How to optimize an AdWords campaign for an e-commerce store when you are limited by your budget

To set up a store is one thing, to start selling is another. To get the e-store orders moving, an AdWords campaign is essential. Experts from the online store platform Shoper advise how to optimize it when you have a limited budget. That is, how to make 17,000.

Store for the Garden is an online gardening store, offering products for plant care. The store is owned by Movens, a company specializing in assortments for gardeners, both hobbyists and professionals. The online store sklepdlaogrodu.pl was launched on the iStore platform in 2011, then transferred to the Shoper platform in 2015.

- Thinking about starting a business, we were faced with a choice - should we open a store with a physical location in our city or would a better option for customers be services offered via the Internet? As it turned out, the Internet was a hit. It allowed us to dynamically expand our business throughout the country, to reach a wider range of gardeners, allotment holders, growers, and even people taking care of greenery at home or on the balcony as a hobby," say the founders of sklepdlaogrodu.pl.

The store was already running an AdWords campaign, but the software provider offered to take over these activities - with promised better results. After all, the Shoper e-commerce platform provides AdWords campaigns for stores running on it, and it even offers those newly set up a campaign for a month for free as part of its Shop with Orders service.

The campaign was launched in August 2016, which was already at the end of the summer season. Despite this, for every PLN 1,000 invested in the campaign, the store recorded sales of PLN 17,000. About 20 percent of sales were generated directly by the campaigns. Their effects affected the growth dynamics of the store - compared to the previous year, in 2016 revenue and the number of customers tripled. The campaign alone is responsible for an increase of 150 percent.

The results of the campaign run by the Shoper platform actually turned out to be better than the results of the activities run by the store itself. - We achieved better results because we often have more knowledge and experience in AdWords campaigns than store owners who run activities on their own. Hardly surprising - we are responsible for the promotion of several hundred e-shops. Thanks to this, among other things, we manage the budget better, choosing the right rates per click," explains Michal Badora, SEM specialist at Dreamcommerce, provider of Shoper software.

What did the campaigner do well?

The campaign promoted the entire product range, but higher rates were given to products that sell better. The rates were differentiated according to the type of query - when someone searches for a specific product model, higher rates are used, if someone types a general query - lower rates. Remarketing was also included in December.

What did the store do right?

A threat to the store was the demand for horticultural products, which was limited to the spring and autumn season only. For one quarter of the year, the store would have virtually no orders. To avoid such a situation, the store's owners made sure that the assortment included year-round products, such as preparations for houseplants or bacteria for septic tanks, as well as typical winter products - fireplace cleaners.

Michal Badora: What to do when your budget limits your AdWords campaign

1. Plain text ads - if we appear often on the first position, it is worth testing a lower rate, because the CTR on the second position may not be lower at all, and the cost per click may drop significantly.
2. Product campaigns - if the campaign is limited by the budget and we do not have more money at our disposal, it is also worth lowering the rates. Thus, in the same budget we will get more clicks and conversions.
3. Product ads - it is better to separately promote products that sell regularly, they can have higher rates.
4. All types of campaigns - it is worth adjusting the rates to the device through which Internet users make a purchase. Admittedly, mobile visits often start the purchase path, but if our budget - again - is limited, focusing on display ads on computers and lowering rates on mobiles can bring more conversions.