Industry:
Technology
Location:
Westland, MI, USA
http://centurynovelty.com
  • Cut SEM costs by 62%
  • 40% reduction in time spent on reporting and campaign management
  • Increased conversions by 11%
  • SBoosted overall revenue by 20%

Century Novelty, party supplier since 1951

Founded in 1951, Century Novelty offers an extensive selection of party favors, supplies, and decorations for nearly every occasion. Started as a retail store outside of Detroit, Century Novelty became a web-only business in 2004.

To see such a sharp decrease in costs was amazing, as we’ve been increasing our spend on paid search by 50% a year every year – and with Marin we not only cut spending by over 60%, but at the same time increased revenues 20%. We’re blown away at the power of Marin Software.

Ian MacDonald
VP and General Manager at Century Novelty

Century Novelties paid search programs were getting too large and very complicated

Century Novelty derives over 80% of its revenues directly from paid and organic search, so getting search engine marketing right is crucial to the company’s bottomline. Century Novelty has been using paid search for eight years, making it one of the first retailers to experiment with SEM. Paid search helps Century Novelty attract first-time customers, who are crucial in the party supply industry, where “every customer is a new customer,” said Ian MacDonald, VP and General Manager of Century Novelty. Often, customers make a single purchase for a standalone event, so Century Novelty must use every tool at its disposal to attract new customers on an ongoing basis.

Paid search has delivered impressive results for Century Novelty. Growing its paid search spend 50% a year on average since it began its SEM program, the company has grown overall revenues by 20% a year, every year. But Century Novelty soon realized its paid search program, which today encompasses more than 45,000 keywords, was becoming too large and complex to manage, measure, and optimize with the tools it had been using for the past few years. Century Novelty needed a sophisticated paid search management application that would enable it to accelerate the growth of search-driven revenues, while at the same time continuing to optimize its current SEM program.

Setting granular ROI goals for bid management paid off well for Century Novelty

After a comprehensive review of the paid search management applications on the market, Century Novelty chose Marin Software based on the strength of its robust technology, cutting-edge features, and expert client services team. In addition, Century Novelty chose Marin Software for its easy-to-use interface, cross-publisher automated bidding platform, and sophisticated analytics features. In particular, Century Novelty was impressed with the ability to set granular ROI goals for bid management that take into account the true cost of goods sold at the keyword, ad group, and campaign level, as well as the ability to easily replicate campaigns across all publishers. Century Novelty also liked Marin’s automated reporting features that allow its search marketing team to get an accurate picture of daily ROI and profit margin, comparing results across publishers from one integrated interface.

SEM costs cut by 62%

Marin Software has delivered impressive results to Century Novelty. Due to streamlined bidding across all three publishers, optimized bidding based on granular and true-cost ROI goals, automated reporting and analytics, and increased visibility into campaign effectiveness, Century Novelty was able to decrease spending on paid search by 62% – while at the same time increasing conversion by 11% and overall revenues by 20%.