WSPS search engine marketing success for GoJobsite

Case history

Gojobsite has a reputation for its search engine marketing. Jeremy Green, internet marketing manager explains why.



A major part of GoJobsiteís success has been attributed to its marketing strategy, which has used search engine marketing extensively. Jeremy Green, internet marketing manager at GoJobsite, ìWhat makes us very different from our competitors is our focus on highly-targeted, highly effective online marketing to attract the right candidates to our advertised vacancies. This focus has been very successful helping us to deliver excellent cost-effective results for our clients.î


What were GoJobsiteís needs?
GoJobsite was already regarded as a pioneer, having launched the service at an early stage in consumer use of the internet. As an internet-only company, GoJobsite realised very early on that it needed to be marketed online to attract potential users directly. The founders of the company have a background in recruitment, IT and technology, making them more aware and receptive to new processes and techniques. Rather than concentrating solely on banner advertisements, the decision was made in 1999 to investigate the nascent internet marketing technique known as pay-per-click (PPC) placement marketing on search engines.

Initially, the company decided to handle the bidding process by placing bids on keywords through a few search engines. The number of keywords was limited, as was the time available internally to carry out the bidding process. As GoJobsite expanded into other job sectors, the number of keywords had to be expanded too, reflecting the changing content of the site. With no official budget set for internet marketing, results were limited, but showed convincingly positive trends. However the marketing staff at GoJobsite were finding it difficult to allocate enough time to making bids on search engines; the manual element of the process was making it less worthwhile.

As a result, external agencies were hired to promote GoJobsite on the internet. However the company soon found that although the agenciesí understanding of some aspects of online marketing was good, they simply did not understand the new opportunities available to market the brand on search engines. GoJobsite found that agencies had inadequate comprehension of the market, and did not have the ability to regularly update bids on hundreds of keywords. As a result, the agencies were vastly over-spending, often leading to costs per conversion of up to 20.

With such costs escalating as GoJobsite continued to grow, it was decided that keyword bidding on search engines would be brought back to the internal marketing department. Dedicated staff were employed to make manual bids on all of the keywords, but this proved a monotonous and mundane task.

WSPS assists GoJobsite
It was at this stage in 2001 that the internet marketing manager at GoJobsite, Jeremy Green, joined WAIM, the World Association of Internet Marketeers. Whilst at a forum of WAIM, Jeremy met Simon Conroy, the technical director of WSPS. Simon had previously chaired WAIM, and saw that WSPS could help the GoJobsite marketing team.

WSPS had recently introduced a program which automated the bidding for keywords, called BidBuddy. BidBuddy would allow GoJobsite to undertake complex search engine pay-per-click marketing campaigns involving a wide range of targeted keywords, by automatically updating bids by BidBuddy to ensure optimal positioning of GoJobsite on the search engines. This would save time and money, and eliminate the need for manual updates.

Jeremy Green explained, ìThe automatic bidding for keywords was particularly useful for GoJobsite, as the manual bidding had been the major time-consuming exercise when the PPC marketing campaigns were based in-house. WSPS could not only use BidBuddy to run a wide range of bids at once, but also work with us to help inform our keyword lists and strategies.î


How WSPS drives users to GoJobsite
Since WSPS started working with GoJobsite in the summer of 2001, the site usage has been monitored by ABC Electronic, the independent media auditors. Figures have shown that the site has maintained over one million visits a month since April 2001, and over 500,000 users since January 2002 ñ an unparalleled record in the UK online recruitment industry.

Jeremy Green explained, ìWe were immensely pleased with our growth during 2001 and 2002, which has put us in a market-leading position. We had a 40 per cent growth in site usage during 2002, and we can probably attribute a significant part of this to search engine marketing, run in partnership with WSPS.î

When a consumer searches for a particular company or service on an internet search engine, the initial results that appear on the screen are sponsored matches. WSPSí first task was to research possible keywords which would be relevant to GoJobsiteís business. WSPS analysed keywords and phrases from previous PPC campaigns and compiled a list of core keywords and longer related key phrases. Some popular keywords cost more to bid on, but less popular ones cost less. By having a mixture of the two, the average bid price is kept low, ensuring the most effective use of the budget.

The next stage involved deciding an appropriate strategy for each keyword. This would outline for example the maximum allowable bid price, the most appropriate position within the results set. WSPS also needed to use BidBuddy to allocate automated bidding strategies to each keyword and phrase. This ensures optimum positioning in search engine rankings, whilst ensuring best use of budget.

Following organisation of BidBuddyís strategies and approval from GoJobsite, the keywords were then uploaded to the main search engine keyword providers such as Espotting and Overture. Following their successful submission, WSPSí BidBuddy bid management system checked and updated keyword campaigns throughout each day, in order to adjust bids against competitor activity in accordance with strategies laid down by GoJobsite. The results have been extremely positive, as shown by the ABCE audit figures.



Plans for the future
WSPS and GoJobsite work together closely to develop and customise the BidBuddy program to GoJobsiteís specific needs. As with all WSPS clients, the regular feedback from GoJobsite is crucial to the evolution of the service. WSPS and GoJobsite are pushing forward PPC marketing, developing new ways of driving buyers not just browsers, to companiesí web sites.

GoJobsite intends to continue using WSPS for the foreseeable future. Jeremy Green concluded, ìWe will continue search engine marketing for as long as search engines are the principal method of seeking out information on the internet; return on investment from our marketing budget has been high. Working with WSPS has been a pleasure from the start, we have increased brand awareness, and maintained our market-leading position.î