Clickable Product Used: Clickable Solutions and The Clickable Pro Tool
Industry: Modern Home Retail / Retail Store Fixture Supplies
Problem Solved:
Stanley Valiulis manages search marketing for two very different businesses: Exclusively Home, an online, modern home retail site, and Southern Imperial, a fifty-year old business that provides fixtures to some of the largest brick-and-mortar retailers in the world, including Target and Walmart. His goal with Exclusively Home was to drive sales, and his goal with Southern Imperial was to build the brand's reputation. To achieve those goals, he turned to Clickable, using The Clickable Pro Tool to manage accounts himself, and Clickable Solutions for more help. In both cases, as Valiulis put it, "it paid off."
The Business
Stanley Valiulis manages search marketing for two very different
businesses ...
Exclusively Home is
an online, modern home retail site that Valiulis started six years
ago. He explains that it targets "a really niche audience," but
it's a really big niche: online customers can buy everything from
bedding to benches and "surf
mirrors" to sectional sofas - "the whole gamut," as Valiulis
puts it.
Southern Imperial, on the other hand, is a supplier of store
fixtures for brick-and-mortar retailers. It is the largest business
of its kind in the world, and it's been in operation for half a
century. Like Exclusively Home, it's a niche business, but Southern
Imperial's niche is very different: "our customers include Target
and Walmart."
... these very different businesses require very different
marketing approaches.
Two Very Different Businesses, Two Very Different
Goals
"I see touch and see a lot of different marketing techniques and
avenues," Valiulis explained, "What I've learned over time is that
we don't use the same sorts of KPI's." "Key performance
indicators," that is. For Exclusively Home, a positive performance
indicator would be high revenues directly related to pay per click,
at as low a cost as possible. "With eCommerce especially, there's a
real focus on things like ROI, etc. The conversion rates are key
there."
With Southern Imperial, the goals are different. "Don't get me
wrong: we want people to buy from the online store," Valiulis says.
But the business' focus is elsewhere: "At the end of the day, it's
about working on larger projects for major retailers." An indicator
of positive performance for a Southern Imperial search marketing
campaign is a high ranking in the sponsored search results. "Just
getting someone to our site and getting that branding opportunity
is the crucial point," Valiulis said. "It's not all about
conversions."
Valiulis was therefore trying to run one set of campaigns with the
aim of achieving a low cost per conversion, and another campaign -
a branding campaign - to achieve a high ranking. "That's the unique
challenge." To help meet that challenge, he turned to
Clickable.
"A Lot of Suggestions, but a Lot of Control
Too"
Clickable offers a wide array of services, from The Clickable Pro
Tool, which provides a simple, intuitive interface to help
advertisers manage their pay per click campaigns, to Clickable
Solutions, a premium service which ranges from launch support to
full-time management. Because Valiulis has such different goals for
his two businesses, he has taken full advantage of numerous
Clickable offerings.
Valiulis has been a Clickable customer since nearly the beginning.
"I kind of stalked you guys because I'd heard some really good
things about you before you even launched." Before he began using
Clickable, Valiulis spent over an hour a day managing his pay per
click campaigns. Today, he spends 15 to 20 minutes, and his
performance is better than ever. This is because Valiulis was one
of the first users of Clickable's Goal Based Action wizard, which
allowed him to set specific revenue goals that Clickable's
ActEngine(TM) helped him achieve. Assistance, rather than complete
automation, was exactly what Valiulis was looking for: "In the past
we'd used systems where you give all your control up over PPC, but
this is nice because there's a lot of suggestions, but a lot of
control too."
While Valiulis' goals with Southern Imperial were different,
controlling costs was still key. "Before I took over the program,
the whole concept was to throw money at it," he said. "There's a
law of diminishing returns involved." While he wasn't trying to
drive online conversions, he needed to justify his costs and spend
intelligently.
For additional help, Valiulis turned to Clickable Solutions. "The
big difference I noticed was when [Clickable Solutions Specialist]
Matt Mack got involved," he said. "There's a genuine interest in
trying to improve the business." That interest paid off: Valiulis
may have been running a branding campaign, but his costs came down
too. "Our cost per conversion for Southern Imperial is actually
less than for Exclusively Home!"