Apogee Search Turns To SearchForce for PPC Management

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Using SearchForce's smart search technology, Apogee Search has increased productivity and improved their client's return on investment.

Developing and implementing effective campaign strategies for clients, while optimizing the productivity of internal staff, is a fine balance that is challenging to achieve, but one that is a critical success factor for today's search engine marketing (SEM) agencies. That's why Apogee Search turned to powerful, innovative pay-per-click (PPC) management technologies from SearchForce.

The Challenge of Manual Campaign Management

Apogee Search is one of the world's leading SEM firms, and currently runs more than 50 simultaneous campaigns for clients across all industries. These programs, while highly effective, are also time-consuming, requiring the company's PPC specialists to complete a tremendous amount of cumbersome, manual administrative work to ensure the best possible results.

"We use tools that were developed in-house," said Miles Olson, Director of Marketing at Apogee Search. "But, bid optimization was only partially automated, and we only had one-way APIs with the top search engines. So, our specialists were still forced to perform repetitive, labor-intensive tasks to manage a significant portion of their PPC campaign Marketingworkload. We wanted to find a way to eliminate these manual functions, so our staff members could allocate additional time to more strategic campaign optimization functions such as ad copy and landing page optimization, day-parting, and seasonality variables, among other activities."

Apogee Undertakes An Exhaustive Search for PPC Management Software

In 2006, the company embarked on an initiative to supplement their homegrown system with a robust, fully-automated PPC management application. The primary goal of this project was to find a technology solution that would create tangible, measurable results for Apogee clients, while dramatically increasing the efficiency of the firm's team of specialists.

Apogee closely evaluated as many as nine different vendors, using stringent criteria to make their decision, such as:

The ability to perform dynamic bid optimization for an entire portfolio, not just individual keywords.

Custom report writing capabilities, in addition to pre-developed report templates.

Built-in conversion-tracking features, as well as the ability to work with third-party conversion tracking tools such as Web Trends.

The ability to work seamlessly with all the major search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, MSN Search, etc.

SearchForce Comes Out On Top

"SearchForce clearly stood out from all the other providers we looked at," Olson added. "It was the one solution that offered the functionality we needed to satisfy all of our requirements - yet was cost-effective enough to yield a fast and significant return on investment. And, they were the only vendor that was confident enough in their offering to allow us to test-drive the application before buying it. This gave us an opportunity to see, first hand, the kinds of benefits we could reap."

The SearchForce PPC Management platform is a robust, feature-rich solution that delivers complete control over SEM campaigns and related activities from end-to-end. From portfolio optimization, keyword generation, and campaign planning, through performance tracking and reporting, SearchForce empowers both agencies and advertisers to streamline and enhance all facets of campaign management, improving efficiency, increasing cost-effectiveness, and most importantly - boosting results!

Apogee Realizes Impressive Returns

According to Olson, the SearchForce solution has been a wise investment so far. "We've seen some pretty impressive returns. For example, within the first 30 days of deployment, one of our e-commerce clients saw a dramatic rise in sales, as well as an increase in their return on ad spend (ROAS)."

"Its sophisticated algorithms, combined with its flexibility and customizability, allow us to set up rules based on the unique needs of each of our clients. So, we can make more rapid bid adjustments when they're needed, and better meet our clients' expectations by achieving our most critical metrics in a much shorter timeframe."

"Additionally," he continued. "Campaign set-up activities, as well as routine, repetitive post-launch management tasks can now be completed in just a fraction of the time. This allows them to devote more of their time to the more strategic campaign management functions that can really impact client returns."

One more added benefit for Apogee has been the ability to export and incorporate data generated by SearchForce into the company's other databases. This enables Apogee to consolidate vital campaign information to generate a variety of other reports such as billings and statements.

"We've been so pleased with the SearchForce solution, and are confident we made the best possible decision," Olson concluded. "And, as we continue to move more and more client campaigns onto the system, we expect our results to continue."

About Apogee Search

Since its inception in 2001, Apogee Search has rapidly grown to become one of the 25 largest search engine marketing firms in the world. Founded by early Internet pioneers and McKinsey & Co. alumni, Apogee focuses on a variety of proven online marketing methods that include paid search, natural search, affiliate marketing, and pay-per-call.