How SEO-agency spent 600 thousand rubles. on advertising and what came of it
Hello. We are the SEO-agency "Ivashchenko and Nizamov". In October last year, we realized that our lead generation channels do not bring enough bids and sales. It seems not new to the market, but not the old-timers: we can not rest on the laurels of the pioneers. “Sarafan” works, but for aggressive growth this is not enough. And ahead of the business season: 70% of sales accounted for November-December and March-April.
And we had a budget. About 600 thousand rubles. I want to share my experience.
Of course, we decided to spend this money on advertising. Goal: make maximum sales. Merging everything into context would be stupid. Advertising in the ratings of SEO-agencies has already been scheduled for a long time to come. I had to think.
')
Our Central Asia: SMB directors and owners, marketers.
The specifics of the work makes our sales funnel fairly simple. In 99.9% of cases, we begin to meet a potential client with an SEO audit of his site. Thus, the first contact is an application for an audit. This allows us to accurately evaluate the results of various advertising channels: both with the help of a simple tracking of the source of the transition, and with the help of promotional codes for a free audit.
Accordingly, the advertisement takes the visitor to a special landing page with a form of an application for a free audit. It is good if the visitor also has a promotional code at this point.
It was not our first experience in advertising, but for the first time we had a decent budget.
Up to this point, we have tried Yandex.Direct, targeted advertising on vk.com and some other channels that cannot be scaled.
It should be noted that neither the context nor the target gave self-sufficiency, even for the long term.
We decided to try new channels. We tried to pick up something unusual in order to avoid the effect of "banner blindness." The list turned out to be the following:
Not much creativity, but in vain. Now we understand that it was possible to make the ad more attractive. Yes, and it would be nice to test promotional posts.
However, then the announcement seemed tolerable:
First of all, I looked into the “Advertising in communities” section of the social network advertising office. I tried to find there something tolerable thematic - in vain. Or the public in the style of "MDK" with a million coverage and an inflated price tag, or just some kind of slag.
Began to look directly. Found Tigermilk . Prices are more adequate, they gave a discount for package accommodation. In addition, accept payment by bank transfer.
We decided to be placed in five network publics: Esquire, “Masterpieces of Advertising”, “Success Diary”, “Anchor | Men's magazine "and even" Intellectual humor ". Posts of the following content:
At first I went to the Telega exchange, which was fresh at that time. Channels of the desired subject turned out to be not just a little, but almost zero.
Fortunately, by some miracle, Liza Aprilskaya came to me. She, as I understand it, specializes in this advertising channel and acts as an intermediary. Nevertheless, it was easy and pleasant to work with it, but as a bonus, the possibility of payment by bank transfer (there was no such functionality in Telega).
As a result, through it, we are located on three channels: Digital Eva , “IT and Media | Executioner Speaks and Russian Marketing . Plus one through the exchange: "Scrabble . "
The posts for each channel were prepared individually, each with its own "fishes". Examples:
Picaba has its own advertising system with a personal account. Pay for impressions. Available recharge by wire transfer. In general, everything works quite transparently.
An ad unit is placed between posts. Ours had the following appearance:
"Medusa" - online media from the former edition of "Tapes.ru". One of the few to date independent publications. In addition, they have really little advertising and interesting formats, and the prices are still relatively low.
The publication on Medusa cost the most, but it’s understandable: after all, the media. While they were preparing “cards” (a special format of the publication for explaining some topics to readers) - I managed to talk with managers, journalists, and the publisher. Whole chain
What we liked: everything is very professional. I talked on Skype literally 40 minutes with the person responsible for writing the article - and after a while we already had an article that didn’t require any improvements.
We hosted the "full package": an article on the website and in mobile applications, announcements in all social networks, as well as in the "Evening Medusa" - the daily newsletter for the day.
When a publication comes out, they give access to a page with publication statistics: how many views received the announcement of the material, how many times they read the article itself, how many clicks they made on the links, how many likes on social networks, etc.
Meduza's Insight statistics look something like this:
The very same publication :
vc.ru - one of the most popular platforms on the topic of IT, business and marketing.
I have one story, why we definitely wanted to stay on vc.ru. Back in January 2015, I posted a rather extensive comment in an article where an HR-specialist gives advice on finding an SEO. The fight was unequal, of course.
At the end of the comment, I posted a note saying that once you’ve read this huge comment to the end, here’s a present for you: a free audit of such a promo code, you can order it here.
Over the past two years since that time, about 20-30 applications came from this comment, but, most importantly, they had some unrealistically high conversion rate: many came and already paid for the contract the very next day.
Here, in my opinion, two things coincided:
We wanted a similar effect.
We spent quite a lot of effort on writing material (this is the only platform where we decided to write on our own). However, it did not work out very much. I think it was better to think about the topic and the publication itself.
It ended up like this :
The most interesting: the results of all these channels. I tried in a convenient way to present everything in one table:
Total costs: 610,720 rubles.
Total sales: 642,500 rubles.
The vast majority of applications were received in November-December. During this period, we also tried to realize the potential of sales: all applications were completed, there was a very profitable New Year's action, etc. I think there will be some more sales from these customers, but this will most likely not significantly change the results.
Our sales are monthly service contracts. Those. 642 thousand rubles is a monthly revenue. You can multiply this by the average time the client works with us (20 months), deduct costs, etc. - but this, I think, is a topic for a separate publication.
Which we have done for ourselves based on the results of the campaign.
We will continue to try various channels, documenting in detail their effectiveness. If the topic is of interest to readers - I will try to continue to publish the experience.
And we had a budget. About 600 thousand rubles. I want to share my experience.
Of course, we decided to spend this money on advertising. Goal: make maximum sales. Merging everything into context would be stupid. Advertising in the ratings of SEO-agencies has already been scheduled for a long time to come. I had to think.
')
About our sales funnel
Our Central Asia: SMB directors and owners, marketers.
The specifics of the work makes our sales funnel fairly simple. In 99.9% of cases, we begin to meet a potential client with an SEO audit of his site. Thus, the first contact is an application for an audit. This allows us to accurately evaluate the results of various advertising channels: both with the help of a simple tracking of the source of the transition, and with the help of promotional codes for a free audit.
Accordingly, the advertisement takes the visitor to a special landing page with a form of an application for a free audit. It is good if the visitor also has a promotional code at this point.
The choice of advertising sites
It was not our first experience in advertising, but for the first time we had a decent budget.
Up to this point, we have tried Yandex.Direct, targeted advertising on vk.com and some other channels that cannot be scaled.
It should be noted that neither the context nor the target gave self-sufficiency, even for the long term.
We decided to try new channels. We tried to pick up something unusual in order to avoid the effect of "banner blindness." The list turned out to be the following:
- Target vk.com. Still a huge audience.
- Direct advertising in communities in vk.com.
- Advertising in Telegram-channels.
- Advertising on Pikabu.
- Partner materials on Medusa and vc.ru.
Process
Target vk.com
Not much creativity, but in vain. Now we understand that it was possible to make the ad more attractive. Yes, and it would be nice to test promotional posts.
However, then the announcement seemed tolerable:
Advertising in communities vk.com
First of all, I looked into the “Advertising in communities” section of the social network advertising office. I tried to find there something tolerable thematic - in vain. Or the public in the style of "MDK" with a million coverage and an inflated price tag, or just some kind of slag.
Began to look directly. Found Tigermilk . Prices are more adequate, they gave a discount for package accommodation. In addition, accept payment by bank transfer.
We decided to be placed in five network publics: Esquire, “Masterpieces of Advertising”, “Success Diary”, “Anchor | Men's magazine "and even" Intellectual humor ". Posts of the following content:
Advertising in telegram channels
At first I went to the Telega exchange, which was fresh at that time. Channels of the desired subject turned out to be not just a little, but almost zero.
Fortunately, by some miracle, Liza Aprilskaya came to me. She, as I understand it, specializes in this advertising channel and acts as an intermediary. Nevertheless, it was easy and pleasant to work with it, but as a bonus, the possibility of payment by bank transfer (there was no such functionality in Telega).
As a result, through it, we are located on three channels: Digital Eva , “IT and Media | Executioner Speaks and Russian Marketing . Plus one through the exchange: "Scrabble . "
The posts for each channel were prepared individually, each with its own "fishes". Examples:
Pikabu.ru
Picaba has its own advertising system with a personal account. Pay for impressions. Available recharge by wire transfer. In general, everything works quite transparently.
An ad unit is placed between posts. Ours had the following appearance:
Meduza.io
"Medusa" - online media from the former edition of "Tapes.ru". One of the few to date independent publications. In addition, they have really little advertising and interesting formats, and the prices are still relatively low.
The publication on Medusa cost the most, but it’s understandable: after all, the media. While they were preparing “cards” (a special format of the publication for explaining some topics to readers) - I managed to talk with managers, journalists, and the publisher. Whole chain
What we liked: everything is very professional. I talked on Skype literally 40 minutes with the person responsible for writing the article - and after a while we already had an article that didn’t require any improvements.
We hosted the "full package": an article on the website and in mobile applications, announcements in all social networks, as well as in the "Evening Medusa" - the daily newsletter for the day.
When a publication comes out, they give access to a page with publication statistics: how many views received the announcement of the material, how many times they read the article itself, how many clicks they made on the links, how many likes on social networks, etc.
Meduza's Insight statistics look something like this:
The very same publication :
vc.ru
vc.ru - one of the most popular platforms on the topic of IT, business and marketing.
I have one story, why we definitely wanted to stay on vc.ru. Back in January 2015, I posted a rather extensive comment in an article where an HR-specialist gives advice on finding an SEO. The fight was unequal, of course.
At the end of the comment, I posted a note saying that once you’ve read this huge comment to the end, here’s a present for you: a free audit of such a promo code, you can order it here.
Over the past two years since that time, about 20-30 applications came from this comment, but, most importantly, they had some unrealistically high conversion rate: many came and already paid for the contract the very next day.
Here, in my opinion, two things coincided:
- The comment itself seemed to the users really expert. Especially compared to other comments and a rather weak article from an HR specialist.
- At vc.ru there really is our target audience: SMB owners and directors, marketers.
We wanted a similar effect.
We spent quite a lot of effort on writing material (this is the only platform where we decided to write on our own). However, it did not work out very much. I think it was better to think about the topic and the publication itself.
It ended up like this :
results
The most interesting: the results of all these channels. I tried in a convenient way to present everything in one table:
Total costs: 610,720 rubles.
Total sales: 642,500 rubles.
The vast majority of applications were received in November-December. During this period, we also tried to realize the potential of sales: all applications were completed, there was a very profitable New Year's action, etc. I think there will be some more sales from these customers, but this will most likely not significantly change the results.
Our sales are monthly service contracts. Those. 642 thousand rubles is a monthly revenue. You can multiply this by the average time the client works with us (20 months), deduct costs, etc. - but this, I think, is a topic for a separate publication.
findings
Which we have done for ourselves based on the results of the campaign.
- Got the necessary load of the sales department.
- As a result, completed the sales plan.
- Increased level of trust, so to speak. Example: a rather well-known brand came from “Medusa”. The commercial director said he would work with us just because Medusa recommended us.
- Publishing at large sites, we need to be ready for serious peaks in the load: 2 days after publication at Medusa, we received our average monthly volume of applications. Although the idea is obvious, you need to think over tactics in advance in case of a physical lack of time to work with applications (we were ready for this and worked it out almost without delay).
- Telegram channels are an interesting and, in general, effective yet effective advertising tool. But the choice of sites and coverage is still minimal.
- Direct advertising in communities vk.com gives meager coverage. An hour after the publication, any activity around it actually tends to zero.
- Interesting results gave "Peekaboo." Despite the fact that no sales have happened, CPC and CPA figures are pretty good. Applications are quite good quality. Need to try on large volumes.
- vc.ru is a platform for building up the level of trust rather than for lead generation. Without really expert materials it’s better not to publish. And good materials are often there for free.
We will continue to try various channels, documenting in detail their effectiveness. If the topic is of interest to readers - I will try to continue to publish the experience.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/319980/
All Articles