How to calculate value when investing in Adthena’s search intelligence

Search marketers are under increasing pressure to justify ad spend, drive measurable growth, and maximize efficiency. But without a clear view of the competitive landscape, brands risk overspending, missing opportunities, and losing market share.

Traditional approaches to search marketing often lacks visibility into competitive dynamics and market context, in turn leading to wasted budget and ineffective bidding. You can calculate value and maximize ROI with Adthena’s search intelligence. By unlocking AI-powered insights and automation, brands can eliminate wasted spend, protect their search real estate, and gain a strategic edge—leading to higher returns, lower costs, and smarter decision-making.

You might be seeing solid performance in Google Ads, but could there be something missing that’s preventing you from reaching your full potential? Without understanding the broader market context, you’re only seeing part of the picture. Here’s why your performance might not be as strong as it could be:

1. Price-sensitive market: Your ad copy is great, but could your pricing be out of step with competitors?
   Adthena Insight: Competitors are offering deeper discounts, which is likely hurting your conversion rate.
   
2. Budget allocation: Performance isn’t as strong in some categories despite your budget split.
   Adthena Insight: A major competitor is dominating with a big sale. Shifting your budget to more competitive categories could help.
   
3. PMax campaign reach: Your shopping feed is set up well, but is it enough to hit your revenue targets?
   Adthena Insight: Missing high-volume PLA terms in your titles is limiting your reach and visibility.

Why these metrics matter

• ROI (Return on Investment): Measures the direct financial impact of using Adthena, ensuring your search strategy delivers meaningful business results and efficiency gains.
• VOI (Value on Investment): Accounts for long-term benefits such as brand protection, competitive intelligence, and time savings, which contribute to sustained business growth.

Beyond traditional ROI metrics like cost savings and revenue growth, brands gain VOI through:

• Budget allocation: Spend efficiently by identifying wasted spend and reallocating budgets where they drive the most impact.
• Competitive advantage: Proactively respond to competitor moves and protect your brand from infringement and hijacking.
• Time savings and automation: Reduce manual work and focus on strategic growth with AI-powered insights.

Calculating the Cost of Inaction

While investing in Adthena delivers measurable returns, the cost of inaction can be just as significant—if not greater. Without the right search intelligence, brands risk:

• Overpaying on brand CPCs: Without Brand Activator, advertisers often overspend on brand keywords, driving up costs unnecessarily.
• Infringements inflating CPCs: Competitors bidding on your brand terms can drive up your CPCs and steal valuable traffic.
• Missed revenue opportunities: A lack of competitive insight means failing to capitalize on high-growth categories.
• Wasted spend on underperforming campaigns: Without visibility into competitor promotions, brands risk overspending on campaigns with declining conversion rates.

While every advertiser’s situation is unique, understanding the hidden costs of inaction is key to maximizing search performance. The question isn’t just what you gain with Adthena—it’s what you’re losing without it.

Driving measurable success in search marketing requires the right combination of intelligence, automation, and strategic execution. Let’s break down how Adthena’s solutions help brands achieve profitable, efficient growth.

1. Search intelligence to drive smarter decisions

Adthena’s AI-powered search intelligence uncovers where budget is being wasted and where opportunities exist to maximize efficiency. With a holistic view of the competitive landscape, advertisers can refine their bidding strategies, allocate budgets effectively, and ensure profitable growth without unnecessary spending.

VodafoneZiggo faced significant challenges, including the inability to efficiently track competitor activity and identify where their paid search spend was being underutilized. They struggled with aligning their budget to competitive moves and lacked actionable insights to optimize performance.

The Solution: Adthena helped them identify areas of wasted spend and competitive threats. With actionable insights into competitor activity and performance gaps, they could optimize their budget allocation and bidding strategies for maximum ROI.

 “Adthena shows us not only where we have opportunities to bring in more sales and revenue, but also where we can save money. It helps ensure that every hour and Euro we invest in paid search is spent wisely.” Jerry Jacobs, Paid Search Lead, VodafoneZiggo.

2. Brand Protection: Lower CPCs and greater efficiency 

Protecting your brand shouldn’t be costly or complex, but many advertisers are overpaying just to defend their brand. What if there was a way to safeguard your brand on Google Ads, reduce costs, and fuel growth?

Adthena offers three solutions to protect your brand and maximize efficiency: Brand Activator, Auto Takedown, and Ad Hijacking Detection. Together, they ensure your brand stays protected from competitors and unauthorized ads, while driving smarter decisions and cost savings.

• Brand Activator: Automatically manages brand bidding to reduce wasted spend and optimize the balance between paid and organic search strategies. This frees up budget to reinvest into growth and unlock new revenue opportunities.

Adthena’s Brand Activator feature in the app showing total savings 

“Adthena helped us identify real spend efficiencies. Through their Lone Rangers, we’re able to stop spending on brand terms and reinvest that budget to areas that are more conducive to acquiring new customers.” Travel company.

• Auto Takedown: Protects your brand by automatically reporting trademark infringements to Google with one click, saving time and effort. Stay informed with progress tracking and Google’s responses, ensuring your brand is protected from unauthorized ads.

“Adthena enables us to track to what degree our competitors are bidding on our brands, and protecting our brand from infringement.” Hotel company.

Adthena’s Brand Protection feature in the app showing number of infringements tracked

• Ad Hijacking Detection: Safeguards your brand from deceptive affiliate practices by identifying and stopping ad hijackers. Track and recover stolen traffic while maintaining brand integrity and preventing fraudulently earned commissions.

“Brand protection is fundamental to our business, and Adthena has been instrumental in supporting that. It’s been a massive financial success, driving new business and significantly increasing our core revenue, one that has allowed us to reinvest and expand our capabilities. Every penny counts – we need to be as efficient as possible, and Adthena helps us do that.” Finance company.

Together, these tools help you:

• Maximize ROI: Automatically reduce CPCs and eliminate wasted spend.
• Take control: Monitor competitor activity and prevent brand hijacking.
• Boost efficiency: Optimize ad performance, reclaim lost traffic, and reinvest savings into growth.

3. Ask Arlo: AI insights in an instant

Search marketing teams are under constant pressure to analyze data, uncover insights, and optimize campaigns—all while managing multiple priorities. Ask Arlo eliminates the time-consuming manual work by delivering instant, AI-powered answers to critical search questions.

How Ask Arlo improves efficiency

• Time savings: Get instant insights, eliminating the need to dig through complex reports or spreadsheets. On average, our customers save 8 hours per month. 
• Custom insights on demand: Receive actionable competitor data, market trends, and performance metrics whenever you need them. One customer sped up decision-making by 8x, cutting tracking time from 6 hours to just 45 minutes.
• No more missed opportunities: Stay ahead of competitors and market shifts with 24/7 access to continuously improving, up-to-date insights. One customer reduced competitor traffic by 31%, lowering CPA significantly.

“Ask Arlo has become an indispensable tool for my work. One of the most valuable aspects of Ask Arlo has been its ability to help me identify and analyze emerging trends in the market. It allows me to make data-driven decisions and stay ahead of the curve in a rapidly evolving market” Temitayo Akerele, PPC Gaming Manager, William Hill.

By streamlining search intelligence, Ask Arlo empowers marketing teams to move faster, focus on strategic growth, and make data-driven decisions without the usual time constraints.

The speed of return on investment (ROI) with Adthena depends on your current challenges and how quickly you take action on insights. With a Bespoke Customer Success Plan, results can come quickly.

Quick wins: If you’re using Brand Activator and have been overpaying for brand clicks, you could see savings almost immediately. Similarly, if you spend hours manually reporting trademark infringements, automation will give you that time back right away.

Long-term gains: Adjusting bid strategies or budgets based on Adthena insights can drive sustained efficiency over time. Similarly, refining ad copy and messaging to improve CTR takes longer but delivers lasting performance.

What determines your ROI?

• Action speed: The faster you act on insights, the quicker you’ll see results.
• Investment areas: Some products deliver instant cost savings (e.g., Brand Activator), while others provide strategic advantages over time (e.g., adjusting ad copy and securing a better CTR).
• Market conditions: Your ROI will also depend on how dynamic your industry is and how competitors react.

How to measure success

While there are no absolute guarantees, brands typically measure ROI through:

• Cost savings: Reduced CPCs, lower wasted spend.
• Time efficiency: Hours saved on manual tasks.
• Revenue impact: Higher conversion rates, better budget allocation.

The sooner you act, the sooner you see results.

Profitable growth is about more than just spending; it’s about spending smarter.

Are you ready to optimize your search strategy for sustainable, profitable growth? Request a demo today and see Adthena in action.