Marin Software: Marin Search, giving marketers the tools to cope in a diverse digital landscape

The product – Marin Search

We’ve accelerated the rollout of new features to every two weeks and now approximately a fifth of our revenue goes towards our R&D department. Product features:

• First Party Data/Personalisation – marketers can personalise targeting based on real audience insights

• Marin SmartSync - allows brands and marketers to ‘copycat’ their campaigns from Google to Bing with the touch of a button

• Search Intent - allows marketers to understand where their prospective customers are in the sales cycle

• Marin TruePath links Google and Facebook, de-duping conversion, impression, and click data across devices, providing a complete view of the customer journey

Results:

• The results of our software speak for themselves:

• Up to 60% time saving

• Up to 62% cost efficiency savings

• Up to 45% financial uplift

Software Overview:

At Marin, we’re focused on constantly innovating our product so that we’re one step ahead of marketers’ needs, giving them the tools that will make their life easier before they even realise it. Every two weeks, we issue a new release to keep our software suite ahead of the pack. We’ve accelerated the rollout of new features to every two weeks and now approximately a fifth of our revenue goes towards our R&D department.

Marin search features:

• First Party Data/Personalisation

• Marin SmartSync

• Cross-Channel and Cross-Device campaign management

• Search Intent

• Marin TruePath

We’re constantly looking at what the pain points for marketers are so our new features create real value. For instance, based on the insight that more than four in ten (43%) marketers feel creating campaigns based on a deeper understanding of audiences is their highest priority, we improved our First Party Data offering and personalisation capabilities that address these concerns. This means marketers can shift away from working in silos and instead begin to target audiences based on real insights such as social signals and CRM data.

Google is undoubtedly the king of search, but Bing cannot and shouldn’t be forgotten by marketers. Unfortunately, for many it is, despite Bing powering more than one in five UK searches. That’s why we developed Marin SmartSync. This feature allows brands and marketers to ‘copycat’ their campaigns from Google to Bing with the touch of a button. This time saving tool means that marketers are more likely to readily use Bing and thus reap the rewards.

For search, one of the biggest challenges is to understand the intent behind purchasers. For example, the phrase “buy new running shoes” could be a novice deciding to get fit but may never act on it, or someone that has run multiple marathons before. So, we developed Search Intent which allows marketers to understand where their prospective customers are in the sales cycle. Combining this with a rich pool of behaviour and demographic data, marketers can target and adjust their message with more accuracy and success.

The life of a marketer is significantly more difficult as the customer journey becomes more fragmented in an omni-channel digital landscape. To equip marketers for this challenge our software allows for seamless Cross-Channel and Cross-Device Campaigns. Tracking a consumer’s path to purchase is essential information for any marketer. It can offers insight into consumer behaviour and help determine where best to allocate spend.

Marin TruePath links Google and Facebook, de-duping conversion, impression, and click data across Page 4 of 6 devices. This provides a complete view of the customer journey, allowing accurate measurement and optimisation of your budget across all of your addressable marketing channels. With a clear understanding of how people interact with your brand across all channels and devices, you can make more informed budget allocation decisions and grow revenue.

Software Benefits:

At Marin, we are passionate about search and giving marketers the tools to cope in an increasingly complex and diverse digital landscape.

Here are seven reasons why we think Marin Search deserved this year’s Best Search Software award:

1) We’re the search experts

With more than ten years’ experience developing a search product, no one knows search quite like us. Our UK customer success team is made up of more than 20 experts in digital marketing with three to 10+ years of experience who work every day on testing new innovative ways of improving our clients’ campaigns.

2) We anticipate the future needs of advertisers

We give marketers the tools they need based on the knowledge of the challenges they face.

3) We give marketers transparent, flexible and efficient bidding tools

Understanding your budget and KPIs is key to long term success, so we make it easy for brands to keep track and achieve their goals with bi-annual value statements.

4) We help brands improve cost efficiencies by up to 62%

Saving our customers money allows them to reinvest this budget elsewhere helping to achieve their marketing goals.

5) We save marketers up to 60% time

Advanced reporting and bidding tools give marketers their time back so they can spend it doing creative work.

6) We’re constantly updating our product

With a new release every two weeks, we’re making sure our customers stay up to date.

7) We’re Google’s biggest global API partner

The majority of searches are still made via Google, making us a clear choice for marketers.

When our customers use Marin, they also get access to our amazing customer success team. We go above and beyond to ensure that our customers achieve and surpass their marketing goals. According to trusted reviews site G2Crowd, 80 verified users reviewed Marin and it was awarded a ‘Leader’ badge in the Best Cross-Channel Advertising Software category for Fall 2017.

Software Examples and Results:

Marin partners with some of the world’s leading brands including Starcom MediaVest, iProspect, Mediacom, Havas Media, MoneySupermarket.com, Confused.com, BuyAGift, Carwow, Mango, Virgin Atlantic, Europcar, EasyJet.

Below are a couple of examples of clients that have used the platform and a few key stats on how Marin’s platform has transformed their digital marketing

Buyagift moves on from last click attribution with Marin TruePath

Challenge:

Buyagift wanted a single view of performance across channels with a more intelligent means to properly credit each touch point to conversion.

Solution:

By deploying a container tag (Marin Tracker) across the Buyagift website, they were able to add an event parameter that stores a unique order ID when a conversion occurs. In turn, this allows Buyagift to track de duped conversion events across channels.

Marin TruePath utilises the Facebook impressions API to match the order ID to an actual person so Buyagift can see all the clicks and impressions that occurred prior to conversion. Buyagift are then able to use a linear attribution model to equally credit both channel’s role in the process.

Results:

Buyagift has been thrilled with the benefits. Not only has the conversion data been 100% accurate but they have seen their return on Investment (ROI) increase threefold.

Fiat unites search and social to drive lead generation with Marin Search Intent

Challenge:

Fiat wanted a way of tying up search and social ad targeting, making sure that they were using all the data available to profile audiences. Fiat understood that without comparing both data sets, their ad spend wasn’t as efficient as it could be and that greater knowledge of the audience and personalisation would benefit them greatly.

Solution:

Fiat looked to the Marin Search Intent to help drive lead generation across search and social channels. By targeting individuals based on existing customer data and past search data, Marin enables Fiat to target the right individual with a tailored advert.

Marin’s mass editor tool makes it quick for Fiat to configure maps of search intent audiences with ad sets and ensure creatives are aligned to each category too. Targeting techniques, including lookalikes, flexible exclusion, and new vs existing customers were then implemented to structure the campaigns. Helping Fiat to separate existing customers allows them to tailor their ads and only target the most appropriate individual, cutting costs and driving a higher number of leads.

Results:

• 30.5% decrease in cost per lead generation

• 77.3% decrease in overall cost per lead

• 123% increase in conversions month over month

Client Testimonials:

Don’t just take our word for it. Hear what the PPC Campaign Manager at Confused.com thinks makes Marin Search great:

“For us it’s all about automation. It used to take hours to report back on stuff. The scale on which we can make changes – for instance, update all ad copy in one go – is hugely helpful to us.

“I also think the account management side is very strong. We talk to our AM (Maarten) weekly if not daily and he’s great. We also get lots of value in terms of getting exposed to beta services and products. It’s good for us to see the cutting-edge stuff.”

Another key Marin partner is MoneySuperMarket - their Marketing Director had this to say about us;

“Marin offers the scale we need to manage a vast number of campaigns at the same time and, because its technology is open stack, we can inform the optimisation of those campaigns with increasingly complex data sources. Digital marketing is critical to MoneySuperMarket’s success and Marin is a partner that has the innovative capabilities within their platform to help us consistently deliver the right messages to the right audiences at the right time.”

Premier Farnell, has also been using Marin. Their Global Head (VP) of eCommerce & Digital Marketing had the below to say about our offering;

“It’s vital we’re able to manage the performance of our global campaigns through automated bidding, reports and easy-to-use dashboards. Marin also gives us the ability to report and optimise on cost, click and conversions at a product level so we have a clear view on the shopping performance of our digital advertising. The sophisticated automation features like the reporting and Dynamic Campaigns feature are huge time savers for us, and make our digital marketing more efficient.”

Dynamic Campaigns is a simple solution for brands with huge product portfolios, like Premier Farnell, that dynamically generates, optimises and updates product advertising campaigns, which saves time and increases conversions. It can automatically pause specific product campaigns if stock levels are low or unavailable, meaning there is no ad wastage.