A brief showcase of a cafe's first year's work on digital advertising via the Google Ads medium. Most small businesses don't fully utilise these tools, and I believe that a lot more work needs to be done to educate the market. PRELIMINARY CONCLUSION Each of DISPLAY COST and SEARCH COST have an independently positive correlation with SALES

1. 2019-10-03
We have some interesting data to
review. Google Ads campaigns
have now been running for about
a year (see stats elsewhere), but
because we ignore the
best-practice of tracking SALES
CONVERSIONS, we do not
actually know how effective our
ads are.
Furthermore we are not clear on
the the difference in effectiveness
between SEARCH ads and
DISPLAY ads.
Based on tactical budgeting
manoeuvres in from late-July till
early-October, we shall attempt to
put together a short explanation.

2. Period 1
January 1
to
April 20
⇤
During this period, campaigns
were largely on auto-pilot, under
pre-programmed rules, scripts,
and other adjustments.
SEARCH COST was jacked up
gradually towards 67 MYR/d.
SALES appear to have a strong
positive correlation with
increasing SEARCH COST.
DISPLAY COST was more
volatile. We may be seeing a
slight positive correlation between
DISPLAY COST and [ SALES
per-unit of SEARCH COST ]. This
needs to be examined in more
detail.

3. To
June 24
⇤
During this period, campaigns
were largely on auto-pilot, under
pre-programmed rules, scripts,
and other adjustments.
SEARCH COST was jacked up
gradually towards 100 MYR/d.
SALES appear to flat-line,
however we do know we were
outperforming the market during
this period, in terms of SALES, so
perhaps the positive correlation
remains.
DISPLAY COST was tweaked
down towards 11 MYR/d, and we
may be seeing positive correlation
with [ SALES per-unit of SEARCH
COST ], but the latter could just
be negatively correlated with
SEARCH COST. This needs to be
examined in more detail.
Period 2
April 21
⇥

4. To
July 4
⇤
SALES crashed in the third week
after Eid (June 5). Reduction in [
SALES per-unit of DISPLAY
COST ] and [ SALES per-unit of
SEARCH COST ], was probably
due to natural causes (‘organic’).
SEARCH COST and DISPLAY
COST were both quite volatile
during this period, so we may
have to look more closely at that.
Period 3
June 25
⇥

5. To
AUG 4
⇤
SALES trend back up again.
This could be a positive
correlation with DISPLAY COST
as that rises towards 50 MYR/d.
SEARCH COST is trending down
this whole time.
Period 4
July 5
⇥

6. ⇤
There are a number of long
weekends this month. However, a
lot of weird things also happen in
terms of cost control: [ SEARCH
COST + DISPLAY COST] in
August is 20% lower (2,400
MYR/mo) than in recent months
(3,000 MYR/mo).
Breaking this down, DISPLAY
COSTS are trending down
throughout the period towards 18
MYR/d, so it looks like the
positive correlation with SALES
continues from the previous
period.
SEARCH COST is pretty flat.
Period 5
August 5
To
September 5
⇥

7. ⇤
SALES trends back up again,
moderately, during this period.
DISPLAY COST trends up slightly.
SEARCH COST trends down
slightly.
Period 6
September 6
To
September 26
⇥

8. Over this period we ramp up
SEARCH COST sharply, and
DISPLAY COST just slightly.
SALES appear to tick upwards,
sharply also.
PRELIMINARY CONCLUSION
Each of DISPLAY COST and
SEARCH COST have an
independently positive correlation
with SALES
NEXT STEPS
Ramp up DISPLAY COST back to
50 MYR/d and SEARCH COST
back to 90 MYR/d, pushing total
spend towards 4,000 MYR/mo.
Period 7
September 27
To
October 9
⇥