What can a leading online home search destination do to increase online visibility in a rapidly changing digital market? Implement Dynamic Search Ads (DSAs), of course. See how ForRent.com used the AdWords tool to expand its online visibility, increase click-through rates, and lower costs.
Goals
Expand online visibility at scale
Achieve higher return on investment
Drive more conversions
Approach
Implemented dynamic search ads in a three-month test
Combined dynamic search ads with remarketing lists for Search ads
Invested 17% of AdWords budget in dynamic search ads in 2015
Results
26% higher click-through rate versus non-dynamic search ad campaign average
30% lower cost-per-click (CPC)
37% decrease in cost-per-acquisition (CPA)
ForRent.com offers renters an online home search destination while helping property managers and owners increase their listings' online visibility. The website began advertising online with AdWords in 2002, and now drives high-quality rental leads in over 80 U.S. markets using search ads and conversion tracking.
With a vast and rapidly changing inventory of properties available to market online, ForRent.com needed a fast and scalable way to cover relevant user queries for every location and property featured on the website. The rental destination was also looking for new ways to lower its cost-per-lead. With help from paid search partner agency Jellyfish, ForRent.com turned to Dynamic Search Ads.
"DSA is a very intuitive and efficient tool that allows us to capture long-tail search terms. We're able to increase coverage of these searches while generating the best ad copy and landing page for a specific user."
ForRent.com gains search visibility with Dynamic Search Ads
Dynamic search ads helped ForRent.com reach customers with relevant information in the moments they were searching—without the need to manage keywords. Dynamic search ads indexed the company's website to determine which searches to show ads for. If a search was relevant to the content on the site, Google automatically created an ad to enter into the auction. The ads' headlines and landing pages were generated based on the products and services ForRent.com offered, as well as what people were searching for. These highly targeted ads complemented other AdWords campaigns by delivering value for relevant searches that weren’t covered by existing keywords.
Dynamic search ads also organized ForRent.com's content into recommended categories for targeting its ads. Recommended categories were customized to its products and services and triggered ads for search queries where ForRent.com had a relevant landing page. Each category was also refined to show additional, more specific categories.
Market testing led to increased dynamic search ad campaign spend
ForRent.com and Jellyfish began by running dynamic search ad test campaigns in a few markets during the first quarter of 2015. When their test showed significantly increased online visibility for specific properties and broader coverage across long-tail search terms, the rental website gradually increased its dynamic search ad campaign spending to 17% of its overall AdWords budget.
As its investment increased, its cost-per-lead decreased, leading the website's marketing team to quickly build more dynamic search ad campaigns to cover all of the markets served by ForRent.com. The home search website also took advantage of remarketing campaigns to achieve greater exposure for more specific searches. "The efficiencies we gained in both time and cost, as well as the improvement in cost per lead and conversion rate metrics, definitely make campaign building worth it! There were little to no issues getting the campaigns up and running," said ForRent.com President Terry Slattery.
The website’s dynamic search ad campaigns now drive 22% of its AdWords leads.
Dynamic search ads drove clicks, dropped costs
ForRent.com's use of dynamic search ad campaigns delivered a marked improvement in performance compared to the website's standard AdWords campaigns: Click-through rates increased by 26%, CPCs decreased by 30%, and CPAs decreased by 37%. The website's dynamic search ad campaigns now drive 22% of its AdWords leads.
"We've been pleasantly surprised at how well our DSA campaigns have been performing. DSA is a very intuitive and efficient tool that allows us to capture long-tail search terms. We're able to increase coverage of these searches while generating the best ad copy and landing page for a specific user. By dynamically selecting the landing page, our DSA campaigns help to drive very high conversion rates," said Slattery.
With help from Jellyfish, ForRent.com looks forward to taking further advantage of dynamic search ad's autotargeting features to drive more leads from interested renters at scale.
