SBA – Digital Advertising Case Study

Challenge

Sixty-one percent of Americans, many of them service members leaving the military and Veterans, say they would be encouraged to start a small business if they knew where to go for help. SBA’s Office of Veterans Business Development (OVBD) tasked DCG with developing a long-term communications strategy to build awareness of and increase enrollment in SBA’s Boots to Business program – a program designed specifically with military entrepreneurs in mind. A key element of this plan was the creation of a nationwide digital advertising campaign, one of DCG’s specialties.

Approach

DCG developed the first digital advertising campaign for Boots to Business. To achieve maximum volume at the best cost to SBA, DCG’s online media buyers identified appropriate outlets, negotiated and coordinated placements, purchased keywords on search engines, and managed the delivery of online advertisements. Behavioral profiles of the target audiences were used by DCG to determine which sites most closely aligned with specific audiences’ online behavior. Whenever a purchased keyword was used, the site would display a banner ad created by DCG.

Results

  • Between November 2015 and March 2016, DCG drove more than nine million impressions and 41,568 visits to the Boots to Business webpage.
    • As a result, this produced 4,274 sign-ups for the next Boots to Business session, taking the enrollment to more than 50,000.
  • DCG used Google Analytics to attribute digital advertising campaigns to website engagement and conversions. This data informed optimizations to the campaign, which led to an 18 percent decrease in cost per conversion one year from when the campaign launched.