Converge Or Collide

Labels: Google, Search Engine Marketing, SEO

# posted by steve haar @ 8:37 AM 0 Comments

Labels: branded keywords, Keyword Bidding, Search Engine Marketing

# posted by steve haar @ 2:28 PM 0 Comments

Labels: Google, min bids, Search Engine Marketing

# posted by steve haar @ 6:38 PM 0 Comments

Labels: display, Search Engine Marketing

# posted by steve haar @ 12:06 AM 0 Comments

Labels: Google, mobile search, Search Engine Marketing, SEM

# posted by steve haar @ 12:10 AM 0 Comments

Labels: local search, Search Engine Marketing

# posted by steve haar @ 10:34 PM 0 Comments

Labels: engine rankings, Google, Search Engine Marketing, yahoo

# posted by steve haar @ 7:21 PM 0 Comments

Planning for any marketing campaign is challenging. Most of what we
read about starting the program is focused on keywords, campaigns, urls,
etc. These all should be. But there is a missing element. In today's
dynamic business environment, there is a lot that search marketers need
to coordinate along with the campaign itself.

I have read about launched campaigns being rejected or with an
inflated min bid because the site was down. Or the product page text
was not search engine friendly, or the offers did not match up. So, a
quick review of things to proactively get into.

1) Server Maintenance Schedule. Most maintenance does not
necessarily take down the sites. However, this is the time when the
site is very vulnerable. If something is going to happen, now is the
time.

Why care. Don't launch just before or during these times. The
engines are going to inundate your servers with bot hits to get content
and assess access. Depending on your campaign, this can be significant.
While normally not an issue, if something happens with maintenance,
these hits can complicate it. It also will be a problem for your
campaign's validation and quality score assessment if the server goes
down.

2) Production schedule. This is important in two areas. One, like
server maintenance, this is vulnerable time. But, it is also a time
when hidden problems can happen. Where content or pricing is not what
you thought. This is particularly true with dynamic content or product
sites. In my view, it is best to closely coordinate this effort and
confirm the target page content prior to launching any new campaigns.
With existing campaigns, this is a time to double check the landing
pages.

3) Marketing campaigns. As we move products and services through the
development cycle at an ever increasing pace, the opportunity for the
outbound messaging to fall behind the product offering also increases.
By not waiting for new offers or product information to be given to you
and working your way into the pre-launch discussions, you'll be sure that whatever you're launching is in sync with the products.

4) Site design and development. How many times have you launched a
product only to learn that the landing page is generic, or full of
images and no or little text relevant to the product? Anyway, long
before the launch of any search campaign, you need to involve yourself,
at some level, with site design and development.

5) Analytics, reporting and application development. These are
related to each other and usually are in place well before the process
of creating search campaigns even begins. This is all the more reason
why search people need to be well ingrained in the overall business. It
is too late to raise your hand as you put your campaigns together and
ask for special development, reporting or analytics support. Again,
insert yourself in the long range process involved with these areas.

I have said many time that search marketers need to be more than
just search marketers. They need to be good marketers and involved in
there company's business. Get involved beyond search.

Labels: Search Engine Marketing, SEM

# posted by steve haar @ 5:02 AM 0 Comments

Labels: Search Engine Marketing

# posted by steve haar @ 4:14 AM 0 Comments

Labels: engine rankings, Search Engine Marketing

# posted by steve haar @ 1:51 AM 0 Comments

Labels: Search Engine Marketing

# posted by steve haar @ 1:41 AM 0 Comments

If you have “Microsoft” in front of the query, you get the same url, with greater relevancy. Different ad. If the SEM knows what they are doing, the messages are targeted to the search query.



But, what if you type in “Microsoft”?  You get the same ad.



But you also get organic listings just below this. Now, taking this article to heart, one would counsel Microsoft to stop bidding on the term “Microsoft”. However, on closer inspection, the SERPs are confusing relative to the Office 2007 product. The organic link is not sales focused and the ability to convert a search is diminished.

This whole argument goes back to a post I did months back about branded keywords. Controlling the user experience greatly increases your chances of a conversion. Simply giving up branded keyword control to organic results is a sure fire way to get the very least benefit possible from search. You can quickly take conversion from the 60% percent of visits and flush it down the drain.

Add to that one question: If 60% of the visits were driven by branded keywords and 40% by others, what do you think the 60% will do if they don’t see your name during the search? Yes, some will simply type the url into the browser. Others will very likely conduct another, broader search and pick up more of your competitors (or just click on one of the competitors in the original search who bought your term). Not being there is foolish.

Reporting like ADOTA’s on studies like these is far too shortsighted.

Like all advertising, we should look for the synergies. Two studies were released recently that speak to this. Our analytics group does regression analysis to be able to attribute the relative influence of online and off line activity. I will never be one to discount the value of the Brand. However, using the Brand as a crutch, and fall back to no search support, is ill-advised. Studies like these need to be reported with more insight and objective analysis. Sure, “Study Says Stop Sinking $$$ Into Search” is a great headline, but it is inaccurate and, frankly irresponsible.

Labels: Live, microsoft, MSN, Search Engine Marketing

# posted by steve haar @ 3:59 AM 0 Comments

Labels: display, search, Search Engine Marketing

# posted by steve haar @ 5:17 AM 0 Comments

Labels: behavioral, display, search, Search Engine Marketing

# posted by steve haar @ 5:12 AM 0 Comments

Labels: hispanic, Latino, Search Engine Marketing

# posted by steve haar @ 5:31 AM 0 Comments

Okay, we looked at setting up the campaign, ad group, keywords, as well as the metrics, tracking and reporting. One of the often over looked opportunities with Google and now with Yahoo Panama is the ability to test creative. However, it is not just a matter of putting out a bunch of copy executions and seeing what happens with the CTR. You need to think these things out in advanced and develop a process or system to test these affectively relative to your ultimate online goals.

Whats this about
Before I go further, I want to be clear. This is not “how to write good copy.” This posting is about how to set your program up to find the optimal keyword, copy and experience combination. Too often, I hear about copy in terms of what drives the best CTR. When, in fact there are instances where you want users to self select out and effectively lower your CTR. Why? Because this is about the ROI…what happens post click. Getting to the best copy in terms of ROI / ROAS is what this post is about.

Identify the Consumers' Drivers and Your Control
As mentioned in previous post, associating subject matter / words in the ad copy with the landing page is very important to improving the quality score thereby lowering your CPC and improving your position. However, there is a lot more to it than that. If the whole theory of the quality score plays out, then a higher quality score should also improve your conversions. Whether this is true or not can only be tested by you (I have seen and read of many situations where the quality score was low, but conversions were high).

To assess your ability to manage quality score along with optimizing conversions, begin by identifying those things related to your site over which you have control. Ask:

1)    Can you drive to any page you want and still have the tracking you need?
2)    Can you control the content of any particular page?
3)    Can you add pages?
4)    Can you control offers or pricing?

Then ask about what drives the desired action. What are users looking for that will drive the actions you want (buying, requesting more info, signing up for newsletters, etc)?
1)    price
2)    selection / availability
3)    easy of process
4)    quality
5)    actionable information
6)    brands
7)    attributes
8)    Other?

You probably know what people talk about regarding your product or service and this is a good starting point. However, if you have not already tested other messaging subjects, don’t rule them out right off the bat. In other words, challenge what you “know.”

Okay, now the interesting part. Take a look at the list of what drives consumers and take a look at your site. This is where your level of control comes in. Worst case scenario is where you know that nothing on your site speaks directly to the consumers’ drivers and you can’t change that. Usually, it is slightly better than that. You have some sub-pages that have relevant subject matter, but over which you have no direct control. If you’re one of the fortunate few, you have actual content control. Where ever you are on the spectrum, be sure you understand it. It is important when mapping out the next steps.

Where to send the users
So, we’ve covered a fair bit, and I have not written one word about actual ad copy. Before you start writing ad copy, you must have a clear picture of your users’ drivers and your own control. You want to ensure that the users’ expectations pre-click match their experience post click. To do this, map out the drivers of behavior to the most appropriate place on your site.



If the productSelection.html page is the only one to which you can drive traffic, this may be good for some things but poor for others. This is where your control level comes in.

What you want to do is be able to have specific pages developed, either dynamically based on parameters, or with static HTML that you have the option to change quickly. So your matrix can look something like this:



In this scenario, the price driven users land on pages with well targeted subject matter geared toward promotions, rebates / price, quality, and others attributes. Its obvious; if there is a key driver that gets them to click on the ad, then why take them to a page that has nothing to do with it? Drive them to a well targeted page.

Once you’ve done this, ask yourself yet another question: “does the section of the site your users end up on really speak to the issue / subject you believe drives their behavior?” The answer ought to be yes. If not, can you exercise some control? For instance, with pricing driven shoppers, some may be moved by straight sales, others may be moved by “package” deals. So between, “25% off the pants”, or “buy these pants and get 50% of selected shirts,” which drives more revenue per ad dollar?

Copy Content Sources
Now, you have your “drivers,” your target pages and your tracking (or you will.) I don’t know what the desired event is for your site, so obviously I can’t give actual copy. But, what I can do is help you wrap some structure around your ad copy practices. For the copy itself, look to several sources:

1)    The competition. Not to mimic them, but to see about points of differentiation. There may not be any (hard to tell a boss that, so come up with something), but it is good to stay aware.
2)    The web site itself. What is on the page? Look at logs…what text or images drove clicks to your target page from within the site?
3)    Off-line, POP, direct mail, print ads, etc. for you and the competition.
4)    Marketing and advertising research / customer feedback.
 

You get the idea…you’re not isolated. There are many sources of information related to copy development. Now for each of the drivers, develop at least a few copy options.

Setting up Your Test Matrix
Then create a matrix that will allow you to start tracking results.




The above matrix is very basic. For each driver, you may have multiple test landing pages, or you may send the same driver to multiple landing pages, or have different metrics. Keep in mind that the value may be realized from an immediate sale, or from a sign up for a newsletter leading to a later sale. If your site has both, then the metrics are different for each. The point is, look at this as a starting point and mold it to your own situation.

Beyond that you should take this down to the keyword level. This is where the nuances play out that can lead to the epiphanies. You may find that the same drivers create great sales for one keyword and not well for another in the same ad copy / landing page combination. The poor performing keyword may however do well with different ad copy going to the same page, or same ad copy to a different page or…. The list can goes on. That is why you need the matrix and keyword level tracking.

Keep Testing
For the copy itself, keep testing. Consumers change, seasonality can move things on you, competitors may influence the market behavior. Always be willing to test what you think you know. Assume things have changed.

Labels: Copy test, creative test, Search Engine Marketing

# posted by steve haar @ 6:43 AM 0 Comments

page.html?keyword={keyword}&campaign=[camp name]&adgroup=[adgroup name]&engine=[search engine name]

Labels: Search Engine Marketing

# posted by steve haar @ 4:20 AM 0 Comments

When Google announced the Universal Search this week, I was more than just a bit skeptical. From my perspective, they already made it easy for me to dive into images, or video, or news, etc. By placing all these items on the page which is currently web results, they have to guess (although with very sophisticated engineering) what I want and prioritize it accordingly. As a user, I am okay with clicking a category link for a deeper dive.

Then, I waffled. I saw some results of the universal search and it was not overwhelming. They have done a good job of keeping the results clean in this initial foray. Images are there on top, but not too many to be a nuisance. News appears at the bottom, with a few article links available. Not yet truly integrated by relevance. So, all in all, the results are not bad.

Then, I waffled some more. If I was truly interested in news, I don’t want one or two articles at the bottom of the results. And a couple of images, if that is what I wanted, placed at the top would not suffice. I realized that my initial reaction, that it was a good clean result, was based on the fact that I usually want the web results, and these added categories were not interfering in any major way.

However, if I want news or images, or videos or books, then this provided too little of it. I will click on the category link, making the results of the Universal search somewhat moot.  I understand that Google engineers are superb. However, when I type in Saturn, sometimes I am looking at the make of car, other times I am looking for pictures of the planet. Until I am actually searching, I don’t even know what I want.

Another chance to waffle… if Google can really evolve this tool (and it is just in its infancy), to provide results more heavily populated toward my intent, this will be great. But, until then, it is really cool engineering but not much more for the users.

Labels: Google, Search Engine Marketing, universal search

# posted by steve haar @ 6:16 AM 0 Comments

Labels: Google, Search Engine Marketing

# posted by steve haar @ 8:52 PM 0 Comments

Labels: branded keywords, Search Engine Marketing

# posted by steve haar @ 3:19 AM 0 Comments

What if I told you that I could guarantee the price you'll pay for every dinner you eat over the next month? This way, you can set your dining budget and not have to think about the cost of each meal.  What I won't tell you is what the meal will be, if you'll get an appetizer or dessert nor how long you'll have to wait in line for a table. My guess is you would say "No thank you."

Google's new Preferred CPC is not that bad, but it can be if you're not careful. That means it is far from the "set it and forget it" solution. Since the value of a click is influenced by more than the CPC, and the influences can change while the CPC remains relatively constant, you can hardly afford to ignore the campaign for any length of time.    

Ultimately, you want to manage to the cost / profit per specific event (Conversion usually) and you'll want as many of those events as you can get.  If competitors increase their bids or improve their quality score, you will loose position and your CTR will drop, giving you fewer leads. If their offer improves you will likely see lower conversions. So, while your CPC remains constant, you're volume will drop and you pay more for each conversion you do keep. Kind of makes you wish you knew what was on the menu, huh?

If you have limited resource and the Preferred CPC tool is very appealing to you, consider two tools, which when combined will serve as a daily warning of any metric-changing events.  

First, created auto reports in Google and have them emailed to you each morning. They should include past 30 days and yesterday’s numbers for: Impressions, Clicks, CTR, Position, Cost and CPC (though this should be stable). You want to look for any sudden changes, or trends that will take you outside you're target metrics.
  
Second, sign up for adgooroo.com and set auto alerts to be emailed to you showing new ads and new competitors (preferred bid or not, this is a good tool.) This will alert you to competitive pressure that may hurt conversions.

Finally, do or quick calculation and divide the orders for yesterday by the clicks. If the conversion is different than you expected, dig deeper...something changed. 

By now, you’re probably asking, “what’s the point of the preferred CPC if I have to do all this?”  Well, that is the point. The CPC is not the key metric here. The amount you’re willing to pay depends on many factors, all of which you’ll need to monitor no matter what. This is not to say that the Preferred CPC does not have a place. If all your other metrics are relatively stable, or you are driving traffic with only the cost per click as a prime metric, then this will work for you. If, however, you manage your program to a profit metric, using the Preferred CPC is moderately beneficial and must not lull you into a comfort zone. SEM is just not that simple.

Labels: Google, Search Engine Marketing

# posted by steve haar @ 3:34 AM 0 Comments

Compensation models vary for interactive Marketing services. When they are negotiated, both sides want to shift as much risk as reasonable to the other side. This is why agencies like the commission model. No matter what happens, they get their check. Advertisers like performance models. They only pay for what they get, even if they get less due to factors outside the scope of advertising (I’ve been hit with distribution issues in the CPG industry). Typically, these two meet in the middle.

One such model is at the heart of the online performance marketing industry, specifically "cost per." It may be an action, lead, customer or other quantifiable metric that can be sourced to specific efforts.   

At the resent IAB Leadership conference on performance marketing in Chicago there was much discussion on the issue of the most common method: paying the same amount for each like lead (meaning amount of information submitted.) In general the conversation focused on moving to a pay per media source, allowing the cost and value of the source to be evident to the client. So, Instead of being paid $50 per,   the client will pay based on the relative cost of the Media. The idea behind this is transparency.  If one media cost $25 and the other cost $50 then the agency is paid $30 and $60 respectively with a 20% commission. Or its cost plus. The media cost, plus $5 per lead, not exceed $50 per lead net for example.  

Before I get to my perspective, a little background: The company I work for, Leapfrog Online is a customer acquisition company. We do not get paid until our partners get a paying customer. We front the media cost, so if something doesn't work, it comes out of our pocket.  We operate a closed loop process of integrating our experience and backend with our partners’ systems in order to control the media and the experience. We track everything to the value of the customer it generated. I bring this up for 2 reasons: 1) like other quality online firms we track EVERYTHING (I think even more so, but that might just be pride talking) and 2) more so than other firms, our financial success depends on the quality of the lead and our ability to optimize the quality by controlling and adjusting the media, messaging and experience based on the lead source (because we don’t get paid until the lead becomes a sale.)           

Okay, so what does all this shameless self promotion have to do with the IAB Conference on lead Gen? A lot. The real issue is not the quality of the media source. Rather, it is the ability to optimize during the entire sales process. If a client treats every lead the same, then the cost of the media is the only variable that can be used to equalize per customer value. When this happens, the obvious next step for the compensation discussion is limited to lead source, or media.

If an agency is on cost plus, or percent of spend model, they are protected. Therefore, the client needs to be vigilant in managing the media sources, because the client absorbs all of the risk (caveat – the agency will be fired if the leads are junk). The challenge here is that clients are typically risk averse. According to a February 2007 ARF study, 10% of companies budget $0.00 for new initiatives or higher risk media. Another 74% have 1%-25% set a side (I’m guessing more are closer to 1% than 25%.) I’ll get more into this as an issue a bit later.

If, however we work with an average compensation per lead, or sale, the client is protected and the agency takes the risk. This is good for everyone, if the client and the agency can mutually track back to quality, and optimize accordingly.

Consider the following media based compensation scenario with a client target cost of $50 per unit (lead, sale, trial, whatever counts as a unit):

If we work on a media level compensation, media 2 will not make it beyond the first month (likely not beyond the first week). On the surface, it appears inefficient and the client will pay $28,000 more than they have targeted. This is 1,000 units that will not make it back into the plan.

At this point, I have heard people say, “at that price, it shouldn’t be in the mix.” This is the typical risk-averse perspective. If a client is operating under monthly and quarterly financials, a negative $28k is going to stick out like a sore thumb. On top of that, the agency still gets well compensated even though the units are at a loss.

Now consider the opportunity perspective if the agency has the risk:

In month one, we take a bath on media 2. But, we are the experts. If we control the media, messaging and experience, we can optimize it. By month 2, we lower our losses, and our percentage compensation is good again. However, the real value comes in month three. With the increased efficiency, we can roll new media into the mix and start the process over again.

In the first scenario, we can make more money in month 1. However, we lose opportunity down the line. The client also loses. They give up a potential 1,000 additional units per month and the opportunity to gain quality volume from additional media. Even if we find that media 2 can only support 500 units at an acceptable price, then that is 500 more than we would likely contribute under the first scenario.

At the heart of this are two issues: Control and Trust.

Control over the experience is paramount. Either direct agency control, or significant agency / client partnerships providing the agency with influence and access to the client’s experience. Effective control can not happen without very detailed tracking and analytics. Absent these, all bets are off.

Trust is at the heart of every partnership. Sometimes our reluctance to offer information results less from a lack of trust and has more to do with technical limitations. However, we must have transparency in both directions to make this work. Agencies must know the complete path (online and off line) to customer acquisition in order to truly understand and optimize the customer experience. While I am vehemently against micro managing of the online programs by clients or client service teams, agencies must be willing to open up on where they are placing the advertising and the relative value (easily enough done with proper tracking).

Every partnership is different for various reasons. But, to make the best of it, we need to stop seeing risk as something to be avoided, and start seeing it as something to be optimized.

Labels: compensation, risk, Search Engine Marketing

# posted by steve haar @ 5:17 AM 0 Comments

When it comes to search, it used to be that you bought the keyword, it was clicked or it wasn’t; if it was, the person bought or he didn’t.

Then we saw “re-targeting” from companies like Revenue Science and a few others. If a person clicks, and he doesn’t buy, you show them ads (it was just text, now it is text or display) throughout the Revenue Science network of partner sites. You know these folks are interested, but you didn’t hit the mark the on the first click. Now you can try different messages and keep talking to them until they convert, or for a set period of time.

But what if you missed the mark on the click? Almondnet developed technology to target people based on the searches they conducted even if they did not click on your ad. The problem is, they are focused on verticals (mostly tech). Not something most mainstream advertiser can leverage. Around since 1998, they have learned a great deal. They just need to scale.

Well, this week at the AOL Road Show in Chicago, AOL mentioned (rather casually) “Search Back”. Partnering with Revenue Science on BT, and leveraging their search volume as well as there own network of sites, AOL takes post search (not just post click) targeting to mainstream advertisers. There properties cover approximately 90% of US internet users. By knowing your audience, you can message well targeted users even if they did not click on your search ad (though, if they converted with someone else, this is too late). If you really understand them, how about targeting them just before they are in market (think search on “prenatal care”, and mini van ads in about 9 months).

I was critical of Google’s BT search approach (personalized search) because we could not easily segment messaging (yet). AOL has addressed that. With Revenue Science’s optimization technology, this is going to be leaps above where we are.

The rumor is that we should see something in Q2. There are categories that can be targets, or you can have custom targeting (about 200 keywords). AOL was presenting this as part of their overall BT package in February. The timeline appears to be consistent.

Labels: AOL, Search Back, Search Engine Marketing

# posted by steve haar @ 6:11 AM 0 Comments

It was a curious set of arguments that followed Google’s release of .02% click fraud. Most centered a round the concept of “we don’t know what we don’t know.” Therefore in our perpetual state of ignorance, we should expect that Google solve all our problems. We have gone from wanting them to stop click fraud, to wanting them to make up for technical issues SEMClubhouse.

What I found most intriguing was the argument that since the .02% click fraud rate is based on the advertisers who have actually lodged a complaint , then it can not possibly accurately reflect the true state of click fraud. Why? It is because the vast majority of advertisers do not lodge complaints. In fact, they do not even measure it.

(Donna Bogatin does a good job of discussing the soundness of the number itself and Gord Hotchkiss on why he believes the Google Number here)

Think about it. Click fraud is an overwhelming problem. The evidence to back this up: Since the vast majority of companies do not measure click fraud, then they must be victims of it.

So lets get this straight. Google says they block most invalid clicks – ranging up to 10%. Of those they do not block, but are brought to their attention by advertisers, they find .02% is what made it past their detectors, and was actually billed to the advertisers (See Donna’s discussion, as this may be .02% of all Google generated clicks, not .02% of the clicks for the audited advertisers – big difference).

What the antagonists are arguing in this case is that the real click fraud is not present with those who lodge complaints, but is actually taking place with those who are silent.

Well, here is my good old capitalist perspective. If a business is not concerned enough to take the steps to detect and report click fraud on its own, then we should not force the search engines to baby sit them. If they bring it to the search engines’ attention, then they should receive a fair and vigorous response designed to make them whole.

The bottom line is that (despite the anti-Google block’s contention), click fraud is bad business for Google. As soon as the metrics are not profitable, companies will stop and the engines will lose. Keeping the issue in check is in their interest.

However, perpetuating panic is in the interests of ‘click-fraud-detection’ companies. Keep in mind that these companies measure the clicks you received that should not have been billed (Shuman Ghosemajumder addresses some of this). What they are not doing is identifying the click for which you were billed, and segmenting them out for reconciliation. When the companies presented the findings to Google, the vast majority of the “fraudulent” clicks were never billed – things like quick multiple clicks, back button clicks, etc.(see Google’s explanation here)  If all you look at is the log file, then you might well believe that you are a victim. But, when you actually count the clicks for which you were billed, the argument falls apart based on Google’s response.

What I have not seen is a counter response to a Google reviews. I have not seen a company show that they were billed for 100,000 clicks, but their log file clearly shows that there were only 80,000 valid clicks, and Google ignored it ( I have heard some say they’ve gotten 10s of thousands of dollars in credits from Google, but no proof). If you have seen it, please provide the links.

Labels: click fraud, Search Engine Marketing

# posted by steve haar @ 7:14 PM 0 Comments

The new search algorithm has been released for about a month now. I have seen several ‘out-of-the-gate’ measurements from agencies and measurement companies alike. Click rate is gone up, CPCs have gone up, or down, conversions have changed by X…

I think all these are very interesting as a metric of how our old ways to manage a Yahoo! account played out in the new system. But, the real impact here will be seen over the next few months. We will start to leverage Panama when everyone starts to rotate messaging and measure CTR by ad and carry this through to conversion rates. The real performance of Panama will be seen when we drive it around the town a few times.

Certainly, we will see improvements in performance. Not just because Yahoo! will calculate relevancy, but we will be able to adjust ad copy, simultaneously rotate multiple versions and compare the ultimate ROI by ad. Yahoo! will be able to measure the CTR, but we will be able to measure the conversion. As most of us look to the conversion, we would gladly give up non-productive clicks while holding our conversions steady, or increase them. So, our CTR goes down (but so does our costs), while our conversions go up. These will be an interesting next couple of months as we optimize the campaigns rather than just compare them to the old system.

Labels: panama, Search Engine Marketing, yahoo

# posted by steve haar @ 7:24 PM 0 Comments

This week I read an article by Sandy Parish about the importance of keyword selection strategy. It posed the question that new-to-search-marketing people might ask, which is: Do I use specific terms or do I use broad terms. She elaborated on the virtues of modified broad terms. I agree with her point, that if you are considering broad terms then modify them to be more relevant to your specific offering.

For instance, say you are selling a book and it happened to be a police drama. The broad term for search would be “books.” The modified broad terms would be “police drama books” or “drama books” or “literature drama”. You get the idea…there are many ways to go. You use the modified terms, arrange your ad copy accordingly, and your relevance goes up, your cost goes down and or positioning improves.

In addition to the modified broad match approach, we can offer those new to online marketing (in particular, search), even more guidance. The underlying premise being:

Start with the basics, the obvious; limit your financial exposure and move on from there.

For those of us who have been in the game for a while the term “basics” has a broader scope, and greater financial exposure is less risky, being mitigated by our experience. For the truly new, consider the following.

Keyword selection
Start with the narrow, but don’t ignore the broad (I’ll explain later). Use company name, brand, product, style, model, etc. For example, you’re a retail store selling shirts. Pick your top sellers and start a list. Think both in terms of how the products are marketed and how consumers talk about them. The apparel industry talks about “dress” shirts, but if consumers refers to them as ‘long sleeved’ or ‘business’ shirts, then use these terms as well. Your list might look something like this (abridged):

Company:    My Shirt Shop
Product:    Dress Shirt
Brands:     Boss, Faconnable, Ike Behar.
Styles:     Classic Dress, Tailored Dress,
Patterns:   Solid, Stripe, checked,
Colors:     blue, red, white, pink…

Obviously, your attributes and ultimate list will depend on the product or service you’re marketing.

Then, mix and match in a way that is logical to your industry and products. This could get quite long. The engines have keyword suggestion tools that you can use. However, when it comes to developing a comprehensive list, you know your business, don’t underestimate yourself.

Examples of mix and match:
Boss Classic Dress Shirt
Faconnable tailored dress shirt
Ike Behar blue solid tailored dress shirt
My Shirt Shop Shirt

As I mentioned, this can get long, that is why you start by limiting the scope to your best sellers (remember, this is for those new to search).

Ad Copy
Each of these keywords should be set in like groups so that ad copy can be tailored to them. For instance all keywords / phrases with “Boss” & “Blue” in one ad group, so the ad copy can include these terms and be relevant to all keywords. How far you take this is up to you. Technically, the farther you take it, the more relevant your ads will be and the better your results will be. Also, the destination URL should be to a page that is as close to the keyword / ad copy as possible. Don’t send them to a “shirt” page if you have a “Boss Shirt” page. Relevancy is the key to efficiency in search.

Now the question comes in, what about the keyword “shirt” or “dress shirt” as the modified broad. Here is my advice. Use them. But, limit your financial exposure. Create separate campaigns for these keywords, and cap the daily spend to an amount you are willing to invest in learning. With a CPC of $0.50, capping your daily spend at $10 gives you 20 clicks a day, 600 in a month with a spend of $300. During this time, you can adjust ad copy for relevance to improve results and move the CPC. Before the month is out, you should know if the conversions at $0.50 (or any other amount) are enough to justify the cost. These numbers are simply for demonstration, but the principle applies at $0.10 or $2.50 CPC.

In reality, this same principle applies to the entire program. Segment it, cap the campaigns at reasonable amounts and adjust the CPC and copy to make the program profitable on a per click basis. Then, when you have the CPC range set, lift your daily cap.

Now, expand to new keywords, monitor, adjust, expand again, monitor, adjust….you get it.

One of the quandaries posed by Sandy was that a too limited keyword set would not drive enough traffic. I would pose that the long term view should be taken. Set a foundation of good practices that can be scaled and the volume will come.

Labels: keyword list building, Search Engine Marketing

# posted by steve haar @ 5:54 AM 0 Comments

I read Aaron Goldmans post, “Should Marketers Outsource Search" on Media Post, and a flood of memories came in.

Before I get into my reaction, a little background will lend context. I started off in DM with direct mail and telesales for a local theatre. After a couple of years, I joined a large ad agency in the media group becoming a planner and buyer for television, radio, print, and OOH for consumer package goods and automotive clients. My next stint was in a national yellow pages agency. By 1994 I was working with clients and account teams to develop YP strategies as well as developing our first on line ads programs (can you say Prodigy? – if you have to ask, don’t bother), which naturally morphed into SEM. Anyway, I came to the YP clients with brand experience, strategy development and segmentation know-how derived from a fairly diverse background.

I can tell you that most of the clients we talked to thought Yellow Pages was a no brain-er. The only thing that kept in-house departments at bay was the fact that it was labor intensive. You couldn’t just bring in a person and have them do it. So, how is this relevant to SEM outsourcing? What it did was provide the opportunity to demonstrate the unique skill sets and abilities that are really required for the “no brain-er” media. Eventually respect for our value was achieved by:

1) Learning and clearly demonstrating our knowledge of the clients’ industry, brand and products. Professionally, this put us (if not yet our medium) on par and in some cases above the client in their eyes (you’d be amaze by how many people know their brand and products, but lack insight into the industry as a whole).

2) The next key factor was using this knowledge to develop media specific strategies that tied in very closely with the general media and overall company strategies. It was through the strategic use of our medium that we demonstrated to the clients that not taking it in-house was a wise strategic move as much as it was a good financial move.

Lessons learned: Don’t allow yourself to be relegated to talking only about search. Engage the client in strategic applications beyond search and beyond online. Through a consistent application of your knowledge beyond the basics, beyond your medium, you instill a level of respect that earns you a seat at the media table. At the large agency, we always started with the clients’ business objectives, then tailored the media strategies accordingly. There was no presumption on the part of the client that they could take media buying in-house. Not because buying a :30 second spot was too difficult. But because they did not have the knowledge needed to develop the strategies to know if a :30 second spot was even the right answer (actually, we all knew it was before we asked the question ).

I have since left the yellow pages industry. Interactive pretty much consumed most of my time there, and for a while now, consumes all of it (professionally). But the same lessons apply. I see our client services team demonstrate these realities every day. I can not remember the last “search” conversation I had with a client that did not expand well beyond search and into their business.

Labels: career, Search Engine Marketing

# posted by steve haar @ 3:57 AM 0 Comments

When it comes to talking about the search engines, we inevitably get to (if not immediately get to) market share. There are three sources most frequently quoted: Nielsen/NetRatings, comScore and Hitwise. A lot of attention is paid to these guys when they release the numbers. Personally, I do not follow these numbers with great rigor. Rather, I prefer to follow the performance of our individual search programs which span the more and lesser used engines. If there is a major share shift (unlikely), I’ll see it before the reports come out.

That said, there is a long term view that the ratings can provide. I think following Danny Sullivan’s perspective is good (essentially, not reading anything into changes that do not consistently breakthrough share bands). If you follow the measurements, it helps to have a perspective on how they get their numbers. This is not a statistical description (I’m not qualified); just a top line. For a good review take a look are Matt Belkin’s blog. He covers pros and cons of the panel vs click stream data methodologies.

Nielsen/ NetRatings  utilizes a panel method (computer resident tracking)(NetView) and site-side technology (StieCensus) launched in September 2005 (Integrated to overcome the cookie deletion issues).

comScore’s uses a panel method via qSearch with proxy technology tracking the users web behavior.

Hitwise  uses ISP data to anonymously collect click stream data.

One thing to keep in mind is that these players are also tying site traffic analytics into off line data – shopping, behavior, demographics, lifestyles, etc. So, search market share is really a small part of what they do. It just tends to get the most attention.

If you follow the engines (U.S.), you know that Google is huge (48 -60%), Yahoo! is big (25-30%), Live is small (9-12%), Ask and AOL are smaller (about 5%) and the rest are tiny.

Okay, I didn’t throw out the actual numbers. That’s because the true measure of the search engines’ strength is how they perform for your program. It’s the relative ROI that is important to you. So, keep an eye for any major changes in the engine share, but don’t ever lose site of your results. (SeachEngineWatch is a good place for the numbers.)

Look at some of the smaller players. There is a difference between share and efficiency. I have seen some small players come in with decent ROI (better than the big three). While they are not individually scalable, in aggregate, they can add net program efficiency.

For example, if a keyword on Google has a CPC of $0.90 and converts at 25%, your cost per conversion is $3.60. If, on MIVA, your conversion is only 5%, but your CPC is $0.10, then your cost per conversion is $2.00. Now, Google may get you 10,000 conversions and the aggregate of the others may only be 100, but at a 45% discount, these can be very efficient.

The key here is measurement. If you can not track to the conversion, these sites can just as easily be money losers. If they only convert at 1%, then your cost per conversion jumps to $10. While this is true with the big engines, most search marketers pay attention to them. The big ones are the fire hoses that we turn off right away vs the little ones which are tiny drips that we let go too long. Good metrics helps prevent this mistake on either end of the spectrum.

Until now, I have not touched on click fraud. I don’t discount it by any means. But, to me it is a different, though related, discussion. If you have your metrics in place, even if there is click fraud, you’ll be able to mitigate it, or even profit in spite of it. It is difficult to continue a program where you believe you are the victim of click fraud. But, if it meets your ROI, continue to program and address the click fraud issue later.

Labels: engine rankings, performance, Search Engine Marketing

# posted by steve haar @ 1:41 PM 0 Comments

Google announced the launched their new search algorithm that takes into account a user's history of clicks, bookmarks and other behavioral factors that help narrow the links to what Google believes is most closely related (if they are signed in, which is my issue). On the Surface, I thought this was great. I am very different in my intent for a search on cars than most 40 year old men. I have had clients in this area for more than 15 years, and most of my interest is in the marketing of automobiles and the industry vs. the mid-life-crises-induced-hunt for a cherry red Vette (don't get me wrong, I've done that too).  So, if the information that relates to new ad campaigns, change in ownership of aftermarket repair shops, or dealerships is prioritized over new model promotion (still of interest but much easier to find), that would make my life much easier.  

However, I use our home computer for work. My kids and my wife use it even more. Our oldest son would likely be looking for pictures of cars he has seen on his psp racing  game.  My youngest would be looking for pictures and clips from the movie "Cars."

 If am doing research for work, or shopping for a new car, neither of these histories, behaviors or bookmarks has anything to do with my intent.

Okay, so I should log into my account, then when my wife wants to surf, she should log into her account. Then, my kids should do the same. Of course, I can just buy every one a computer. The truth is, until this process of identifying users becomes nearly automatic, I don't see the Google method as adding a great deal of value.

So, I am conducting  my own unscientific survey to see if my situation is typical, or if I am the  "focus group of one" I often rail against. I’ll set this up and post it.

Labels: Google, personalized search, Search Engine Marketing

# posted by steve haar @ 2:02 AM 0 Comments

Labels: Search Engine Marketing

# posted by steve haar @ 3:06 AM 0 Comments