CHELSEA ANNE PERSON
MKTG 4138 SOCIAL MEDIA ANALYTICS
January-May 2015
Google Online Marketing Challenge:
The Cannon Brew Pub
As social media continues evolving, I understand the need for public relations practitioners to have a keen grasp of the medium and how it affects our work. As such, I capitalized on the opportunity to receive a certificate in Social Media through a partnership between the College of the Arts and Turner College of Business. The purpose of the Social Media Analytics course was to provide a deeper understanding of ROI, search engine optimization, social media analytical tools, and Google AdWords.
CHALLENGE:
In spring 2015 two teammates and myself partnered with the Cannon Brew Pub and their online content provider, Naartjie Multimedia (the social and digital marketing side of Basett & Becker Advertising, a traditional advertising firm) in the Google Online Marketing Challenge (GOMC). In the GOMC, Google provides a $250 AdWords advertising budget, which students use to develop and run an online advertising campaign for a business or non-profit organization over a three-week period. This project helped me develop my research, critical analysis, and communication skills.
Known for its, “Real Beer & Honest Food,” Cannon Brew Pub founders, served their first beer to the Columbus community in 1999, marking The Cannon as the first local brewery since 1910. Looking for innovative ways to market the restaurant, Cannon Brew Pub managers agreed to partner with my team to experiment with Google AdWords. Our goal was to increase the Cannon’s website hits and identify which devices consumers used to access the site.
STRATEGY:
We began by evaluating the brew pub’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT analysis). Using Google AdWords Tools, we identified keywords and negative keywords (words that may confuse searchers, i.e. Columbus, Ohio vs. Columbus, Georgia) that someone interested in traditional food and/or beer may use.
We created three ad campaigns, Beer, Food Menu, and Party Reservations. Using critical thinking we scanned for current events or times of day that could trigger more search traffic for restaurants, drinks, beer or party reservations.
RESULTS:
Because our ads received more clicks than expected, our campaign lasted eight days. As we anticipated, weekends would trigger more searches for food and beverages, draining our budget.
In total our campaigns attracted 91,011 impressions, 448 clicks, and had a click through rate (CTR) of .49%. Our ads frequently snagged the top paid-search spot with an average ad position of 1.2. “Beer,” our most successful Google AdWords campaign had a 1.23% CTR and 3,403 impressions.
