Article

_{DOI: 10.22167/2675-6528-20240001}
^{E&S 2024, 5: e20240001}

Thayane de Oliveira Sant’Anna; Matheus Dermonde

The evolution of technology and the internet impact various factors of life. The internet, which emerged in the United States in the 1960s, has changed the world and the way we learn, how information is sought, how communication is done, and how purchases are made^[1]. If in the past it was necessary to go to the location to carry out a transaction, today it is possible to carry them out without the barriers of time and distance.

Despite the most varied advantages, the internet has become a facilitator in accessing the most different markets, causing an increase in competition. In marketing, for example, the internet is a great tool for brand development^[2]. Given this scenario, companies have started to use online advertising as a way to reach potential customers through the most varied channels^[3].

E-commerce or e-commerce is the term given to any type of business transaction conducted over the internet^[3], and one of the main instruments for its development is the search engine search engine marketing (SEM).

With the advent of search engines, in 2000 Google launched a keyword-based search advertising program known as AdWords, which would later be called Google Ads. Thus, Google Ads was created with the proposal to improve marketing activities through the search engine and deliver e-commerce ads and links corresponding to the searched keywords^[4].

With the introduction of digital advertising platforms into companies’ daily lives, marketing managers saw some metrics like click-through rate (CTR) — click rate — and cost per acquisition (CPA) as facilitators, and focused all their attention on finding a better way to understand and use them^[5].

Media measurement has undergone a major transformation with the internet, and although analysis services are well-established today and google ads are very popular among companies, their use remains low^[6].

This work was developed at the largest shopping center administrator in Brazil, with a portfolio comprising 39 shopping malls. This organization has branches in the five regions of the country, with the largest one located in the city of Salvador, which was used as the research source for this paper.

Given the exposed scenario, a case study was chosen. This type of study is a way to illuminate decisions, with the intention of understanding a case or a not-so-clear real-world context^[7]. For data collection, interviews were conducted with key actors in the organization. The interview is a confidential or intimate conversation between two people, in a mutually agreed-upon environment, with the aim of obtaining opinions, evaluations, or clarifications^[8].

Given the above, this research was applied to three professionals who work in the digital media sector and are daily in contact with the area’s challenges, structured with open-ended questions, with a qualitative approach. Open-ended questions allow the answers given not to be pre-established, allowing greater freedom for the interviewees^[9]. The qualitative approach has more subjective motivations, such as values, beliefs, and opinions, seeking to deepen the understanding and comprehension of problems and people, focusing on each interviewee’s point of view^[10].

Finally, as a complement to the interviews, the Google Ads and Google Analytics data analysis platforms were analyzed, which allow for the extraction of exact data. E-commerce data were analyzed such as: return on investment (ROI), cost per click (CPC), clicks, impressions, CPA, investment, and revenue within a three-month period, from October to December 2022.

The decision-making process in the development of the first steps in creating campaigns on the Google Ads media platform was analyzed; the way data is transformed into relevant information; and the best practices for using metrics. Table 1 describes the profile of the interviewees, who have between four and eight years of experience in the market.

Table 1. Description of paid media respondents

Interviewee	Training	Position	Experience time in the area (years)	Experience time with the client (years)
Interviewee 1	Conception	Performance Coordinator	4	1
Interviewee 2	Journalism	SEM Coordinator	4	2
Interviewee 3	Communication	Performance Analyst	3	2

It is understood that the decision-making process begins with a situation of interest, challenge, curiosity, dissatisfaction, in which there is a goal to be achieved and/or an opportunity to be seized^[11]. Each interviewee presented the processes and methods they adopted for decision-making, which proved to be similar. All interviewees highlighted the importance of understanding the purpose to be achieved with the campaigns, starting from a client’s desire or problem who hired the service. Decision-making is a reflection of an existing problem^[12]. Therefore, the first step pointed out by the interviewees was the alignment of the objectives to be achieved.

In order to avoid errors in the process, the importance of the briefing and dailies or alignment meetings with the client was strongly emphasized. The briefing is one of the first steps for project development and aims to collect information such as target audience, competition, objective, schedule, and more^[13].

While the other interviewees shared how they initiated their processes in campaign creation, Interviewee 1 shared that they start their creation process with the keyword and reach planner to understand the campaign’s potential within the platform. In the view presented by interviewee 2, keyword purchase criteria need to be well evaluated, as they not only directly impact the funnel stage one wishes to reach but also involve the client’s available budget. According to him, Google Ads itself provides a CPC forecast, allowing for the analysis and selection of those that best fit the adopted planning and strategy.

According to the interviewees, after the creation of the campaign structure, conducting continuous tests is one of the main steps to understand the potential size of different formats and/or audiences within a platform. Thus, the best paths to follow with the campaigns are reached.

During the interviews, the three interviewees mentioned the importance of constantly optimizing and conducting new tests on campaigns, mainly because each client has a specific behavior for each action. Brands need to develop new approaches that allow for the most varied tests. In this way, marketing professionals are allowed to learn from them and, therefore, make better and faster decisions^[14].

After the creation of the ads, the activation of data-driven campaigns should begin, a step mentioned by the three interviewees^[15]. Data-driven marketing and marketing metrics are beginning to be adopted by the market, with the principle of maintaining the score for all major marketing activities. Companies that have embraced a data-driven and metrics-oriented culture have a competitive advantage in results, as well as superior financial performance compared to competitors^[16].

Currently, the world is witnessing a huge explosion of information that accumulates rapidly, whether through the internet, social media, or smartphones. The interviewees addressed this data accumulation and shared that they constantly analyzed the results proposed by the tests applied during the implementation of the campaigns. Thus, the importance of constant monitoring is noted, in addition to the fact that the data needs to be put into context so that it can make sense^[17].

One of the advantages of Google Ads is that its system is flexible and, therefore, it allows for various ways to optimize and track your campaigns^[18]. The interviewee 1 explained that optimizations are fundamental to the process, as they allow the campaign to be transformed into a profitable one. The interviewees emphasized that optimizations should not be made immediately and that prior learning of the platform is necessary, as the information presented during the learning period does not always align with the real conditions of what the campaign’s performance can become.

The use of marketing metrics serves as a support for decision-making, and these can be applied in various ways to measure performance; it is important to emphasize, however, that there must be a correlation between them for them to be used assertively^[19]. The use of metrics must be aligned with the strategic planning of each company, according to Interviewee 2, who further explained that each of them has a specific objective.

As previously highlighted, each client has its specific objective, with which their metrics must align. Interviewee 1 pointed out that they usually evaluate CPC, CTR, and cost per thousand impressions (CPM) metrics for common campaigns; conversion rate and conversion for campaigns focused on conversion and lead generation; CPA, revenue, conversion rate, and average ticket for e-commerce campaigns; and so on.

This case study focused on metrics focused on e-commerce. Therefore, all respondents highlighted that their main job was to understand ways to generate the best result and that the main metric to be monitored was ROI — an economic indicator that shows the profitability of the invested capital^[20]. Interviewee 3 highlighted that, despite presenting several metrics together, and despite the importance of the others to achieve the desired result, the one most observed — and which actually matters to the client — is the return on the capital that was invested.

To obtain a better visualization of the metrics actually used by the interviewees, a comparative table was organized. Table 2 points out the scale of use, by the three interviewees, of the following metrics: conversion, conversion rate, CPC, cost per conversion, revenue, ROI, average ticket, CPM, cost per visitor, and sessions.

Table 2. Metrics used and their scale of use

Metrics	Interviewee 1	Interviewee 2	Interviewee 3
Conversion	High	High	High
Conversion rate	High	High	High
Cost per conversion	High	High	High
Revenue	High	High	High
Return on Investment (ROI)	High	High	High
Average ticket	High	High	High
Cost per click (CPC)	High	High	High
Cost per thousand impressions (CPM)	Average	High	Average
Cost per visitor	Low	Low	Low
Sessions	High	High	High

Based on the metrics cited by the interviewees during the interview, Table 3 presents the parameters chosen in this study for a better understanding of the topics addressed in this work.

Table 3. Performance indicators

Metrics	Observation
Cost/investment	Amount invested in the Google Ads platform during the period
Sessions	Group of website interactions during a specific period
Cost per click (CPC)	Average value paid for a click on a paid ad
Transactions	Total number of completed purchases on the website
Cost per acquisition (CPA)	Average value paid for a conversion
Revenue	All cash inflow from primary or secondary activity
Return on Investment (ROI)	Indicator of how much is earned on what is invested
Average ticket	Indicator of the average revenue of each sale

Based on the information in Table 3, the performance indicators provided by the Google Ads and Google Analytics tools were evaluated in the period between October and December 2022, together with the actions implemented by the interviewees.

Among the challenges pointed out for these stages, the creation of an action plan focused on captured revenue, the forecast of an inflation in CPC and CPA during festive periods, and the increase in web searches in all categories, along with the increase for the “purchases” category, were mentioned.

When creating the strategic plan and thinking about the campaign structure, the interviewees aimed to create actions that would improve conversion costs and expand campaigns for products with a lower ticket price. To better understand the evolution of the data, the research sought to investigate the actions planned and applied during the months, starting in October, the month in which the three interviewees began their joint operation.

Table 4 shows that besides the always on campaigns — which are intended to be always active — campaigns were designed to encompass the festivity of October. Among the studies previously conducted, the theme that presented the highest demand was Children’s Day. Therefore, in order to cover searches related to the theme, a search campaign (search), focusing on conversion, and a display awareness campaign, which aims to reach as many people as possible, were developed. The display campaign is the only one that does not have the objective of conversion, but rather consideration, serving to help the other campaigns in the funnel.

Table 4. October results

Campaign	Cost (BRL)	Transactions	CPA (BRL)	Revenue (BRL)	ROI	Average ticket (BRL)
Search traditional	9.122,26	73	124,96	44.126	3,84	604,47
Searching DSA	3.790,88	3	1.263,63	906,20	-0,76	302,07
Search Children’s Day	851,61	2	425,81	968,21	0,14	484,11
Demonstrate awareness	1.200,17	0	0,00	0,00	-1,00	–
Display conversion	2.340,66	1	2.340,66	463,84	-0,80	463,84
Shopping aggressive selling	3.039,71	0	0,00	0,00	-1,00	–
Cell phone shopping	3.008,52	0	0,00	0,00	-1,00	–
Pmax all products	184,66	5	36,93	446,55	1,42	89,31
Pmax electronics (lojista1)	177,75	0	0,00	0,00	-1,00	–
Pmax electronics (lojista2)	2.890,45	4	722,61	5.206,83	0,80	1.301,71
Sum	26.606	88	302,35	52.117	0,96	592,25

November was the month with the largest budget, totaling BRL 32 thousand due to being the month in which Black Friday occurs. According to the interviewees, the Black Friday period is one of the most important for an e-commerce — and also one of the most expensive.

As their objective was a high number of conversions, one of the first actions taken was to remove the display campaign focused on conversion, as it presented a low number of conversions, a high CPA, and a negative ROI. For the month of November, another measure adopted was the creation of a maximum performance campaign focused on Black Friday. According to the interviewees’ view, despite being a new type of campaign, it usually presents good results when it comes to conversion.

Table 5. November results

Campaign	Cost (BRL)	Transactions		CPA (BRL)	Revenue (BRL)	ROI	Average Ticket (BRL)
Search traditional	9.486,44	411	23,08		237.079	23,99	576,84
Searching DSA	3.792,47	1	3.792		97,90	-0,97	97,90
Find Black Friday	1.115,40	0	0,00		0,00	-1,00	–
Demonstrate awareness	5.782,43	0	0,00		0,00	-1,00	–
Shopping aggressive selling	3.343,96	0	0,00		0,00	-1,00	–
Cell phone shopping	2.410,69	0	0,00		0,00	-1,00	–
Mall Black Friday	5,40	0	0,00		0,00	-1,00	–
Pmax all products	66,90	4	16,73		757,65	10,33	189,41
Pmax electronics (lojista1)	84,52	0	0,00		0,00	-1,00	–
Pmax electronics (lojista2)	3.796,91	7	542,42		2.860	-0,25	408,64
Pmax Black Friday	768,84	6	128,14		4.568	4,94	761,40
Sum	30.653,96	429	71,45		245.364	7,00	571,94

December was the month with the lowest budget among the compared months, totaling BRL 17 thousand for the platform. According to the interviewees, due to having a reduced budget compared to previous months, it was necessary to direct the focus to campaigns that showed better results in previous months.

Given this, the tactic adopted was to remove campaigns that did not convert, such as Pmax lojista 1, and focus on the highest search festivity of the period, combining this action with the control of pacing to give more room to campaigns with better performance.

In Table 6, it is observed that, although the revenue was lower than in November, it was proportional to the December (Business) Budget, resulting in an ROI 89% higher.

Table 6. December results

Campaign	Cost (BRL)	Transactions	CPA (BRL)	Revenue (BRL)	ROI	Average ticket (BRL)
Search traditional	5.529,00	310	17,84	222.733,00	39,28	718,50
Searching DSA	2.076,00	2	1.038,31	258,66	-0,88	129,33
Search Natal	120,30	0	0,00	0,00	-1,00	–
Demonstrate awareness	1.344,00	0	0,00	0,00	-1,00	–
Shopping mall hard sell	4.029,00	1	4.029,34	1.259,90	-0,69	1.259,90
Cell phone shopping	1.989,00	0	0,00	0,00	-1,00	–
Pmax all products	88,73	13	6,83	3.973,58	43,78	305,66
Pmax electronics (retailer 2)	905,37	1	905,37	113,40	-0,87	113,40
Sum	16.084,00	327	49,19	228.339	13,20	698,29

This study sought to understand and describe whether the monitoring of digital marketing metrics influenced a company’s results and the decision-making process involved in creating data-driven campaigns via Google Ads.

Considering the results found, it is important to highlight that alignment in the decision-making process — initiated by the objective — proved to be essential, as the lack of relevant information can negatively influence the results. Based on the objective, it is possible to understand what the main metric will be. It is concluded, therefore, that a well-structured campaign, with adequate keywords and ad structure related to the products, will help qualify your campaign, as it becomes possible to deliver exactly what the user is looking for when performing a search.

Together, the optimizations and tests, in turn, proved essential to obtain answers about which paths to follow — mainly because each client has a specific behavior for action according to their segment.

The study confirmed that data is of extreme importance for the media area, mainly to understand if tests and optimizations are working. However, care must be taken with the excess of data, which can hinder the process. Considering this factor, it was found that to facilitate the work, it is necessary to choose a main metric and carry out constant monitoring.

Through the interviews, it was also verified that the metrics serve as support for decision-making and that there must be a correlation between them, just as it is necessary to be attentive to external factors that may come to influence them.

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Como citar

Sant’Anna, T.O.; Dermonde, M. KPIs para mensuração de desempenho no E-commerce: uma visão a partir do Google Ads. Revista E&S. 2024; 5: e20240001.

Sobre os autores

Thayane de Oliveira Sant’Anna, Analista de Performance – Avenida Ayrton Senna, 2150, 3º andar, bloco O – Barra da Tijuca, CEP 22775-900 – Rio de Janeiro/RJ, Brasil.

Matheus Dermonde, Professor e Mestre em Administração – Rua Pedro Zaccaria, 1300 – Bairro Jardim São Paulo,13484-350 – Limeira/SP, Brasil

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