Search Marketing InsiderPay Per Click, Social Media and SEO Strategies – An Internet Marketing Institute Publication

Successful PPC campaigns start with keyword discovery, research and organization. In paid search, keyword discovery and keyword research are important since searches of the keywords you pick are what you’re paying for. Yet keyword organization—the way you choose to structure your PPC campaigns—is an often overlooked, but critical, task.

To achieve high return on investment in paid search, you’ll need to organize your account in such a way that the keywords in your keyword lists are:

• Relevant to your ad text
• Relevant to your landing pages

The only possible way to achieve these goals is to ensure the keywords in your Ad Groups are relevant to each other.

This will result in:
• Higher quality score: Keywords with higher quality scores enjoy greater exposure and a lower CPC.
• Better conversion rates: By selecting specific keywords and using relevant ad text and landing pages, your customers are more likely to find what they were looking for.

Where do you start?
You can’t possibly write different text ads and landing pages for each keyword in your account, so be creative.
Group and organize your keywords (i.e., segment your keyword list) into close-knit keyword groupings, and write targeted ad text and landing pages for each group. This is a much more realistic approach, and by making your keyword segmentation attainable you’ll be more likely to complete this time-consuming task.

What’s the magic number?
It depends entirely on how closely related the keywords in your groups are. A quick test is to put yourself in the shoes of the searcher and run through each keyword in a given group. Look at the keyword and compare it to the ad text and landing page associated with that Ad Group. Does it make sense? Would you click on that ad if you were the searcher? What would you think of that landing page after clicking on that ad?

Group by intent—analyze the search phrases for the presence of discriminating words that give clues to what they were actually looking for.

For example:

Browse
Searchers who write “asset management” or “asset management best practices” are likely looking to learn more about the topic.

Shop
Searchers who write “asset management software” or “asset management vendors” into a search engine reveal they are in the comparison shopping phase and want to learn who the contenders are.

Buy
Searchers who write “buy asset management software” reveal they are much closer to converting.
Once you have grouped your keywords according to searcher intent, you can craft customized ad text and page content to satisfy the various query types. This process is hard work, but, if done well, provides great returns. You can prioritize your work based on the keyword verticals that drive the most traffic to your site.

Not only will you be driving better qualified traffic to more useful landing pages, you will also be streamlining your bid management efforts. You can now set Ad Group-level bids with the confidence that you won’t be blowing your daily budget on general keywords (think “asset management”), and not bidding high enough on long-tail keywords that specify intent (think “asset management vendors”). If you have successfully segmented your keyword list into “Browse, Shop, Buy” themed keyword groups this will be a piece of cake.

The good news is you can apply the work you do in creating your PPC campaign structure to your SEO efforts. Having grouped and organized keyword data into Ad Groups, you can leverage those same keyword organization structures to inform content authoring, information architecture and workflow prioritization for SEO.

PPC and SEO data sharing and keyword organization results can be staggering — keywords support your search campaigns, and developing an intelligent keyword infrastructure impacts search-driven revenue.

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Larry Kim is the founder of WordStream. You can get in touch with Larry by following him on Twitter, or by reading the WordStream Internet Marketing Blog.

By Kelly Larsen, Director of Marketing, PPC Summit

Now that the holidays are upon us, most advertisers are pumping ad dollars into their campaigns in hopes of reaching more buyers. Even though we are still in an economic slump, market indicators show that sales stand to improve as more people than ever before are expected to shop online in the next two months, according to a recent Forrester Research study. This is promising for Pay Per Click (PPC) marketers as consumers are increasingly buying and researching online, but it’s important to know where consumers are REALLY spending their dollars. Today more shoppers are buying ‘customer-centric’ brands rather than ‘product-centric’ brands. Learning your customer habits, anticipating their future buying patterns and finding new ways to add value will give your online marketing strategy a boost especially during the holidays.

Here Are Some Tips To Help Drive Your Pay Per Click Sales This Holiday Season

Get Inside Your Buyers’ Heads
Wonder why visitors are bouncing away from your site or landing page and then buying from your competitor? Go beyond the numbers and start studying your customer’s buying behavior to understand what pushes them to purchase your product or service. An important thing to keep in mind is making sure your web site copy touts your product benefits—not features. This is such a simple marketing strategy but it bears repeating because so many etailers get caught up in what their product is all about that they forget why prospects buy. Prospects generally buy because of what a product or service can do for them – not because it is feature rich (ie, cheaper, bigger etc.).

Do Your Keyword Research
Make sure you are targeting the RIGHT keywords – for your current offer. One of the biggest mistakes PPC marketers make is being too general when selecting keywords. This is particularly important for etailers and merchants with wide product lines.

For example, if you run an online shoe store that caters to the whole family, don’t select keywords that drive them to your home page. Get them to the specific product pages so that they can find the item that they are searching for immediately. If you’re having a holiday special on kids’ shoes, select keywords for this; for women’s shoes, do another ad for this; etc.

In short, be specific with your keyword selection. While you may get fewer clicks, your ROI will increase because the leads are super targeted.

Create A Specific Call to Action
Many pay per click marketers waste great PPC ads because they end with a weak call to action. An example of this goes something like, “Click to learn more.”

Call to action statements should be strong, direct and specific:
> Buy Today and Save 10%
> Subscribe to Receive a FREE Gift
> Sign Up for Free Holiday Shipping

These types of call-to-action statements implore the potential customer to take a specific action.

Many retailers will offer free shipping this year in the belief that it will make them more attractive in this recessionary holiday season, but if everyone in your channel is offering it, that won’t allow you to stand out. Think about what your customers are looking for that allows you to stand out and then focus on that benefit heavily in your PPC ads.

In conclusion, pay per click marketing is simple. The basics don’t change. If you keep these three pieces of advice in mind when writing your ads, you’ll get more bang for your buck this holiday season!

P.S. We’re holding our first ever and highly anticipated AdWords Advantage Online Summit on January 12-28. Don’t miss this 3-week online training event, go to www.AdWordsAdvantage.com to learn more.

By Kim Toomey,  Anvil Media

Integrating Google Analytics and AdWords is as easy as clicking a few buttons in your account settings. Despite the easy process, these two programs combined provide powerful data that can improve your PPC accounts more than your standard AdWords data alone. Knowing how visitors behave on your site once they click on a PPC ad is really the true test of how effective your keywords, ad text and landing pages are, not just click through rate and conversion rate.  Here are four reports to look at in Google Analytics that will help to improve your PPC performance.

Keyword Position Report
This gem of a report is hidden in the Google Analytics navigation but is well worth finding. Under Traffic Sources there is a whole AdWords section. Within your AdWords reports you’ll find a keyword position option. The report looks at your top traffic driving keywords and visits based on ad position for that keyword.
 
This report also features a drop down menu so you can look at a variety of data for that one keyword, and determine the most cost effective position for your ad to be in (Average order value by position, Per visit value, % of new visits, etc.)

Using these metrics you can then set your position preference at the keyword level and have a good idea of your maximum cost per click for that keyword in a given position based on your average per visit value.

Ad Version Reports
Although you can get conversion data for each of your ad text variations in AdWords reports, using the Ad Versions report under your Traffic Sources section gives you even more metrics for each ad. Here you can sort your ads by the most revenue generated or goals completed and discover what messages are resonating with your audience best. You’ll also have the opportunity to look at what ads drive the least amount of revenue and consider pausing them or doing an A/B test to find a better message.
 
PPC Landing Page Performance
Now that we have our ads optimized and in the right position, we need to ensure our landing pages are doing what they are supposed to, i.e. drive sales. Using the Advanced Segments feature in analytics, select only your paid visitors.
 
Now navigate to your Content report and look at top landing pages. Using the comparison feature in Google analytics, you can measure bounce rate compared to the site average, and make changes to your site’s landing pages or bring visitors to an entirely different page.
 

Paid Keyword Time on Site
Every business has a unique buying cycle that requires a different number of touch points before a conversion occurs. It’s critical to your campaign success to know what keywords may be at the beginning of your customer’s buying cycle, as they may have lower conversion rates, but drive very engaged visitors who will come to your site multiple times. Keywords with a high time on site but don’t drive conversions are often critical to keep in your account to catch visitors early-on in their decision making process.

Equally important to keywords with a high time on site value, are keywords with a very low time on site. These are likely low volume keywords that you may find are not highly relevant to your site, or may have multiple user intentions. This report will also pull in any content network placements if you are running ads on Google’s content network. Remember, you are paying for these keywords and placements, and they are resulting in visitors who immediately leave your site. Use this report to clean up your campaign and pause underperforming keywords or placements on the content network.

Google Analytics provides campaign metrics that can help take your PPC account to the next level.  By looking at the bigger picture of how your paid traffic visitors interact on your site, you can find powerful insights to make your PPC campaigns more effective and deliver a better ROI.

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Kim Toomey works for the Portland-based SEM agency Anvil Media, Inc. She has expertise in all aspects of search engine marketing and specializes in social media strategies and analytics optimization. Kim has been responsible for the development and execution of dozens of search and paid marketing campaigns during her time at Anvil.

By Brian Lewis, Vice President, Engine Ready

As chaotic as the continual transformation inherent in online marketing seems, there is a comforting constant that marketers can count on: Customer purchase decisions are still, and will always be driven by the emotional desire to fulfill various needs.

Customer research behavior leading up to the purchase, though, is not so neatly predictable and is largely influenced by information accessibility, market messaging and social commentary, all of which are changing at incredible paces. And there are many reasons to expect that pace to accelerate in 2010.

As 2009 comes to a close, most marketers agree that it was a period marked by unprecedented uncertainty and fear in an atmosphere of slashed marketing budgets. All marketing initiatives were held to strict ROI accountability.

As we look forward to the prospects of a healthier 2010, here are 4 key areas that will likely impact search for 2010 – Marketing Sophistication, Insightful Measurement, Role of Social & Rich Media, and Industry Evolution.

Marketing Sophistication
Although previously considered by some search marketers as a lower priority task, landing page testing and optimization will become as routine to PPC success as rigorous keyword research. The ongoing enhancements of Google’s free and easy to use A/B and multivariate testing solution, Website Optimizer, removes all the cost and technology barriers for even the smallest organizations.

Marketers will also be able to learn more about their visitor behavior through greater access to visitor experiential tools. Armed with this information, marketers will be able to refine their landing pages based on understanding on-page visitor behavior such as eye tracking, mouse movements, page scrolling and the order of clicks on a page.

As the search engines continue to evolve into “information engines”, marketers should look for opportunities to best position their products. We can certainly expect Google to continue to increase integration of maps, product information, site page listings and site search boxes within its organic listings.

The display of PPC listings will likely expand beyond 70 text characters to include other media such as video, product demos and product images, allowing companies the opportunities to flex more marketing muscle.
Despite privacy concerns, we will continue to see the increased availability of demographic and behavioral data of search engine users, allowing marketers to more finely tune their search tactics on a more granular level.

Local search will also become more dominant. Firefox’s Geode and Google’s Location API which allow sites to request your browser location, are strong indications of the importance visitor location will play in search.

Insightful Measurement
Conversion attribution, defined as assigning the appropriate credit to all marketing sources that eventually led to a sale, has been one of the hottest topics of the year as marketers come to grips with the limitations of our current “last-click” reporting. 

The assumption that the last click was the only source responsible for the conversion can certainly lead to wrong campaign and keyword management decisions.

The good news is that we are already seeing the earliest versions of conversion attribution solutions which will give marketers a much more accurate picture of the real ROI for SEO, PPC email and other online marketing initiatives.
Much like conversion attribution, accurate measurement of call-in sales due to search listings will be another area that will quickly become a standard tool for search marketers. Most traditional web analytics do not currently have a method for tracking sales or leads received via a phone call after a visit to a website. In 2010, call tracking will become a vital internal component of analytics and provide marketers accurate measurement of call-in conversions from visitors who arrived on the site from a PPC ad, organic listing, banner ad or email.

Social Marketing, Social Networks and Rich Media
Traditional search and social media marketing will accelerate their convergence with more dramatic impacts on search marketing tactics in the upcoming year. In addition to its growing use as a micro-blogging tool, Twitter and social search sites like CrowdEye and Collecta are also now being used to search and research news, events, and product reviews.

Applications such as SocialSeek allow users to search by topic and optionally by location to receive results in the form of tweets, videos, blogs, images and events. These newer methods may provide opportunities for search marketers looking to extend their reach and better target their audience.

YouTube, which in some respects qualifies as the second largest search engine, is an area marketers will continue to focus on to seek more potential customers. The technology to understand embedded audio content is advancing rapidly and will likely be incorporated into the ranking algorithm before the close of 2010.

Throughout the upcoming year we will likely a shift from emphasizing keywords and bids, to marketing to communities of potential prospects who may seek information on your products/services through their interest-centric groups.

Industry Evolution
Perhaps the development that may transcend all others is the Yahoo & Bing partnership. Assuming anti-trust approval, the partnership will aggressively innovate in an attempt to change the search habits of about 65% of Internet users who are loyal to Google.

Expect to start seeing the impact of their alliance early in 2010 and be prepared for some major changes on both the paid and organic side of search.

And combining those changes along with the others discussed will place marketers under significant pressure to identify which tactics are right for their products, learn those new tactics, cost effectively implement, accurately measure, rapidly analyze and modify their strategies to achieve top ROI in 2010.

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Brian Lewis is Vice President at Engine Ready, Inc. A speaker at many industry conferences, and noted author, Lewis has over 20 years experience bringing businesses profitable results through digital and direct marketing. Mr. Lewis earned his B.A. in Economics from the University of California, San Diego and his M.B.A. in Finance from the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University, graduating both schools with honors.

By Leisa Hall, Senior Account Executive, Anvil Media

The Mistake
If you are currently managing an AdWords account, please, please, please, for all that is good in world do NOT – I repeat, DO NOT – ever run the same campaign on the Search Network and the Content Network at the same time. If you are doing this, you are likely throwing money out of the window. If you are not sure whether or not you are running on Search and Content, chances are good that you indeed are. This is frequently the case for unsuspecting advertisers because when a new campaign is created in AdWords, the default is to opt in to both networks. So if you are unsure, go right now (this very instant before you read past this paragraph) and look. We’ll talk more later about what all of this means.

How can you tell if this impacts you?
Go to your Campaign Settings and view the Network settings. Your settings should look like one and only one of the following:

• Google Search: This means your campaigns’ ads will show up on Google.com properties only (including Google’s international sites, if you are language targeting). This is a wise setting for advertisers who have tight budgets, as often Google’s properties will perform better than the Search network, but they can also carry slightly higher CPC’s.
 

• Google.com + Search Partners: Means that you are running on Google properties (as described above), but also on Google network of search partners. For example, AdWords powers ads on AOL and Ask.com, among many other sites. Opting in to Search Partners will often gain you additional visibility at slightly lower CPC’s.

 
• Content Network : Means that your ads can be shown on third party websites (not Google or Google’s Search partners) that are in Google’s Content Network. This is great for branding or generating awareness where you aren’t being actively sought. Your ads will be based on their contextual relevancy to the content of these third party sites. Your ads can be in text format (same as on Google), or you also have the option of running display ads which can be more eye catching and brand-focused.

The Strategy Behind Segmenting Your Campaigns
Why shouldn’t you run the same campaign on two different networks? Because they behave differently, are very likely to perform differently and as such should be structured differently.

When you run ads on the Google and Search Networks, your ad is displayed in response to a keyword you’ve bid on and that keyword matching to a query performed by a searcher. When you run ads on the Content Network, you ad is shown based on a context that you create with a list of keywords or based on sites that you specifically target (or a combination of the two – we’ll leave that for a future article).

 Google.com & Search Partners
When someone is performing a search, they are in theory actively seeking out the service, product or information that you offer. Your message to them should be very direct since you know, again in theory, what it is they are actively seeking.  If you sell kitchen gadgets, specifically the hottest, most coveted silicone heat-proof ergonomic turkey baster ever created, then you would include keywords such as “turkey baster”, “silicone turkey baster”, or “best turkey baster”, for example. Your ad group would be very specific to the keywords that you want to match to because these are what will drive the best return on your PPC investment. Your ad to go along with the keywords in this ad group might look something like:

You’re using your main keywords in the ad copy and making the direct sale because you know that the searcher is looking for what you sell.

Content Network
Things are different on the Content Network. When someone is browsing an article online about how to properly cook a turkey, for example, your ad may be displayed to them based on that contextual targeting. So if you’re still selling the world’s greatest turkey baster, then you may wish to have your ad placed alongside that article about how to cook a turkey because it is contextually related – someone who is reading about turkeys (or, more specifically, reading about how to cook turkeys) is likely to be interested in your product.

However, since the user is not actively seeking you out, you would need to be somewhat more explanatory in your messaging and would structure your keyword targeting differently. In this case, you would want to focus your keywords to build a context about where you want to appear. Selling your fabulous turkey baster, you know that people reading about cooking, turkeys, entertaining or Thanksgiving may be very inclined to be interested in your product. Knowing this, you need to build a keyword list to tell Google that is the type of content you wish to appear alongside. In this instance, in your ad group you would include keywords such as “cooking”, “turkey”, “entertaining” and “Thanksgiving”.

Yes, really.

Google is going to take those keywords and decipher, as a group, what kind of context they have and will map that context to content on the web – such as an article about how to properly cook a Thanksgiving turkey. Clearly, you would NEVER run the keywords “cooking”, “turkey”, “entertaining” or “Thanksgiving” on the Search Network – they are far too general and would likely be far too expensive to effectively drive conversions and ROI on your PPC spend. But if you bid on the same keywords for the Content network that you did on the Search network (“turkey baster”, “silicone turkey baster”, or “best turkey baster”), then Google would be likely to decipher “turkey basters” to be the context of those terms and look to place your ad in content about turkey basters – which, though probably targeted, would severely limit your visibility to potential customers.

On the Content Network, given that you are trying to catch the eye of the user who isn’t actually looking for you, you would write ad copy to be more attention getting and less focused on keywords. For example:

Conclusion
Since the types of keywords you will bid on with Search and Content are so different, and you set your network settings at the campaign level, this is why you always want to segment any Search campaigns from Content Network campaigns. The audience is different, the message is different, and most importantly, the keywords you should target are different.

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Leisa Hall is a Senior Account Executive at Anvil Media, a boutique search engine marketing agency based in Portland, Oregon. Leisa directs the PPC strategy for the agency whose clients include large ecommerce retailers such as Lucy Activewear and Dr. Marten’s, Fortune 1000 B2B and B2C companies, universities, and large publishers as PC World. In addition to providing agency-level strategy, Leisa is very much in the trenches on a day-to-day basis
directly managing PPC initiatives, as well as SEO and Social Media strategy.