GlassesUSA.com boosted its average monthly paid search ad spend an Internet Retailer-estimated 66% last year. That increased spending is paying off.

GlassesUSA.com LLC boosted its average monthly paid search ad spend an Internet Retailer-estimated 66% last year to $498,151 from $300,411 a year earlier, according to Internet Retailer’s Top500Guide.com.

The vast majority of that spending was allocated to Google’s text ads, although the retailer recently began allocating a small but growing share of those dollars to Google Product Listing Ads for well-known brands, says Boaz Ariely, vice president of marketing for GlassesUSA, No. 264 in the  Internet Retailer 2017 Top 1000. Product Listing Ads, or PLAs, are Google’s visually-oriented ads that present product images, prices and business names to users searching on Google.

Until recently PLAs haven’t been a priority because most consumers shopping for glasses seek a particular “look” rather than a specific product or brand, he says. Even so, by investing in PLAs, GlassesUSA aims to capture some of those shoppers who are searching for a brand like “Ray-Ban.”

An increasingly crowded paid search market accounts for some of GlassesUSA’s rising paid search spending, but so does the retailer’s focus on winning the top spot for keywords that suggest a consumer is looking to buy glasses online. For instance, among its top-performing paid keywords from May through July were “glasses online” (1.7% of its paid search traffic), “prescription sunglasses” (1.2%) and “eyeglasses online” (0.7%), according to web analytics firm SimilarWeb Ltd.

“If someone is searching to buy glasses online, that’s where we want to be,” he says. “The top spot doesn’t come cheap. But we think it’s worth it.”

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GlassesUSA is selective about the keywords it bids on. It knows its customer base, 49.4% of which has an annual household income less than $60,000, according to Top500Guide.com. And it seeks to use paid search to convey its value proposition: It offers affordable frames online with a money-back guarantee.

“We want to raise awareness and build word of mouth,” he says. “At the same time, we want to spend wisely so that our ad is there when someone is considering whether they want to buy glasses online.”

Given the retailer’s online sales growth, which was an Internet Retailer-estimated 96.9% last year, it appears the method is working.

 

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