How To Move PLAs In House
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The document summarizes L.L.Bean's transition of their paid search program in-house. Some key points: - L.L.Bean is an outdoor/apparel brand founded in 1912 in Maine with $1.6 billion in annual sales. Paid search drives 20% of revenue. - Transitioning in-house allowed for higher accountability, expertise development internally, and improved testing/alignment with organizational goals compared to an external agency. - The transition involved auditing accounts, prioritizing work, and implementing foundational changes like simplifying text accounts and match type balances. - Results included a 25% revenue increase, 17% lower ad spend, and 51% higher return
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How To Move PLAs In House
- 1. Paid Search In-House Transition Patrick Kelleher
- 3. BE STUBBORN ABOUT YOUR GOALS, AND FLEXIBLE ABOUT YOUR METHODS.
- 4. Raised in Freeport, Maine 15 Year Tenure at L.L.Bean Two Kids, Two Dogs Fly Fishing, Hiking / Camping, Live Music About Me…
- 5. Global heritage outdoor / apparel brand headquartered in Freeport, Maine Founded in 1912 by Leon Leonwood (L.L.) Bean Manufactures world renowned products of the highest quality $1.6 billion in annual net sales About L.L.Bean
- 6. Drives 20% of top-line revenue Focuses investment across 150+ product categories, ranging from women’s knit tops to best in class fly rods Investment weighted toward image ads and mobile Supports go-to-market strategy across many seasonal themes Paid Search Program
- 7. Too important to be wholly dependent on a 3rd party resource Indirect relationship with bid platform Slow reaction time Competing goals Why Transition In-House?
- 8. Higher accountability Drive expertise internally Turnaround of in-season strategic shifts Access to internal data / reporting (24 / 7) Alignment with rest of org. Enhanced relationship with bid platform / engine partners Improved testing strategy Benefits
- 9. Transition timeline Keeping pace with evolving industry trends Lack of cross-client performance data Team hierarchy / structure Competing project work / meetings Challenges
- 11. Pre-Transition Planning Account Audit Prioritization Matrix Foundational Hygiene Bid Management Account Restructure Mobile Investment Review L.L.Bean Transition Steps
- 12. Prioritized the Work High Impact High Effort Low Impact Low Effort Foundational Hygiene Bid Management Mobile RLSAs Gemini International Sitelinks Ad Copy Strategy Retail DTB 3rd Party Research Tier1Tier2 Geo Targeting Day / Week Parting International
- 13. Crawl First
- 16. Big Win #1 Text Account SimplificationMen’s Women’s Sporting Home Brand Other Prod Kids Joint Men’s Women’s Sporting Home Brand Other Prod Kids Joint Store DMA Non-Store DMA Men’s Women’s Sporting Home Brand Other Prod Kids Joint Combined Reduced Keyword profile > -50% Audience Audience Why split traffic?
- 17. Big Win #2 Match Type Balance Exact Broad / BMM Exact Broad / BMM Exact BMM Broad Pre Transition Spend Post Transition Spend
- 18. Big Win #3 PLA Product Group Profile Footwear Apparel Accessories Vendors Winter Sports General Sporting Outerwear OLD Structure Discovery Rain Jacket W’s NEW Structure … W’s Rainwear Campaign Adgroup Campaign W’s Jackets / Coats Adgroup W’s Belts M’s Sandals W’s Slippers W’s Shorts Sledding Boys Outerwear School Bags … Jackets / Coats Product Group Discovery Rain Jacket W’s Product Group
- 20. Big Win #4 Mobile Domestic Holdout Test Dark 50% 50%
- 21. Big Win #5 Bid Management Established day to day relationship with bid platform / feed vendor Moved away from spend capped model Allowed seasonality to drive investment levels Tested various bid strategies Incorporated attribution insights Leveraged business data
- 24. Ready to Run (or fly?) Leverage modeling to enhance audience targeting Offline sales data API Connectivity Bid to real-time margin data Product discovery targets Landing Page Testing Voice Search – super long tails
- 25. Thank You!
Editor's Notes
- I’m not going to tell you how I think a transition should be executed, but rather show you how we approached it at L.L.Bean. What worked for us and what didn’t. Every brand is different, every agency is different.
- 31 Stores, 9 Outlets $1 billion Ecommerce Business Mail over 150 million catalogs per year
- Paid Search program since 2002, been with 5 agencies over 12 years 31 Stores, 9 Outlets $1 billion Ecommerce Business Mail over 150 million catalogs per year
- Enhanced relationship with considerably more direct communications
- I’m not going to tell you how I think a transition should be executed, but rather show you how we approached it at L.L.Bean. What worked for us and what didn’t. Every brand is different, every agency is different.
- I’m not going to tell you how I think a transition should be executed, but rather show you how we approached it at L.L.Bean. What worked for us and what didn’t. Every brand is different, every agency is different.
- Scorecard key findings: Complexity and scale of program led to inconsistencies, waste, and improper setup Ad copy and keyword combinations were imprecise, leading to suboptimal user experiences Major issues needed to be fixed immediately after cutover: Bidding on irrelevant keywords (e.g. “picnic tables”) Landing Pages broken (error and 404 pages) Empty Free Text landing pages (null results, not found by agency’s URL checker) Paying too much for keywords that weren’t profitable Restricting coverage on keywords with unreasonably low budget caps
- Reduced from 18 to 8 Accounts Old way: 1 change = 4 changes Traffic splitting reduced keyword-level scale and quality score. Audience targeting rolled into campaign level settings
- Removed Repetitive Layers – Department layer sequenced twice Brand and non-brand 3 phase restructure (Combine brand / non brand, phase out department layer, move to product hierarchy vs. site heirarchy) Enabled product level bidding Vendors in product campaigns Local Inventory Ads (LIA) - LIA now accounts for 30% of total PLA spend
- I’m not going to tell you how I think a transition should be executed, but rather show you how we approached it at L.L.Bean. What worked for us and what didn’t. Every brand is different, every agency is different.
- Mobile holdout test
- LIA now accounts for 30% of total PLA spend
- LIA now accounts for 30% of total PLA spend
- I’m not going to tell you how I think a transition should be executed, but rather show you how we approached it at L.L.Bean. What worked for us and what didn’t. Every brand is different, every agency is different.
- LIA now accounts for 30% of total PLA spend