Characteristics of successful online marketing strategies in small and medium sized enterprises: A multiple case study

Abstract

It is essential that companies structure KPIs that are aligned, attainable, acute, accurate, actionable, and alive to influence consumers and influence their business. By measuring the key performance indicators, digital marketing can change the course of SMEs and increase their profitability. This is an analytical study with a purpose to explain the relationship between implemented marketing strategies, with reference to PPC, on a business’s performance, where increased revenues and the ROI will be taken into account as indicators of SME success. It combines findings from case study analysis, online survey and secondary data to draw conclusions. Main findings suggest the various challenges for SMEs while creating their marketing strategies for digital platforms. These challenges included the absence of the digital marketing strategy at all, conversions rates, high costs of cost-per-conversion (CPC) rate, revenues, online visibility, and need to attract more qualified traffic to their websites. Experiences from the six cases and analysis that was focused on PPC, and different aspects of this online marketing strategy, including account structure, keywords, budgets for different cases, testing right elements and optimization, lead to several important observations.