Case Studies / Success with Skai

Kaspersky Uses Automated Bidding And Budget Navigator From Skai To Drive 5% YoY Growth In A Maturing Market

5 %
YoY Revenue Growth
14 %
ROAS improvement YoY

Background

Kaspersky is one of the largest cybersecurity and anti-virus providers, operating in 130 markets worldwide. It’s a competitive market and PPC is the leading acquisition channel for B2C sales across most countries. The organisation operates its search activity over 30 languages worldwide and across nine different platforms including Google, Microsoft Advertising, Baidu and Yandex.

Challenge

Since launching its search programme on Kenshoo six years ago, Kaspersky’s primary objective has been to maximise revenue generation (ROAS) at a global level – something they had done to great success.

They knew that any further improvements would be driven by improving efficiencies, resource productivity and aggressive tactics to deliver better ROAS and achieve their 2019 specific goals:

  • Improve Non-Brand Quality Score across top-tier accounts by +10%
  • Improve ROAS by +10% YoY across top-tier markets including US, DACH and Japan
  • Maintain YoY revenue in a maturing market
  • Set global best practices and align limited resourcing across more than eight global search teams

Solution

  • Automated Bidding Strategies – By grouping campaigns into defined segments (i.e. by brand vs non-brand, by market and by campaign target), Kaspersky was able to create more focused portfolios and set a bespoke target KPI for each one. This made the automated bidding more agile to their specific needs to scale and perform. 
  • Skai Budget Navigator – Budget Navigator allowed Kaspersky to improve its forecast at the beginning of each quarter by proposing the necessary budget to meet revenue goals. By setting spend as the top KPI, it allowed the team to identify anticipated results and perform regular “what if” analysis to forecast global performance. Budget Navigator optimises towards this blended goal and keeps track of how the budget is pacing so that the team can stay alert to any changing market needs.

Results

In an aggressively competitive sector, with limited resources and global search interest for the antivirus category reduced by 22% in 2019, Kaspersky was still able to deliver growth. 

Through global collaboration across eight teams and 130 markets to maximise resource efficiency, building a comprehensive testing framework and implementing new innovative automated bid/budget optimisation strategies they were able to smash their targets:

  • 22% improvement of non-brand quality score in key markets vs target of +10%
  • 14% ROAS improvement YoY vs target of +10%
  • 5% YoY revenue growth

Challenge

  • Kaspersky wanted to improve efficiencies, resource productivity and adopt aggressive tactics to deliver better ROAS and achieve their specific goals.

Solution

  • Kaspersky made use of Skai’s Automated Bidding Strategies and Skai’s Budget Navigator to build a comprehensive testing framework and implement new innovative automated bid/budget optimisation strategies.

Results

  • 22% improvement of non-brand quality score in key markets vs target of +10%
  • 14% ROAS improvement YoY vs target of +10%
  • 5% YoY revenue growth

“Skai’s Budget Navigator allowed us to optimise spend efficiency at a scale nowhere near our previous ability”.

- Diogo Valente, Senior Biddable Media Manager - Kaspersky