In my previous posts on Capterra, I introduced you to why you should consider Capterra as part of your SaaS marketing mix as well as what are the critical tactics behind successful campaign optimization on the platform. In this article, we cover the specific things you need to consider when optimizing large-scale, globally-targeted Capterra campaigns.

With a global search presence for umpteen different product categories, the Gartner software review sites – especially Capterra – offer big opportunities for marketing your B2B software around the world. However, as your Capterra account grows, so too will the complexity of monitoring its performance and maintaining efficiency. 

You need to develop an approach that takes account of all changing factors, but doesn’t get you lost in too much detail.  

I’ve been working with large Capterra accounts for some time, successfully optimising performance for my clients at a global scale. I’ve developed a system that allows me to easily track the right things and develop bidding protocols to apply across all markets, products and categories.  

Follow this simple system and you too can implement optimisation tactics globally and maintain lean performance at scale…

Split up big global accounts

Step 1 is to split up your big global accounts into several local ones. If you’re bidding in a lot of countries, there’s a good chance of getting lost in making bids and bid adjustments:

 multiple sites x multiple directories x multiple geos = confusion

Different geographies also mean different currencies and value levels, so it’s pretty easy to get lost in trying to track everything.

Having a separate account for each country or region makes it a lot easier to analyse performance at a local level but, of course, doesn’t prevent you aggregating that data to get a global view of your products and directories*.

Do you need an expert advice on how to optimize Capterra accounts more efficiently? Contact us!

Analyse Directories and Geos separately 

On a global account, I recommend analysing your KPIs and adjusting your bidding separately across directories and geographies. This is the key to simplifying the analysis. Split up these two factors and you can track the performance of your product/s at a global level, setting KPIs for performance in different directories. Performance country to country you can then track separately, creating adjustment protocols based on the overall performance of a region or country.

Analysing the directories you’re bidding in

Look at your performance on a directory level across all your geographies and across all three Gartner sites, paying attention to your CPC, average position, conversion metrics (volume, rate, cost). This should start to give you ideas about which positions are performing best on different directories. As outlined in capterra optimisation best practices, the trick is to identify target placements in Capterra directories that you can apply across your account.

Analysing the countries you’re bidding in

Next, run an analysis comparing performance country by country. Again, you should run this analysis across all three sites and looking at the same metrics. This will help you to understand performance in your different geographies and set adjustment protocols for those geographies (how much you should adjust your ‘standard’ bid in a category + or – for each locality).

Bringing it all together to optimise a global Capterra account

So, there are two steps to my analysis and bid adjustment process. First I take a global view on directory performance and set ‘baseline’ bids** for my different products in their different directories. These bidding rules should reflect best value for products in their directories at a global level.

Once these ‘baseline’ bids are set I next look at performance at a local level, accessing ROI for each geography in my account. Each geo is scored for its efficiency across all the products/directories. The result is bid adjustment ratios for each geo (usually ranging from -30% to -90%). I then apply these ratios to the baseline/global bids.

With this two-stage process, I can stay on top of the performance of a big account without losing too much time or going too crazy! It allows me to maintain a clear view of performance and constantly optimise in a way sensitive to the changing market for different products and for different localities.

*Directories are the categories of software products. Each directory has its own list of ranked products on Capterra. ‘Accounts Payable Software’ and ‘Restaurant POS software’ are 2 examples of many.

**Our ‘baseline’ directory bids refer to the bids we set globally on each directory. This bid is then adjusted plus or minus, for each geography we are bidding in.