Performance analysis of keyword advertising campaign using gender-brand effect of search queries

a b s t r a c t In this research, we analyze the relationship among (1) the performance metrics of a sponsored search campaign, (2) the gender orientation of queries, and (3) the occurrence of branded terms in queries. The aim of this research is to investigate the effectiveness of increased personalization of search engine advertising in order to improve the consumer's online experience. We segregate keyphrases from a dataset covering thirty-three consecutive months from a major US retailer consisting of 7 million daily records of a real time keyword advertising campaign into three gender categories (male, female and neutral) each with two groups (branded and unbranded) term usage. Using ANOVA, we analyze the effect of gender and brand keyphrases on critical sponsored search performance metrics of impressions, clicks, cost-per-clicks, sales revenue, orders, items purchased and return on advertising. Research findings show that the combination of brand focus with the gender-orientation of keyphrases is a significant factor in predicting sponsored search performance and behavior. There are statistically significant variations in consumer behavior as measured by sponsored search metrics among the gender categories. Specifically, females are more attracted to the use of branded terms than males, perhaps due to the trust and customer loyalty generated by brand image. Our results establishes that positive brand reputation creates dramatic influence on consumer's loyalty over the brand and hence strongly affects their interests, activities and purchasing behavior in e-commerce environment

Sponsored Search: Do Organic Results help or hurt the Performance and under what conditions?

We study the relative impact of competing links in organic and sponsored search results on the performance of sponsored search ads. We use data generated through a field experiment for several keywords from the ad campaign of an online retailer. Using a hierarchical Bayesian model, we measure the impact of competition on both click-through rate and conversion rate of sponsored search ads for these keywords. We find that the competitor links in organic results have a higher impact on the performance as compared to the competitor links in sponsored results. We also find that competition has a greater influence on the conversion performance as compared to the click through performance. Our results inform advertisers on the impact of organic results on their performance. Our results reveal inefficiency in the current auction mechanism as the click performance may not reveal the true relative quality of advertisers

Do Organic Results Help or Hurt Sponsored Search Performance

We study the impact of changes in the competitors’ listings in organic search results on the performance of sponsored search advertisements. Using data from an online retailer’s keyword advertising campaign, we measure the impact of organic competition on both click-through rate and conversion rate of sponsored search advertisements. We find that an increase in organic competition leads to a decrease in the click performance of sponsored advertisements. However, organic competition helps the conversion performance of sponsored ads and leads to higher revenue. We also find that organic competition has a higher negative effect on click performance than does sponsored competition. Our results inform advertisers on how the presence of organic results influences the performance of their sponsored advertisements. Specifically, we show that organic competition acts as a substitute for clicks, but has a complementary effect on the conversion performance

Audience Responses to Gender Stereotypes in Advertising

Advertising has demonstrated linguistic, contextual, and sexual gender stereotypes since its inception; it seems poised to continue doing so as advertising’s presence in society proliferates. Upon analyzing these stereotypes, examples can be found throughout media, especially in television. All this begs the question: Are these stereotypes actually effective at selling products or services to their intended audience? Do men react positively to stereotypes of men or women; and vice versa, how do women react? If gender stereotypes are employed in advertising purely through force of habit and not evidenced prudence, then the advertising landscape stands to gain immensely from taking a more progressive view; otherwise, stereotypical advertising is defensible if only from a financial perspective

Decision support system for search engine advertising campaign management by determining negative keywords

Search engine advertisers need to determine the best keyword set for their campaigns. Every company has particular constraints and expectations from the Search Engine Advertising (SEA). In this research we worked on a Decision Support System (DSS) that can be used in SEA campaign management. The DSS determines the negative keywords (which should be eliminated from the keyword set in order to improve the performance) based on the data obtained from the earlier campaigns. Current metrics used to determine the negative keywords are not sufficient/adequate, since they don’t incorporate other important aspects such as bounce rate, quality score etc. which are often used by the advertisers in order to evaluate the traffic but rely mostly to conversion rate. In our research first we analyze the keywords at unigram level (similar to some of the existing approaches available in the literature) in order to identify the set of unigrams which are negatively and/or positively effecting the campaign by using various machine learning techniques (either as is or used the core concepts associated with them) such as Naïve Bayes, Decision Trees, Logistic Regression. We further extended these algorithms by incorporating ideas borrowed from Greedy Randomized Adaptive Search (GRASP). We also introduced novel metrics which incorporate more aspects used in real life SEA campaigns by the advertisers as part of this process. The performance of our approach is evaluated with an experimental analysis conducted on real life data obtained from a major FMCG producer

Pay-per-click advertising: A literature review

Digital marketing is being widely employed to efficiently and effectively market products/services to achieve increased sales and generate higher revenues. It allows businesses to effectively communicate desired content to their consumers. Pay-per-click (PPC) is one such form of digital marketing. PPC is often acknowledged for the different advantages it offers, and at the same time, it is notably criticised for fraud and other issues associated with its use. The literature on this subject, although limited, has invested considerable efforts in unveiling the pros and cons of employing PPC as a marketing/advertising strategy. This paper reviews 50 publications on PPC advertising to synthesise their findings and arrive at a common ground for understanding the digital presence and impact of this form of marketing. Alongside discussing the findings, observed limitations and opportunities for future research have been identified and reported