• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, November 1, 2011

Age, gender and theme categories create the most searches on google.com for Costume SuperCenter, which has been relying on paid search marketing across the engine since 2005. The campaigns work similar to other online costume stores. The consumer's search queries talks with the ad copy. It leads the searcher to a landing page with Goodies. No tricks here. Only treats.

Costume SuperCenter CEO Erik Mandell said the company has been buying paid search ads since its inception in 2005. As more people jump online to place orders, the Web store continues to see an increase in search volume leading to sales. The site purchases tens of thousands of keywords. Every character sold on the Web site gets assigned a keyword term, as well as terms based on age and gender and age, such as "girls Angry Bird costume."

Angry Bird costumes nearly sold out on preorders before actual merchandise arrived. Jim Moore, Costume SuperCenter director of marketing, attributes the Google AdWords paid search campaigns to the success.

Conversion rates on Angry Bird ads returned rates 2.5 times higher than normal across all paid search campaigns, Moore said, admitting to pausing paid search campaigns at least once because inventory sold out. "We had to fly the costumes in from China a couple of times during the season because we ran out of stock," Mandell added.

Most of Costume SuperCenter's online search ad budget goes to Google vs. Bing because of the store doesn't get the same return on ad spend. The majority of Costume SuperCenter's marketing and advertising budget goes online. The portion not invested online remains so "insignificant it's not worth mentioning," Moore said. The company also uses four Sitelinks that drives search traffic to landing pages.

Costume SuperCenter's Web site notes more than 8,000 different costumes and accessories related to Disney, Marvel, Nickelodeon, Barbie, Star Wars, Superman, Universal, Playboy, and others. Searches typically begin with broad terms, such as "Halloween costume," then transition to long-tail keywords related to pricing and size.

What Halloween-related keywords did consumer search on across Google in October? Searches for "baby halloween costumes" rose 33% in Oct. 2012, compared with the year-ago month. "Girls halloween costumes" followed rising 25%; "boys halloween costumes" rose 28%; and "womens halloween costumes," 15%.

Searches on Google for "family halloween costumes" rose 13% in October 2011, compared with the year-ago month, "couples halloween costumes" rose 10%, respectively. Consumers searched for pet costumes, too. Searches for "pet costumes" rose 15% in the month, compared with the prior year. Search for "dog halloween costumes" jumped 15%. Searches for "funny halloween costumes" remain consistently higher than "scary halloween costumes" searches. This year, searches are 43% higher.

Costume SuperCenter's doesn't get a lot of traffic from mobile devices. Desktop search traffic drives the majority of consumers from engines to its Web site. "It's more of a discovery process," Moore said. "There are fewer transactions, but it provides a good platform for promotions and discovery."

Costume SuperCenter's marketing team doesn't have the ability in its analytics platform to determine the attribution funnel from the search engine to the Web site. Nor can marketers determine the exact costumes that lead to the final sale, but it does track return visits to the Web site through browser cookies. The sale gets attributed to the first or last click, but Mandell seems to think the company's ad conversion rates still bring in sweet returns.