After launching its online store, Sony Network Entertainment Europe (Sony) sought our paid search expertise to promote its online store on Google.

During initial meetings, Sony explained that it wanted the online store to be seen as a reputable way of purchasing digital content. In addition to the granular campaigns built to cover games available on the store, an opportunity was identified to use a new beta ad format, for a key selection of AAA titles (i.e.: 'The Last Of Us', 'Batman Arkham City', 'Assassin's Creed' etc).

There were no specific targets set by the Sony, however there were two main objectives:

1. Raise brand awareness and strengthen online presence
2. Increase the number of leads visiting the online store

The aim of the campaign was to capture an audience that was already engaging with digital content. Consumers in the gaming industry are more likely to view trailers, so we suggested that media ads would be an effective ad format to capture Sony's audience.

Media ads are not only a great way to encourage brand awareness and user engagement around products yet to be released, but they are an effective option for direct response campaigns.

The idea was suggested to Sony who were extremely keen to trial the idea. As we had planned to run Search ads alongside the Media ads, we also decided to test the effectiveness between the two different ad formats.

Results

When comparing data between an exact match keyword in both a search campaign and a media ad campaign for the same product, there were a number of key differences:

Media vs. Search Ads Campaign Comparison - The Last of Us

• 20% increase in media ads search impression share
  • 94.34% for media ads
• CTR 34 times higher for media ads
• CPA 68% lower for media ads
• 40% of customers made multiple purchases

 Media vs. Search Ads Keyword Comparison- [batman arkham city]

• 90% more clicks even with 29% fewer impressions
• 170% higher CTR than in Search
• 50% higher conversion rate than in Search
• 23% lower CPA than in Search
• 51% less cost than the Search campaign

“We were very pleased with the outcome of this trial. As the results show, Media Ads proved to be a cost effective way of using official PlayStation video assets to boost engagement rates from our paid search inventory, whilst also helping to raise general awareness of the PlayStation Online Store.”

Olga Puzanova, Head of Marketing Communications, SNEE