A/B Test: Do customers prefer the familiarity of an Amazon Store page or an eCommerce site?
Google Search Ads were pointed toward an Amazon Store page, and Amazon Attribution was used to stitch the data together.
The results showed an across-the-board increase in nearly all metrics.
Background
AccuQuilt is a company that was built upon a rolling pin. Yes, like the kind used to prep cookie dough. While Steve Nabity, the founder, was watching his wife make cookies with a rolling pin, inspiration struck. If a rolling pin could cut cookies, then why wouldn’t a rolling mechanism work to cut paper?
He discovered the answer was that it could. AccuCut was born in 1990 and catered to the paper crafting industry. Then, Steve discovered that not only could his innovation cut paper, it could also cut fabric! He started AccuQuilt in 2008 and has been serving quilters worldwide ever since. The company’s fabric cutting systems yield accurate fabric shapes each and every time, and save time for quilters so they can get down to the fun part of quilting.
Located in Omaha, Nebraska, AccuQuilt’s mission is to inspire makers everywhere to experience the joy of quilting. The company even has a quilt gallery at its headquarters with exhibits that change about every three months. In a typical year, the gallery is open to the public and visitors are encouraged to drop in for a tour.
We switched from driving paid search traffic to our eCommerce site to driving it to an Amazon Store page. The results showed an increase in metrics across-the-board – clicks, revenue, and average order value all improved dramatically. Without Marin’s Amazon Attribution solution, it wouldn’t have been possible.
Justin Tefft
VP Operations
Challenge
AccuQuilt sells on its own website and also sells through online and offline retailers. The company’s paid search advertising had always sent traffic to its own website, but AccuQuilt wanted to understand if shoppers preferred the familiarity and convenience of buying on an Amazon Store page vs. the company eCommerce site.
Would AccuQuilt see a significant increase in conversion rate if the company directed paid search traffic to its Amazon store instead of its own website? Would the additional revenue cover the higher cost of selling through Amazon? How would AccuQuilt connect the paid search clicks to conversions on Amazon?
Solution
AccuQuilt and its agency put this hypothesis to the test during the 2020 holiday season. They decided to direct non-brand paid search traffic on Google to the Amazon Store page. The Amazon Store provided a compelling landing page for interested prospects, highlighting the full range of AccuQuilt cutters.
The search ads were rewritten to highlight the destination and to provide transparency for searchers, in order to align with Google’s best practices.
AccuQuilt leveraged Marin’s Amazon Attribution solution to connect the conversions on Amazon with the search keywords the customer clicked on. Thanks to an automated API setup, AccuQuilt only needed to link Amazon Attribution to MarinOne — the rest of the detailed tracking was set up automatically. Finally, Google cost data and Amazon conversion data were pulled into MarinOne and stitched together for reporting and optimization.
Results
The results showed a conclusive preference for the familiarity of buying on Amazon vs. the company site. The Amazon brand impact extended to the Search Engine Results Page (SERP), where AccuQuilt saw a high click-through-rate, increasing the overall volume coming from its advertising.
Ad Clicks improved 154%
Conversions rates held constant
Total Conversions improved by 220%
Revenue for the holiday season improved by 213%
Average Order Value improved 17%
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PPC for B2B: a Performance Marketing Survey Report for 2023
To help you stay on the leading edge of performance marketing, we surveyed over 300 B2B marketers to uncover actionable insights that will help you improve the performance of your PPC investment. Through a Marin and LinkedIn partnership, we sought out to understand what B2B marketers face right now and how they are dealing with a complicated market. Read the full report to get a better understanding of how B2B marketers are changing their approach this year.
What You'll Learn from the Report:
How budgets have changed through the years 2020 to 2023 and how budgeting complexities affect the work of advertisers this year.
What challenges are most prevalent this year and how other marketers like you are adapting.
The critical role audience targeting plays in your success, especially during a recession, and some interesting trends relating to targeting techniques.
The types of content and campaign management techniques are currently helping advertisers move buyers through the sales funnel.
What paid social or PPC channels are providing the best ROAS or conversions for B2B right now.
Enhancing Search Marketing Strategies With Generative AI
Search marketing is a critical component of a successful business strategy. With so much content available online, businesses must strive to stand out from the competition and deliver relevant results to their target audience. This is where generative AI comes into play. By leveraging the power of artificial intelligence, businesses can now elevate their search marketing strategies to new heights.
In this blog post, we’ll explore how generative AI can enhance search marketing strategies. We will delve into the potential of this innovative technology to drive more accurate and personalized search results, improve keyword targeting, and enhance content creation. From identifying patterns in customer behavior to generating engaging ad copy, generative AI has the potential to revolutionize the way we approach search marketing.
7 Ways businesses are using generative AI in search
Generative AI has found its way into the workflows of many industries. Here are seven specific ways marketers use generative AI in search.
1. Personalized search results
Generative AI algorithms trained to analyze user data and behavior deliver more tailored and relevant search results and can significantly enhance the online experience for users. Users can consistently expect to find search ads more aligned with their interests. Recent research shows that 94% of marketers believe that personalization boosts sales and more than three quarters of marketers say that generative AI helps them deliver this personalization.
2. Improved keyword targeting
Marketers must constantly analyze vast amounts of data to identify trends and correlations, allowing businesses to optimize their keyword selection and improve the effectiveness of search advertising campaigns. AI helps marketers do this more effectively by increasing the amount of data they can analyze in a limited amount of time.
3. Enhanced content creation
With generative AI, marketers can produce engaging headlines, ad copy, and social media posts based on user data and preferences, saving businesses time and resources while maintaining relevance and effectiveness. Generative AI saves marketers approximately two-and-a-half hours per day simply by optimizing time-consuming tasks such as content creation.
4. Mining customer insights
By analyzing large datasets quickly, generative AI algorithms can identify patterns in user behavior, preferences, and purchase history, providing businesses with valuable insights for targeted marketing campaigns, product recommendations, and personalized offers.
5. Automated SEO practices
SEO practices can be time consuming and highly prone to human error. Generative AI can streamline and automate certain aspects of search engine optimization, such as optimizing metadata, meta descriptions, and creating internal linking structures. This enables marketers and SEO professionals to focus on higher-level strategies while leaving technical SEO tasks to generative AI. The productivity lift that this automation can deliver for marketers has been estimated to be valued at $463 billion globally.
6. Conversion rate optimization
Call-to-action (CTA) prompts are key for driving user action and boosting conversion rates. AI can help marketers evaluate how effective each CTA is in driving customer action, and generate the most effective CTAs that incorporate insights from past successful campaigns.
7. Competitive advantage
When leveraging generative AI in search, businesses can gain a competitive edge by delivering more personalized experiences, targeting the right audience, and staying ahead of the competition in the evolving digital landscape.
Leveraging generative AI for content creation
Leveraging generative AI for content creation offers an incredible advantage to content creators. This technology opens doors to new possibilities, allowing content creators to focus on other aspects of their work while ensuring that their content remains engaging and relevant.
Headline and title generation
Modern technology can be used to analyze existing headlines and produce fresh ones for various forms of content like blog posts, articles, and more. Doing so not only saves content creators valuable time and effort, but also generates powerful headlines that truly resonate with users. Generative AI can also help marketers ensure that their titles and headlines include keywords that are most relevant to their customers to help them find these articles or blog posts easily.
Ad copywriting
Engaging ad copy is essential for search advertising campaigns and social media marketing. By analyzing user behavior and preferences, AI can generate effective ad copy that resonates with target audiences and drives conversions. Additionally, AI can help marketers repurpose old content and create new copy that is unique but has the same messaging as previous campaigns.
Social media posts
Social media data can help marketers determine the best time to post content, understand what type of posts get the most engagement, and even suggest new content ideas based on this information. Marketers can use this insight to create unique posts that are relevant for each social media platform.
Content personalization
Americans are constantly inundated with search content. A deeper understanding of customer preferences allows marketers to personalize outreach based on this insight and stand out from the crowd. Generative AI algorithms can analyze user data to personalize content for individual users. This can include customizing content based on geographic location, search history, and other factors to provide a more tailored and engaging experience.
Content summarization
Companies often create longer-form content such as whitepapers or research reports to deliver highly complex or technical information to their audience. AI can help marketers repurpose this content and generate short summaries that capture the key insights of the content. This can be useful for drawing up executive summaries or providing users with quick overviews of more in-depth content.
Video and audio content
Generative AI can also be used to create unique video and audio content. For example, it can produce custom music compositions or match stock footage with voiceover audio for ad campaigns.
Enhancing advertising campaigns with generative AI
With generative AI as a powerful tool, businesses can stay ahead in the competitive advertising landscape by delivering personalized and engaging content to their audience. Here are some ways you can use generative AI to create and execute better advertising campaigns.
Dynamic ads
Timing is crucial for the success of any advertising campaign. AI can be used to dynamically produce ads in real time based on various factors like user behavior, location, and preferences. By tailoring ad content to specific users or contexts, businesses can deliver more relevant and compelling ads, increasing the chances of generating conversions.
Target audience expansion
Generative AI can analyze customer data and identify insights and patterns that can be used to expand target audiences. By finding common characteristics among existing customers and generating lookalike audiences, businesses can reach new potential customers who are likely to be interested in their products or services.
Ad testing and optimization
Automating the process of ad testing and optimization can help marketers be more effective by quickly producing and testing different ad variations. This enables businesses to easily identify the most effective combinations of ad creatives, targeting, and messaging, leading to improved campaign performance.
Predictive analytics
Generative AI algorithms can analyze historical campaign data and external factors to make predictions about future ad performance. Leveraging predictive analytics, businesses can optimize their ad campaigns by adjusting targeting, budget allocation, and bidding strategies to achieve better results.
Stay ahead of your competitors with Marin’s cutting-edge search marketing management features
With Marin's AI-powered capabilities, marketers can gain deeper insights into the intersection of their paid search campaigns and their SEO efforts. This allows them to make data-driven decisions, refine their targeting strategies, and improve the overall effectiveness of their search marketing campaigns.
Marin's proprietary algorithms and machine learning technology are designed to help you optimize your campaigns and extract the most value from your advertising spend. Whether you're looking to target new audiences or improve your ROI, Marin's powerful AI-driven insights can help you achieve your goals.
With Marin's detailed reporting and performance metrics, you can monitor your campaigns in real time and make informed decisions about your marketing strategy. Additionally, Marin's integration with leading eCommerce platforms like Amazon and Shopify provides a seamless experience for managing your online store's advertising campaigns.
Marin Increases Amazon Revenue by 150% for Online Retailer
Background
A leading distributor of components and solutions for electronic system design, production, maintenance, and repair turned to Marin Software to help optimize their paid eCommerce campaigns. They are a global technology leader with over 80 years of experience. Their multi-channel approach includes 48 transactional websites, contact centers, a field sales force, and an online community.
Whether researching a new technology, designing an electronic product, or looking for parts to repair an existing system, this merchant is the trusted global source for engineering solutions in today’s most in-demand application areas.