Step 2 - 31/05/2014), by targeting cities and locations, we had less impressions (for the same CTR almost) and finally (Step 3 - 3/06/2014: Generic and multilanguage targeting) we had big increase both in CTR and in the number of impressions.

Campaign Overview

Conclusions

Industry Component Learning Component Impact Statement Acknowledgements

We managed to achieve our overall startegic targets for the campaign in terms of CTR, impressions and budget allocation optimization. We also increased the traffic to the corporate website by 71%, in our effort for product and brand awareness.

Recommendations We recommend TOBEA to take our key findings of markets interested in the SEATRAC device, as portrayed on CTR metric per country, into consideration. Consider to focus on Arabic and Hispanic emerging markets with demand on auxiliary devices for special needs, for profitability optimization is a viable option.

Campaign Overview

Learning Component

Industry Component Learning Component Impact Statement Acknowledgements

With the participation in Google Online Marketing Challenge our team hoped to develop a better and practical understanding on how to target large online audiences and how to be more efficient in online marketing. Measurability of Google Adwords through the Account tab facilitated our hands-on experience. Achieving a good Ad Rank through a good Quality Score and a competitive CPC, proved to be a challenging task. The help provided by Google Adwords Tools (Keyword Planner, Ad Preview and Diagnosis) as well as the Opportunities Tab helped us in the improvement of our CTR while retaining an as low as possible CPC for budget optimization.

Campaign Overview Industry Component Learning Component Impact Statement Acknowledgements

Learning Objectives and Outcomes Due to the user-friendly formation of Google Adwords as well as the AdWords Reports, our team was able to monitor and adjust our Ad Groups quickly and efficiently in order to achieve our campaign objectives. We followed suggestions by the Keyword Planner Keywords in the Ad Groups of the initial campaign “Schools and Camps” in order to increase CTR while using Auto Bidding. By using Broad Match and Negative Match we tried to maximize product and brand exposure and achieve a good Ad Rank. In general, throughout the TOBEA campaign we managed to have an average 3.3 Ad Position in the Google Adwords Auction. We managed to learn how to allocate our budget effectively during the second week of the GOMC 2014 and we proceeded with Manual Bidding for Keywords with the high search volume and successful Ad Groups. Based on Google Keywords Planner we formed the “Multilingual Keywords” campaign which was the best campaign in terms of clicks. “Multilingual keywords” got 197 clicks and the most efficient keyword was “personas discapacitadas” with 117 clicks. We also used efficiently early on location targeting in order to improve CTR and CPC as well as mobile bid adjustments. The most successful location targeting was for Ukraine (paused), Brazil, India and in general Hispanic & Arabic countries and the most successful advertisement in the “Multilingual campaign” was the trilingual ad with CTR of 2.99%.

All campaigns were paused when we reached $248, 36 of our total available budget $250, with 79.860 impressions and 0.55% total CTR.

Campaign Overview

Group Dynamics

Industry Component Learning Component Impact Statement Acknowledgements

The positive energy of the team, the imagination, the strong belief on the high quality of the SEATRAC product as well as the team coordination were amongst the major factors that attributed to the campaigns success. All team members managed to contribute to the formation of out online marketing strategy, worked complementary with one another and efficiently managed schedules in order to monitor the campaign’s progress regularly. The team captain was motivating the team members to contribute their ideas and inspirations throughout the campaign while monitoring in a daily basis the team’s dynamic and efficiency. The team allocated responsibilities of monitoring and adjusting Ag Groups and Keywords throughout the campaign in order to avoid miscommunication issues that may occur when campaigns are paused or deleted. Micromanagement within the team was adopted in the second week in order to pause, introduce and adjust “the Physiogeographic” and “The Multilingual” campaign by using “Generic and Multilingual” targeting as well as in the adjustment of Keywords with low search volume or inefficient CTR that were harming the campaign. Small issues and frustration occurred when some Keywords or Location targeting were not operating as expected. However, constant communication within our team and initiatives taken and developed individually are the reasons of the team success. Our motivation to make a successful campaign for a new and innovative product that improved the quality of life for many disabled citizens helped us surpass our fatigue. The group’s willingness to learn through experimentation with Google Adwords, how to create and run more efficient online marketing campaigns was the underlining motivation for the success. We tried to use as much as possible all the Google Tools available in order to constantly improve our campaigns performance and familiarize ourselves with the Google Adwords Auction and Ad Ranking process.

Campaign Overview

Client Dynamics

Industry Component Learning Component Impact Statement Acknowledgements

TOBEA Ltd. is a spin-off scheme and the product of a research program had been carried out in the year of 2009 by Applied Mechanics Laboratory of University of Patras, Greece, that involved the designing and manufacturing of a device that could grant access to the sea for people with kinetic disabilities. The product had reached the critical point of readiness of commercializing but not the necessary global exposure. The product’s unique selling proposition is based on the accessibility and autonomy it provides to people with kinetic disabilities when they enter the sea and the structure is not permanent (it can be easily dismantle). It is also patented in Greece, Europe and USA. However, the company was mainly targeting domestic market and it hadn’t used Google Adwords until now. Our client was very enthusiastic for the project, eager to help in any way possible but at the same time make sure that the intellectual property rights of the company were best served. We had good communication with the company and they were more than appreciative for our team efforts to increase product and brand awareness for SEATRAC and TOBEA respectively as well as site traffic.

Campaign Overview

Future Recommendations

Industry Component Learning Component Impact Statement Acknowledgements

After the Google Online Marketing Challenge, the team members that do not hold the Google Certification for Search and Fundamentals are very eager to gain expertise on the online marketing field. The team will also contact TOBEA in order to provide information about the future potential use of Google AdWords for the company’s campaigns. Furthermore the team will provide TOBEA with feedback for target audiences and possible Conversions. Finally, in an overall perspective, the Google Online Marketing Challenge was a very educative and practical experience that helped us understand the Google Auctioning process and the creation of successful online marketing campaigns. Last but not least, we would strongly recommend Google AdWords for our client’s online marketing campaign in order to achieve global exposure.

We strongly recommend the Google Online Marketing Challenge to students interested in the future of marketing and e-commerce.

Campaign Overview

Impact Statement

Industry Component Learning Component Impact Statement Acknowledgements

The originality of Tobea product SEATRAC has defined the company as a growing company with leadership potential in the local emerging market as regards the turn-key solution provided for access to the sea for people with kinetic disabilities. The vision of the team to promote TOBEA in a global online audience was inspired by the mission of the company to offer to disabled people easy access to the sea.

Before the Google Online Marketing Challenge, according to Google Analytics, the TOBEA’s site attracted an average of 11 daily Page visits, 94% of who are from within Greece. During the three weeks campaign, we managed to increase up to 437 clicks, (27 clicks per day more than before) with an increase in corporate website traffic of 71%. We are more than honored to consider that this is a real impact not only for the product and the campaign itself, but also for the people with kinetic disabilities.

Campaign Overview

Acknowledgements

Industry Component Learning Component Impact Statement Acknowledgements

Firstly, we would like to thank the TOBEA team for their product which was the true inspiration for this endeavor, to participate in the Google Online Marketing Challenge.

We would also like to express our gratitude to Professor K. Indounas for his help and collaboration to this competition.

Finally, we would like to thank Google for the opportunity to expose ourselves to a global competition within the online marketing field. This competition was a huge learning opportunity for us, in order to know better and collaborate with each other and acquire most useful and practical knowledge on online advertising.

Thank you Google.