Marketing Week Profiles: Web Certain

●●● Who we are… We are a search marketing agency with a difference, as we specialise in multilingual search. Headed by multi lingual managing director Andy Atkins-Krüger, the Web Certain team is made up of native speakers of all the major European, Asian, Middle Eastern and Latin American languages. We offer more languages in-house than any other UK-based agency, and therefore possess unrivalled local knowledge of the different global markets.

●●● What we do… We help leading international companies give their website a global reach quickly and effectively in any language. Our search and PR specialists run campaigns in anything from search engine optimisation to paid search and online PR. Whether you require link-building in Korea or Slovakia, keyword research in Japanese or Hungarian, or want to take advantage of the new opportunities offered by Google’s universal search in Russian or Icelandic, Web Certain is the place to come.

●●● Who we work with… Our clients range from small businesses to large international corporations, all with one thing in common – a global vision. We work with many major travel clients and have built up a great deal of expertise in the sector. Web Certain works with global brands in a variety of sectors, from technology to construction. Our services also appeal to other search marketing agencies, which can manage their own campaigns, but lack a multilingual aspect – that’s where we come in.

●●● Why work with us…? We offer a wide range of services, all focused on giving your website more prominence and increasing your con version rates. You can choose one or two of our services or benefit from a complete package. Unlike some agencies offeringmulti-language services, we are truly multi lingual. All our research and copywriting is carried out by humans, not translation robots, and we appreciate the importance of local, cultural knowledge. Not only that, but you only have to deal with one account manager to co-ordinate all your Web activity, in all languages and markets.

 ●●● What we did for Icelandair

Like any domestic campaign, the key to a successful international push is to ensure the keywords, creative copy and the landing pages meet searchers’ expectations. An effective international paid-search campaign will ultimately maximise a client’s visibility on an international search engine’s results page.

●●● The brief and objective
Icelandair needed a search marketing company that not only understood its business, but had expertise in delivering international, online marketing campaigns in multiple languages. The airline operates in a lucrative, but highly competitive European market. The online campaign would target four key markets – the UK, Germany, Holland and France – where Icelandair needed to improve conversion rates, as well as providing a platform for future, organic search campaigns. It would focus on improving sales of its scheduled flights to Iceland, the US and Canada from those markets.

●●● Execution
Web Certain delivered multilingual pay-per-click campaigns for Icelandair, including effective key words and creative management. A team from Web Certain’s World Language Hub provided a full localisation service, including ad copywriting and keywords.

The team’s expertise in local search engine practices and methods in each territory enabled them to deliver effective keywords searched for in the target languages. Existing ads were reviewed and various changes to copy and landing pages were made. The campaigns were then continuously monitored and measured to gather new data, so that new strategies could be implemented, such as uploading longtail – new key words that have been entered into search engines and have a lower cost per click, but which widen the reach of the campaign and improve campaign conversion.

Web Certain reports back on a weekly basis. Bids are adjusted depending on how many clicks the ads have had, what price they were and the ranking and conversion rates for those keywords.

●●● Results
The landing page for searches on US flights was changed from New York-only, when flights to the US were entered, to show all flights to the US, making the search applicable to more people and the site able to retain more visitors. The UK campaign yielded 100% return on investment since it began eight months ago, with a 70% increase in conversions in the past quarter. The average cost per click has also been reduced in all four country campaigns, exemplifying how one agency with multilingual capabilities can achieve success by implementing a consistent strategy across a number of markets.

Web Certain
Blackthorn House
Northminster Business Park
Poppleton, York YO26 6QW

● Managing director,
Andy Atkins-Krüger
● T: 01904 780030
● E: advice@webcertain.com
● W: www.webcertain.com