Getting a Head StartPublished: August 2011 | By Yahoo!
OnlineLabels.com finds being first is a good thing when transitioning to adCenter
When Yahoo! began shifting its U.S. Search Marketing clients to the Microsoft Advertising adCenter platform in 2010, it needed a few eager advertisers to go first and test the transition. OnlineLabels.com, an Internet retailer of labels of all shapes, sizes and materials, stepped forward and led the way for tens of thousands of its fellow advertisers. Not only did OnlineLabels.com’s transition go smoothly, but it has realized an increase in impressions, conversions and click-through rate following its Search Alliance transition.
The Challenge
For OnlineLabels.com, search marketing is among the most important ways the company advertises its products and services. “It’s an integral part of our overall business strategy,” says Jake Allen, the site’s Director of Marketing. “Staying relevant and ahead of the curve in search marketing is what can make or break your business.” The company’s six-person direct marketing team constantly works to improve the relevancy of its keywords, ad copy and landing pages to ensure that they stay ahead of the competition.
Given this importance to the success of the business, Allen had some trepidation about the transition to the adCenter system in 2010. “My initial impression was that it was going to take down the barriers of entry, allowing for many new competitors to come in,” he remembers. “After years of effort, trial and error, we were so well positioned in each of the top three engines that we were worried that new advertisers might get in now easier than ever.”
The Solution
These concerns spurred Allen to petition his Yahoo! account executive, Monesh Bulchandani, to be one of the earliest adopters of the Search Alliance switch. “If something like this is inevitably going to happen, I’d rather be among the first so I can get out to a head start,” he says. “We’ve got the capability to move quickly and adapt to industry changes like this.”
Allen chose to keep his existing adCenter account intact, then augment it with campaigns from Yahoo! Search Marketing. “I just wanted to take what was there in adCenter and leave it there, and then integrate what was missing in Yahoo!,” he recalls.
While sometimes it’s better to let others blaze a trail, this wasn’t the case for OnlineLabels.com. “I felt like our company was put in a very fortunate situation, especially dealing with the likes of Monesh and his team,” says Allen. “Any questions I had were answered immediately; and 866-747-7327 http://advertising.yahoo.com even before I asked the questions, more often than not, I got a call or an email saying ‘Hey, this might be working correctly,’ or ‘Do you mind if we do this?’”
The Results
Allen reports that the entire process was—and continues to be—a very positive experience for OnlineLabels.com, and him personally: “From my perspective, it couldn’t have gone any smoother. There were a couple of instances where things weren’t adding up, and I was very fortunate to have an account manager and team to explain the process.”
Yahoo!’s Bulchandani is a trusted partner who has helped Allen through any account management challenges. “The biggest benefit of [the Yahoo!/Microsoft partnership] is having Monesh to work with,” says Allen. “I can pick up the phone or send an email with full confidence I’ll have an answer within minutes. That’s comforting to know.”
But the real benefits of the Search Alliance go beyond a smooth transition and excellent customer service. OnlineLabels. com has seen some of its performance metrics improve, as well. “There has been an array of positives throughout the transition,” Allen says. “We’ve had about a 15 percent increase in conversions [from our combined Yahoo! and Bing paid search traffic]; our click-through rates and impressions are higher, and overall we’ve received more exposure. Lastly, just being able to advertise on a single platform using a single interface is great.”
About OnlineLabels.com: Launched in 1998, Online Labels, Inc. one of the largest supplier of blank labels for laser and inkjet printers on the Internet. The company stocks a selection of more than 1,100 ready-to-ship blank label configurations in almost every size, material and color available, and has sold more than five billion labels to customers all over the world.
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