OptimumMedia Case Study

Company Background

Optimum provides cable service to millions of subscribers in the northeast United States. In the New York tri-state area, the company offers Optimum-branded digital cable television, high-speed Internet and voice services, and Optimum WiFi.

Challenge

Optimum wanted to improve the effectiveness of its paid search.

Through merger/acquisition, Optimum had become part of a larger family of brands along with cable provider Suddenlink, a True Interactive client that provides service throughout the south and west U.S.

The company noticed that True Interactive was getting better results from paid search for Suddenlink than Optimum was getting from its own agency. So Optimum decided to do an A/B test: both True Interactive and Optimum’s legacy agency were challenged to test paid search campaigns over a three-month period.

Optimum assigned half the zip codes in one market to True Interactive. Our charge was to build from the ground up a paid search campaign including keyword management, creation of ad copy, and all other elements of paid search. The competing agency was given a market of similar size.

True Interactive was at a disadvantage because we needed to start a campaign from scratch whereas the legacy agency simply needed to continue performing in an already-established market.

Solution

We knew that Optimum was the dominant cable company in the area, especially in Google’s eyes. Optimum was competing against a number of smaller third-party firms and dish providers that do not capture as much attention from Google in the cable provider category because they are not cable specialists as Optimum is.

Because we knew Optimum was more relevant in the eyes of Google than any other player in the market, we avoided overbidding in Google search results. There simply was no need to outbid other companies when the Google algorithm was already rewarding Optimum with high quality scores and higher positions in search results because of Optimum’s dominance in the category in the New York area. In other words, we knew how to put the Google algorithm to work in our favor.

Rather than waste money overbidding, we actually lowered our bid for keywords and focused on driving qualified traffic to the Optimum website with effective ad copy and bidding smartly. Meanwhile, Optimum’s legacy agency pursued a strategy of bidding to achieve the highest possible position in search results. The strategy resulted in the agency paying more per click than True Interactive to attract customers.

Results

Within 60 days, True Interactive had attracted 40 percent more customers for 60 percent less money. Optimum halted the three-month test and awarded True Interactive its business.

The secret to our success was putting the Google algorithm to work for our client. We knew Google was going to favor Optimum in search results for nonbranded words such as “cable provider” because the name held such strong authority with Google relative to the dish and aggregators in the area. We captured more clicks at a much lower CPC by simply allowing the algorithm to work in our favor.

Because True Interactive ran a cost-effective campaign focused on reducing CPC’s while retaining strong positions, rather than a “top position at all cost” strategy, we won the business.