The document discusses optimizing paid search campaigns using predictive models and portfolio theory to enhance advertising performance. It highlights the successful case of First Choice Holidays, achieving a 77% increase in passengers year-on-year through improved strategies and automation. Key recommendations include best practices for campaign management, efficient bidding strategies, and leveraging simulation for budget control.

1. Paid search campaign optimisation: maths, models and marketing
Emily Gudeman, Adobe | Chris Fensome, TUI Travel UK
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ADOBE MULTI-CHANNEL
ADVERTISING
TECHNOLOGY
© 2012 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. Adobe Confidential.

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History of Efficient Frontier Technology
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The Performance Difference
 Using sophisticated math, we build Predictive Models based on the ad
marketplace to simulate how they will perform at different bid levels
 Portfolio Theory approach achieves the best performance by examining
all possible tradeoffs across all ads simultaneously
 When Predictive Models are combined with the Portfolio Theory
approach, you can Forecast the performance of your campaign and
optimize accordingly
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TUI Brands we work with
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First Choice Holidays
Part of the TUI Travel group which the
largest Tour Operator in Europe
First Choice website is estimated to drive
59m visits in 2012 and over £370m
in revenue
Paid Search is the largest driver of online
bookings and makes up 15% of the
total First Choice business
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What are we going to show you?
Increasing First Choice’s year-on-year
paid search passengers by 77%
for a 35% increase in cost
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Key Takeaways
1 Ensure your current campaigns follow best practice
Understand how your money is being spent
2
3 Leverage your campaign structure for maximum
conversion
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Discovery & Recommendations
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What do we look for?
• Keyword coverage
• Bidding strategy
Exposure • Bid frequency
• Spend strategy & patterns
• Match Type mix
• Competitive Landscape
Traffic • Ad Copy
• Ad Extension use
• Promos/ Offers
• Conversion funnelling
Conversion • Landing page relevance
• Inventory Alignment
• Seasonality phasing
Efficiency • Quality Score Mix
• Simulation modelling
• Uplift forecast
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First Choice score card
Optimisation
Adcopy / Budget
Keywords Management
Matching
Overall Score: 15/40
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What did we find?
Bid optimisation severely lacking
Keyword coverage needed to be more relevant
Ad copy should be fresher and better targeted
Yahoo/Bing seriously under-represented
Budget management left money on the table
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See into the future
Simulations will give you control over your spend investment
Decide what target best meets your goals
Available daily in MCAT dashboard
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First Choice simulation
Daily Passengers
Existing
performance
Forecast a 24%
increase in bookings at
the same spend level
Daily Spend
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Quick Wins
Efficiency
Conversion
Use portfolio theory & sims in spend &
bid management
Traffic Deep link landing pages
Negative keywords to funnel traffic
USP lead ad copy + Site links
Exposure Increase phrase and exact match type mix
Expand campaigns to Yahoo! & Bing
Change campaign settings to maximize daily exposure
Expand keyword coverage to reflect product inventory
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7 weeks to hit the High Season
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How did we do it?
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Quick Wins
Efficiency
Conversion
Use portfolio theory & sims in spend &
bid management
Traffic Deep link landing pages
Negative keywords to funnel traffic
USP lead ad copy + Site links
Exposure Increase phrase and exact match type mix
Expand campaigns to Yahoo! & Bing
Change campaign settings to maximize daily exposure
Expand keyword coverage to reflect product inventory
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Why Automation is needed – Bidding at Scale
1m+ keywords 11 ads per page Costa clear favourite Impossible de clear a to del
Spain Holidays and holiday and you're Sol Luz of water for the
Holidays to Spain and manage or Whether find Costa Costas de
Holidays Spain Golden the with theseto manage these
Impossible del make bids you'll
beaches beauty nightlife of Sol la looking of the
Family Holidays in Spain bids manually
Blanca the beaches manually and de on Brits la
Cheap Holidays Spain
Hotels Spain favourite looking what Brits calm of what
Whether 1m Costas or and Costa keywords =
All Inclusive Spain Holidays 1m keywords = 35 days to
Spain entertainment sunshine on holiday the
Spain Holidays
with Spanish 35 water the manually
optimise de Golden Costa
Weather in Spain entertainment Spain days Spanish to nightlife a
Spain Holidays sunshine optimise you'll for Costa Luz you're
Summer Holidays Spain Almeria Costa Costa manually make calm you're
looking or Almeria you're the find beauty and
Blanca looking for o
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Turning Destinations into Campaigns
Generate
Keywords
250k
holiday
offers
Dynamic
Pricing
Flat File of Plugs into
daily Advanced
prices Campaign
Management
tool
Update
Inventory
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Automated Campaign Structure
NewStructure
Old Structure
Spain Research Broad Mainland Spain Hols – Balerics
Hols – Costa Blanca Hols – Costa Brava
Short Haul Broad G_Hols_Destination
Short Haul Exact Hols – Tenerife
Hols – Menorca M_Holidays Destination Y_Brand + Destination
Top Destinations Broad Generics - Exact
G_Eclipse_New Search Query = “Spain Dest - Spain
AccommodationDestination
Y Holidays Broad Holidays”
Feed
Brand
Mainland Spain
Majorca Research Mainland Spain Brand + Destination Hols - Fueterventura
Top Destinations Exact Hotel Destination
Y - Spain Mobile Visibility Countries Hols – Ibiza Hols – Majorca
Brand + Destination Hols – Costa Del Sol Port Aventura Spain Generics
M Spain Y Mobile Visibility
AD Center - Spain G - Spain
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Automated Campaign Structure
Oct 2011 Jan 2012
Phrase
10%
Exact Feed
36%
Broad
Broad Exact 50%
64% 40%
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Destinations restructure: ad copy
Old Ad Copy New Ad Copy
Ad Copy Month Impressions Clicks CTR
Old Ad Copy Oct 2011 8,333,382 139,805 1.68%
New Ad Copy Jan 2012 30,964,657 810,152 2.62%
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CTR increased by 56%!
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Increased Spend investment based on performance and simulations
Based on the actual performance
of the programme improvements,
and additional 86% was invested in
January’s PPC spend
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How did we do?
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Why Automation is needed – Bidding at Scale
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Destinations Restructure: Year on Year Comparison
CPA
CPC
CPA
CPC
Jan 25th 2011 - 28 Feb 2011 Jan 25th 2012 - Present
Decreased CPA by 51% and CPC by 24%
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Targeted campaigns lead to increased conversions
Cost per Acquisition % of Total Passengers
Other Other
Generics Generics
Destinations 2011 Destinations 2011
Feed
2012 2012
Brand Brand
Accommodation Accommodation
£0 £100 £200 £300 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%
Decreased non brand CPA by 29%
Reduced total bookings from expensive generic terms from 47% to 13%
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Before & After Simulation – Jan 2012
Jan ‘12
Uplift through account Simulation
development
Daily Bookings
Pre-sales
Simulation
Uplift through bid
optimization
Daily Spend
YoY in January pax increased by 77% & cost by 35%
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The Results: 2012 vs 2011
ROAS 44%
-4% Conversion Rate
-23% Cost per Acquisition
-26% Cost per Click
Passengers 77%
Clicks 67%
-40% -20% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
YOY % Change
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Key Takeaways
1 Ensure your current campaigns follow best practice
Understand how your money is being spent
2
3 Leverage your campaign structure for maximum
conversion
© 2012 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. Adobe Confidential. 32

33. #AdobeSummit
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34. #AdobeSummit
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