Comments and feedback Due 03/22/2019 10pm est

The Company

The company is MicroStrain Sensing Systmes, part of the sensing division of LORD Corporation. Operating out of Williston, VT, MicroStrain designs and manufactures a wide array of sensing solutions across many industries and applications. The solutions they offer include hardware sensing systems, customized software to accompany the hardware, as well as web-based data services. A typical customer would purchase one of these products for the purpose of gathering data, such as vibration, stress/strain, temperature, or orientation, then processing that data through software, both web-based or localized, for further analysis. The company prides itself on providing a complete sensing system that collects the data measurements, processes that data through cloud-based or local software, then presents the data to the end user in an easy-to-analyze engineering format. In addition, these sensing systems use high precision sensors but are sold at a low cost compared to comparable systems from its competitors.

The website for their business is designed with a focus on the informative. The goal is to educate the user about the product, the various applications in which it can be deployed, providing all kinds of specs, technical drawings, and videos geared towards educating the user about how to use the sensors and the accompanying software. The ultimate goal of all this is to prove to the customer that these are the highest quality, highest precision, systems, at the most competitive price points and to convert those educated users into paying customers. But, in order to generate paying customers, there need to be users visiting the website to learn about these products and services. This is why I would recommend investing in a Google AdWords campaign.

There are a number of reasons why I would recommend an ad campaign through Google, the first of which being the ability to target a very specific audience with the advertisements. One of the general goals for MicroStrain is to promote its brand name in the marketplace, but not just the general marketplace. The products and services that they offer do not fall into the general consumer goods category, so the branding needs to be catered a little bit more to a specific market, with the ultimate goal of generating actual leads. Google AdWords provides the ability to customize the ad campaign to target these specific markets with the specific goal of turning users into leads. This can be best accomplished by leveraging the PPC, or Price-Per-Click strategy.

The PPC strategy is designed so that you pay each time a user clicks on the ad. This is a great benefit for marketing campaigns that have clearly defined budgets. There is flexibility within the ad structure to set budget limits on ads and bids, choosing how much to spend on a monthly basis and the ability to make changes based on the results (Morris, 2017). It even provides the options to simply stop and start the advertising when necessary. Additionally, this allows you to only pay when the user visits the site and sees your content. Another benefit to using the PPC strategy is the wealth of targeting options it provides. With options like keywords, demographics, locations, or time of day you can hone in the ad targeting to the right audience, in the right place, at the right time (Weisbach, 2017). As results begin to generate you can continually modify these audience targeting elements based on what strategies are working and which one’s aren’t. Finally, PPC works well with other digital marketing strategies, particularly search engine optimization. The data provided by the ad results can help you make necessary modifications to your SEO, and vice versa, the performance data from your SEO can inform you on how to adjust the ad campaign (Morris, 2017).

MicroStrain does not sell a consumer product, so it’s audience will require some specific targeting. The products and services that the company sells are designed for R&D or test and measurement applications. This would narrow its target audience to tech companies, technical education institutes, students in technical fields, or people in an engineering occupation. With PPC the advertisements could be highly optimized to capture that target audience by utilizing long-tail keywords, specific calls to action, adding product photos, and using link extensions to specific product pages. Research demonstrates that customers like it when sellers make recommendations based on historical purchases. In fact, according to Accenture, 58% of users are more likely to make a purchase recommended to them based on past purchases (Patel, 2019). By utilizing link extensions, MicroStrain could make product recommendations to users based off of their prior search or purchase history, which would greatly improve the chances of generating a quality lead.

Another key targeting feature of the PPC strategy is being able to target specific geographic areas. Since the ideal target audience would be students in a technical field of study or someone in an engineering field it would be great to target cities that are more densely populated with either tech companies or technical education institutions. I would recommend targeting the following five metropolitan areas: San Jose, CA, San Francisco, CA, Washington, DC, Boston/Cambridge, MA, and Raleigh, NC. These five cities rank at the top of the list in several key targeting categories. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics these cities rank at the top of list in share of total workforce in knowledge occupations (computer, math, engineering, sciences, etc.), with San Jose at over 35%, Boston over 35%, San Francisco over 30%, Washington DC near 30%, and Raleigh at over 25% (Florida, 2017). Looking at metro areas with the largest number of college and universities we find Boston, Washington DC, and San Francisco all in the top ten in the nation (Florida, 2016). With all the technological advances being made is research and development in biomedical, robotics, and aerospace these college towns would be prime targets for advertisement of MicroStrain’s test and measurement systems.

In order for MicroStrain to continue to grow its business, continue to compete in a competitive marketplace they need to utilize the web to generate quality leads. I would recommend a goal over the next year of generating at least 25 quality leads per month, with the goal to convert a quarter of those into paying customers. The ability to continuously modify and tweak the ads based on performance and data provided by Google should enable the company to be able hone in on its target audience, the majority of whom are users with intent, turn those users into leads, and convert those leads into paying customers. I believe that a price-per-click strategy would be the best way of achieving the goal of growing the sensing business, as well as growing the product brand name across the sensing industry.

The first two areas of the business that I would recommend developing ad campaigns for would be the Inertial products line and the Wireless products line. The Inertial product line offers the highest potential for large volume sales in larger developing markets, such as robotics, unmanned vehicles (both air and ground), off-highway vehicles, aerospace, and more. For this reason, I would really push the ad campaigns for this particular product line as it will have the greatest impact on sales and revenue growth, which is the ultimate goal for the business. I would also recommend a campaign for the wireless product line as there have been several new product releases with many upgraded specs and features. Now would be a great opportunity to market this next generation of Wireless products to new and existing customers.

The first ad campaign for the Inertial products line would be simply be called MicroStrain – Inertial Sensing. This campaign would be focused on the Inertial product line, with a group focused on Sensor Features and another group focused on Sensor Package. The following are the keywords used in each ad group:

Sensor Features

1. Inertial measurement unit (phrase match)

2. MEMS (broad match)

3. Accelerometer (broad match)

4. Magnetometer (broad match)

5. Gyroscope (broad match)

6. High performance IMU (phrase match)

7. Low cost inertial sensor (phrase match)

8. Precision industrial AHRS (phrase match)

Sensor Packaging

1. Inertial measurement unit (phrase match)

2. MEMS (broad match)

3. Accelerometer (broad match)

4. Magnetometer (broad match)

5. Gyroscope (broad match)

6. Ruggedized inertial sensor (phrase match)

7. Tactical grade navigation IMU (phrase match)

8. Industrial AHRS OEM (phrase match)

The broad keywords were chosen using keyword tools from Google and Wordtracker. When a keyword is entered the tool will present a list of related keywords, as well as their popularity, measured by search volume. These tools indicate that keywords like MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical-systems), gyroscope, accelerometer, magnetometer all appear in high search volumes related to inertial sensing. Since these are all features of the Inertial product line they can be utilized as broad match keywords for ads relating to the product features. Other keywords like precision industrial AHRS (attitude and heading reference system), or tactical grade navigation IMU are added as phrase match keywords to drive more specific search traffic to a narrower selection of Inertial products with that specific feature or description. While the broad match keywords will bring higher traffic volume, the phrase match and exact match keywords should bring users with greater intent. With paid advertising, like a pay-per-click strategy, we want the ads to be displayed primarily to the users who are searching specifically for that content, and thus, will have more intent when clicking on the ads.

The second ad campaign would focus on the Wireless sensing product line, called MicroStrain – Wireless Sensing. The two ad groups within this campaign would be Wireless – Nodes and Wireless – Applications. This would cover the necessary hardware that a customer would want in order to develop their wireless sensing system, as well as applications in which a user would deploy these products. Again, the goal is to utilize both broad match keywords to generate more traffic volume and phrase match keywords to bring higher intent, lower volume traffic. Below are the recommended keywords for the two ad groups.

Wireless - Nodes

1. Wireless sensing (broad match)

2. Wireless accelerometer (broad match)

3. Vibration sensor (phrase match)

4. G sensor (broad match)

5. Impact sensor (phrase match)

6. 3-axis accelerometer (broad match)

7. Temperature measurement (broad match)

8. Wireless ruggedized analog input node (phrase match)

9. High speed vibration monitoring (phrase match)

10. Wireless analog input OEM (phrase match)

11. Thermocouple input (phrase match)

12. Strain gauge node (phrase match)

13. Wireless pressure transducer (phrase match)

14. Wireless torque sensing (phrase match)

15. Wireless accelerometer OEM (phrase match)

Wireless – Application

1. Wireless sensing (broad match)

2. Impact and event monitoring (phrase match)

3. High speed vibration monitoring (phrase match)

4. Test and measurement sensing (phrase match)

5. Equipment condition monitoring (phrase match)

6. Structural health monitoring (phrase match)

7. Wireless torque sensing (phrase match)

8. Impact sensor (phrase match)

9. Wireless sensing data acquisition (broad match)

Ads

In order to create effective ads there a few key elements to keep in mind. The first is to match the end goal of the user (Dane, 2018). Most users searching for the products that MicroStrain offers are going to be interested in product specs, performance, and price, with a specific application in mind. So, the ads should provide some of this information both in the header and in the description. It has also been shown that users prefer specifics and actual numbers in ads, and doing so will improve the performance of the ad (Dane, 2018). Therefore, it would be greatly beneficial to incorporate numeric specs in the product ads in order to improve click-through-rates. Another important element is a strong call out to the user. A simple call to action will generate more leads, which means enabling the users to be able to contact the company sales team directly through the information on the ad, and not by having to bounce around the website (Patel, 2019). Finally, it will be important to include ad extensions like sitelinks to specific product pages, or call extensions with contact information. Below are some proposed ads for each ad group.

MicroStrain – Inertial Sensing

Sensor Features

With Google AdWords there are a number of very useful ad extensions. Ad extensions are additional (and optional) elements that can be added to the advertisement. These extensions provide more information to the user, giving them more reasons to click the ad. The goal of using ad extensions is to increase the click-through-rate to the site. Some extensions provide location information, others provide various contact information, and others are designed to get customers to convert on the site (Google Support). We can combine these ad extensions to in such a way that sets us apart from competitors and caters to our specific advertising goals. The goals for MicroStrain’s advertising is to generate quality leads.

First, we want the ads to be presented to those who are going to be most interested in the products being offered. We can achieve this through the use of phrase-match keywords and geographical targeting (as previously discussed). In addition to this we can utilize a number of ad extensions to better enable our target users to click through to the site, or contact the company directly. The ad extensions that I would recommend utilizing are the call extension and the sitelink extension.

The call extension provides a quick way for a user to contact the business right from the ad. The goal is to make it as easy as possible for the user to be able to contact the business, especially one that offers customer support or sales by phone, which is exactly what MicroStrain does (Patel, 2019). On a desktop or tablet the call extension will show next to the web address. On a mobile device it can be displayed as a clickable link that initiates a call to the phone number. There are a few additional benefits of including the call extension for a business that relies on sales via phone calls. One benefit, especially for a pay-per-click strategy is that if a user sees the number displayed and proceeds to dial it on their phone, without having clicked the device, there is no charge incurred since the ad was never clicked on (Abraham, n.d.). I would recommend including this ad extension on every single ad. There are no additional costs for ad extensions, and there is great benefit to have easy phone access to the company’s sales team. See the below example:

LORD Sensing | OEM, Industrial, Ruggedized IMU

Online advertising is a great tool to use to get users to the company’s website, but the landing page is equally as important. It isn’t any good to direct a user to a landing page that does not deliver the content or information that they need. Again, the goal is generating quality leads, and we want the landing page to promote this goal. There are a few ways to accomplish this. First, the landing page should be directly related to the ad being clicked. If the landing page is un-related to the ad than the risk of the user bouncing increases. In addition, the landing page is taken into account when Google calculates your quality score, which in turn, affects your Ad Rank. Three key areas to consider are relevancy, load time, and ease of navigation (Pepper, 2018). We need to ensure that the content on the landing page is relevant to the content in the ad that delivered the user to this page. We also want to ensure that the user has a positive experience, which includes a page that loads quickly, and contains easy navigation to other areas of the website.

In the case of these ads I would make sure the landing page contained highlights of the products being advertised, organized by product families. These sections would be links to actual product pages if the user decides to seek more detailed information. Next, there ought to be a way in which the user can easily request information, or contact a sales associate. A couple of ways to do this are to add contact form right on the landing page, provide a link to the quote form, or even provide an optional chat box with a sales rep. This is an extremely effective way to answer the user’s questions right when they need them, hopefully leading to a conversion (Cunha, 2019). We can measure the performance of the landing page by tracking metrics like bounce rate and the average amount of time a user spends on the landing page. According to Google, as of 2017, the average bounce rate for shipping sites is about 48% and the average bounce rate for computers and electronics is about 62% (Bounce Rate Bible, 2018). Since MicroStrain is somewhat of a hybrid between these two industries I would recommend a target bounce rate of 55% or less, about half way between the averages of the two industries. This metric is easily accessible within the Google Analytics tools. The following are some diagrams of what could be used as landing pages for the Inertial ads and Wireless ads:

Inertial

Now that the Google AdWords campaign has been established and implemented there needs to be a plan to maintain and monitor its performance. This strategy would include a frequency of check-ins on the campaign, as well as choosing the appropriate performance metrics to track. The performance metrics selected for monitoring should be aligned with the goals of the ad campaign. The goal of MicroStrain’s ad campaign is to generate quality leads in order to increase its overall sales. Without an ecommerce element on the site itself these leads will be generated through form submissions, emails, and phone calls. For this reason, I would recommend tracking metrics that indicate how effective the ads are at bringing traffic to the site, metrics on how many of those users turn into leads, and metrics that would help determine the financial impact and benefits of the ad campaign.

The first metric I would focus on for traffic performance is the click through rate. The metric tells how many users click on the ad or once of the links in the ad in ratio to the number of users who are exposed to the ad. This metric is a very helpful indicator as to how affective the ads are at attracting users to the site. It can also act as an indicator of competition in the ad space if there are noticeable and significant changes in the click through rates, which can indicate a need to make changes to optimize the advertisements (Wheeler, 2015). Another useful metric that I would recommend tracking is the bounce rate. This is the rate at which users leave the site after viewing only that one page. This is a helpful indicator as to how the landing pages are performing. A high bounce rate could indicate that the users are not getting the information they need or that the page is confusing to navigate. There are several tools to track these metrics in AdWords, to view click through rates, and see how much time users are spending on specific pages, including the landing page. These two metrics are important to track because if the ads aren’t bringing users to the site and the landing pages aren’t delivering useful content than there is little chance of converting those users into sales leads.

Another metric that I would recommend tracking are some of the financial metrics. Budget is a big part of ad campaigns so knowing exactly how the money is being used is helpful in determining if the campaign is being affective and viable. The metrics I would focus on are the cost per click, revenue per click, and ROAS (return on advertising spend). The cost per click and return per click are can help breakdown financial performance of ads across different ad groups. ROAS is a percent return derived from the revenue generated from revenue and total ad spend. This data is helpful to determine the overall performance of the ad campaigns and whether or not they are meeting the requirements of the advertisement budget. In order to justify the cost of advertisement there needs to be a worth while return. There are many other useful metrics to track ad performance but I would recommend at least tracking these in order to ensure that they are contributing the goals of the company, which is to generate leads.

I would recommend that these metrics get reviewed on a weekly basis at a minimum. This frequency allows the ads to have a chance to make impressions and gather useful data, but also frequent enough that if modifications need to be made, they can be done in a timely manner. With paid advertisement we want to ensure the ads are delivering on their intended use, and the means regular monitoring of these performance and cost metrics.

I believe that a Google AdWords campaign would be of great benefit to growing MicroStrian’s business, both in brand awareness and lead generation. With over 90% of the search engine market share and 225 million searches per day Google is exactly where a business wants to advertise their products and services (Aleksandra, 2018). Google AdWords provides the benefit of advertising on the largest search engine, as well as tools that make PPC metrics easily measurable to determine if they are failing or providing returns (Gabbert, 2018). An AdWords campaign is also faster and easier than search engine optimization (but not necessarily a replacement). With Google AdWords MicroStrain can get its products and brand out there and begin generating clicks immediately, with the flexibility to set a hard budget, turn the campaigns on and off at any time, and require less maintenance than a full fledge SEO campaign (Gabbert, 2018). Finally, I would recommend the use of Google AdWords as an advertisement strategy because other competitors in the market are using them as well. We want to be able to impact that market ad share by showcasing MicroStrain’s superior products and services, with the goal of generating potential leads from users searching competitor products.

10 Things You Need to Know About Call Extensions in AdWords. (n.d.). Retrieved from