“Many of our customers are relatively new to the online advertising industry. Through the Google Engage programme, we have been able to provide them with comprehensive online advertising options that are trackable, measurable and have provided their businesses with a much needed boost to their online strategies. We are excited and look forward to grow our e- marketing services through the programme.”
National Web Solutions' Agency: Bringing Kuwaiti's Clients on Board!
From humble beginnings five years ago, to a multi-faceted and experienced web development consultant firm, Mawaqaa's aim is to be the web development partner of choice for small and medium sized businesses and to be the most comprehensive, trusted, accessible and valuable source of digital information in Kuwait.
National Web Solutions Company, or "Mawaqaa", as it is known in the industry, is Kuwait's premiere web solutions consultancy and developer. Mawaqaa currently employs 27 full time web development and digital marketing specialists who deliver projects in the areas of custom web applications, corporate online presence websites, content management systems, e-commerce and online advertising.
"Our customers include some of the biggest names in the Middle East, including Alghanim Industries, VIVA Telecom, Zain Telecom, KIPCO Group, Kingdom Holdings and Kuwait National Petroleum Company", as highlighted by Caesar.
Mawaqaa currently has a product range that includes 32 licensed products for web applications, statistics, e-marketing and hosting. They are designed to act as mechanisms to help corporations and organizations in successfully managing, supporting and maintaining their websites.
Integrating AdWords
Caesar empasized that it was via their local competitors and Google Engage programme that they found out that Google AdWords was vital to enter the digital advertising world. "We did everything in our power to get in touch with the right person at Google who would help us leverage our goals and aims; that is how the decision to use AdWords came". Caesar stresses that one of its main advantages is the flexibility it offers to the advertisers when they need to follow changes, dictated by the market:"AdWords is very flexible and can be used as a tactical weapon to support seasonal campaigns or give boost to traffic at very short notice meeting the impetuous needs of our clients".
By August 2010, Mawaqaa launched its first campaign with Google AdWords and in less than 5 months, it grew to 13 accounts belonging to various clients. "AdWords has a good ROI when running both search and display networks at the same time. The ROI from ads on the content network is usually higher than search especially with the usage of flash banner ads", says Caesar.
Moreover, AdWords has proven to act as a supporting channel to their outdoor campaigns. It provides an easy to use system with its targeting and geographic settings to design any online campaign effectively in order to reach their audience instantly. They believe this saves time, money and a lot of headaches.
"Google Engage has offered us the knowledge, incentives and expertise to approach our clients with confidence and realistic expectations. At some instances,some campaigns' results exceeded our expectations".
The ease of using the system in addition to the support provided by the AdWords team are among the main advantages which allowed Mawaqaa to turn AdWords into an integral part of their advertising activity. Presently, "Four dedicated people are managing our clients' AdWords campaigns. These are account managers excluding designers and flash developers", as Caesar shares. "Google Engage has offered us the knowledge, incentives and expertise to approach our clients with confidence and realistic expectations. At some instances, some campaigns have exceeded our expectations", as he emphasizes.
Online vs. Offline
For brand promotion and recognition, Mawaqaa also uses offline media, mostly outdoor bridge and highway ads which have boosted sales and exposure for the company in a crucial way. Other offline methods including newsletter and social media engagement activities work quite effectively as well. However, it does not sell. Such offline methods are very hard to measure. Caesar continues,"due to the integration of AdWords with Conversions Tracking and Analytics, you can now calculate your ROI very easily and it does not require any manual work, which is needed when working with other online tools".
Zain's Success Story & Results
Mawaqaa did an AdWords mobile search and display campaigns for Zain Telecom and were surprised with the amount of downloads from that campaign. A total of 31,000 downloads was achieved in a span of 3 weeks which completely surprised them. At this stage, they started to perceive AdWords' potential more seriously and have made plans to make full use of it. Caesar was happy to summarize that the main advertising aim of such campaign was acheived: "We drove quality traffic to our advertisers and managed to prove value to them".
These results have undoubtedly persuaded management at Mawaqaa to increase their online advertising spend on Google Adwords by up to 40% in 2011.
Using AdWords Tools for constant monitoring
It took Caesar approximately 3 to 4 days ( including planning, creative & ad design, etc.) to get his AdWords campaign up and running. Later, he had to dedicate some time for optimizing existing campaigns and creating new ones. Now, he monitors his campaigns twice a week.
AdWords Editor: Caesar says that he has found great use of the AdWords Editor tool; "Adwords Editor enables me to edit campaigns offline and faster ".
Site placement tool: "My personal favourite tool", as he claims. He ,in fact, spends hours exploring it!
Report Centre:"Another indispensable tool is the Report Centre, that brings a lot of transparency, other channels are not able to provide us with such detailed and concrete information", says Caesar.
"Adwords is about delivering results. Strive harder to create combinations and employ best practices that work best for you and your customers. Mawaqaa has found that paying attention to details always pays off".
Looking forward
Satisfied with the achieved performance of their online advertising with AdWords till present, Caesar shares the future plans of Mawaqaa: "We spend consistently on AdWords advertising and are currently training our employees to work with the system. Our aim is to become an AdWords Certified Partner so we can offer the benefits of Google AdWords directly to our customers and hopefully increase our clients' acquisition base".
Conclusion
AdWords is about delivering results. As an agency, you need to strive harder to create combinations and employ best practices that work best for you and your customers. Mawaqaa has found that paying attention to details always pays off!