Last updated on March 14th, 2023 at 05:49 pm
This Google Ads search campaign promoted a Udacity course in Canada namely Object Oriented Programming in Javascript . The campaign was launched as part of a real-world project while enrolled at Udacity’s Digital Marketing Nanodegree Program.
Two ad groups were created on Google Ads Manager for this campaign, each with its own ad titles, copy, and keyword lists. Ad Group #1 is the customer interest ad group targeted at those people who are already scouring the search engine looking to enroll in such a course. Ad group #2 , on the other hand, is the customer awareness ad group designed to generate awareness of the existence of such a free course among those who are not actively looking for it.
The exhaustive list of relevant keywords for each ad group was created using Google keywords Planner, Uber Suggest, Moz, SEMRush, and Answer the Public keyword research tools.
Analyzing the performance of successful ad campaigns can give us important pointers on how to create search-friendly ads with high ‘quality scores’ that hit the bull’s eye. On the other hand, there is a lot more to be learned from an ad campaign that failed to achieve any conversions like the one below. The reasons for the failure are analyzed in detail below the images.
Campaign Performance Evaluation
- This ad campaign cost $75. With no one enrolled, that is no conversions, there was no return on investment. But the 46 clicks it got perhaps generated some awareness about Udacity in Canada where Udemy seems to be more popular, and which therefore can be counted towards some positive ROI.
- $1.63 spent on average per click was lesser than the maximum cost per click (CPC) bid of $3.00. This was achieved by keeping expensive keywords to the minimum and using more long tail keywords. With a higher number of clicks, perhaps CPC would have been even lower.
- In general, most of the keywords were long tail and low competition to better match the search terms hoping to increasing the possibility of conversions. The customer interest ad group especially had many such keywords expecting those that wanted to enroll in such a course to easily find it through the ads. But since it is the customer awareness ad group that generated 36 of the total 46 clicks, it may be concluded that very few people actually came looking for such a course. And even these 10 clicks in the interest group were generated only by keywords related to “web development training” and and 2 clicks for “javascript courses”. “Object oriented javascript course” keywords generated negligible impressions and no clicks. It’s no surprise then that the ad campaign lead to no conversions because there was hardly anyone searching for an “object oriented javascript course”.
- The search terms used by people to whom the ads were shown also confirms the finding that people came looking for “javascript” related terms like javascript app, javascript language, and javascript code, but no one searched up “object oriented javascript” or “object oriented programming”.
- When there were no takers for the original set of keywords, at least half the keywords were changed in both the groups to “front end” and “web development” related keywords. These terms fetched half the 36 clicks in the awareness ad group. The rest were from “free Udemy/Udacity courses”.
- Web development is what people actually came looking for and Udacity did not directly offer it. Udacity’s free object oriented programming course could only serve as a first step towards front end development. Therefore, offering a full blown front end course or a web development course directly would have had more takers.
- The position of the ads at 1.7, 2.3, and 3.4 must have been affected by the low CTR.
Conclusion
In the ultimate analysis, the success of a search ad is determined by a high quality score and ad rank. This ad had nailed the crucial factors that shape this score and rank, namely, the bid amount, ad copy relevance, keywords, landing page experience, the right audience, and the right geographical location.
Despite all of this, the ad failed since no one in Canada where the ad was promoted came searching for what was on offer. A classic case where the very purpose of a search ad is defeated!
And what was offered as a free course hoping to trigger enrollments in a paid front end development course with Udacity wasn’t a useful enough bait to cause conversions even in the awareness ad group. A classic case where the lead magnet isn’t powerful enough to attract those leads!
Sample a Facebook ad on Facebook Ads Manager if you’re up for more paid ads learning.
