Google helps Bord Gáis to find new customers
Bord Gáis has credited Google Adwords with helping it win 138,000 electricity customers over seven months last year.
Google and Bord Gáis last week released new data showing how effective their cooperation proved in last year’s high-profile Big Switch campaign, in which Ad words were among the main tools used to help customers find the Bord Gáis Energy website.
According to Eoin O’Suilleabháin, e-channel developer for Bord Gáis, the success of the Google Adwords campaign took the marketing team by surprise.
‘‘The initial results of the opening weeks of the campaign were nothing short of phenomenal,” O’Suilleabháin said‘‘ Within 30 days of launch, over 33,000 sign-ups were attributable to Google AdWords advertising alone.
‘‘The most impressive measurement of our online channels was the conversion of over 138,000 customers via the Big Switch website in just seven months. This rates as one of the most successful online campaigns in Ireland to date,” O’Suilleabháin said.
‘‘One of the major lessons we learned is that an effective online channel can continue to drive conversions well past working hours when combined with effective TV placement.”
Google’s Irish director of online sales, Ronan Harris, said Bord Gáis had grasped that it needed to closely manage its adwords campaign. The campaign started with thousands of key words which were whittled down as it became clear which search phrases people were using.
‘‘Bord Gáis also added to the effectiveness of the campaign by analysing the traffic to the website,” Harris said.
‘‘This is where a lot of advertisers fall down. By constantly monitoring traffic to the site using Google Analytics, Bord Gáis could see which keywords were most effective in attracting potential customers, what pages on the website were being viewed and what conversion rates were being achieved.
‘‘They could adapt the campaign in real time to ensure that they achieved the maximum return on their advertising spend.”
Harris said he was optimistic for 2010, as demand for online advertising solutions continued to increase.
The company is set to issue 2009 results this week. Last year, Google’s Irish unit reported a €2.6million operating profit in 2008, compared with a loss in 2007.
‘‘Irish consumers have gone online in very large numbers,” said Harris. He noted that, over the past year, the term ‘‘shopping in Newry’’ had eclipsed ‘‘shopping in New York’’ in popularity among Irish web users.
‘‘This market is still very much in its infancy and we see plenty of scope to grow our customer base,” he said.
Harris dismissed any threat to search engines from rival websites such as Facebook and Twitter, which have appeared increasingly on the radar for marketers here.
‘‘There’s still plenty of room for all of us to identify customers who want to use what we have,” Harris said.
