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

On the 8^th of September 2010, Google launched its Instant Search interface, which shows results as you type, in real time. Searchers, particularly from the Search Engine Marketing (SEM) industry, have reacted sharply to the new interface. Many users find the new interface distracting, even annoying.

Google Instant is being sold as a faster and better User Interface

Matt Cutts from Google says that the change is more about rolling out a new User Interface (UI) rather than an algorithmic change. Matt attempted to allay the fears of the SEM industry by suggesting “SEO is not dead” but may change due to instant search query feedback to users, which in turn, may change their search behaviour. He believes that the searchers will diversify their queries within the scope of the original intent.

The effect of predicted query suggestions on user behavior

While Google claims that the Search Ranking Algorithm remains unchanged, the new feature will surely change search behaviour of users due to instant feedback mechanism. A lot of users are likely to select the predictive results, which fulfil their original intent, and stop typing further. Some users may get distracted from their original intent as ‘irrelevant but interesting’ results may lead to unintended searches. For example a user may digress into “home improvement loans” after typing “home improvement” instead of following his original intent of searching for “home improvement ideas.”

As more and more search users select “predicted query” suggestions, it would increase the traffic on the “head” keyword terms and lead to keyword aggregation. In essence, they would be searching more of what “other users” are searching. This usage trend would create a loop-back effect and drive out the long-tail keywords from the popular suggestions. Consequently, over a period of time, the long-tail keywords search count may diminish significantly. Where possible, Google is pushing local results for terms having local context like weather, pizza, movies, jobs etc.

The change in usage trend will throw new challenges to SEO & PPC professionals. They will need to focus their campaigns more on lead terms, creating a fiercer battleground.

How will PPC campaigns get impacted?

As per Google the AdWords impressions are counted in the following situations -

• The user begins to type a query on Google and clicks anywhere on the page (a search result, an ad, a spell correction, a related search).
• The user chooses a particular query by clicking the Search button, pressing Enter, or selecting one of the predicted queries.
• The user stops typing, and the results are displayed for a minimum of three seconds.

For PPC campaign managers, this is bad news. The AdWords impressions would unnecessarily increase due to ads display even during partial typing process. Ads would sometimes be displayed for irrelevant or partial keywords. For example, search intent for “Car Insurance” displays ads for “Car Rentals” just after the user has typed the word “car.” This means that the “Car Rentals” PPC campaigns will waste impressions, reducing their CTR.

Predictive query push of popular terms will diminish the long-tail keyword opportunities for PPC managers. Pressure will mount on the “head” terms of their campaigns; pushing up their CPC costs while wasted AdWords impressions will make their CTR poor. Since the CTR is likely to be affected across the board for most users, it is not clear how Google will treat the fall in the “Quality Score” of the ad campaigns.

In any case, PPC campaigns are likely to become costlier to run and the campaign managers will need to make frequent updates in their campaigns to target newer and popular keywords to keep up with the changing trends of search users. Some website owners may even consider diverting part of their PPC funds into SEO campaigns in order to get some traction of natural traffic and mitigate their long term investment risks.

How will SEO landscape change with Google Instant?

Challenges for SEO managers will not be easy. With diminishing long-tail inventory, SEO will need to focus on popular search terms, which, by no means is a mean task. Changes in SEO will also need to be made frequently, in line with the changing keyword trends. Where relevant, optimization for local search terms will help. Due to the instant display of results, fewer users will need to scroll down the page. This means that “above the fold” results will become prime property. Clients would no longer be happy with the top-10 ranking and may demand top-4 rank instead, making the SEO’s job even harder.

Gaming the Google Instant Predictive Search System

It is important to note that the predictive search suggestions of Google Instant is not about suggesting important terms, but suggesting “popular” terms. For search terms, which do not have a high search volume (or for long-tail keywords), it is easy to “game the system” by artificially inflating search terms popularity.

Several years ago, we ran a test on WordTracker keyword research tool. At the time, WordTracker used to fetch search data from only Dogpile & MetaCrawler search engines, which had a miniscule search market share. Since it was easy to game these two ‘low traffic’ search engines, we artificially inflated a ‘test query string’ search in these search engines and discovered that the test search term indeed appeared ‘high’ in WordTracker’s keyword search count, just a few weeks later. Similarly, search terms for low-volume searches can be pushed up in the Google’s predictive suggestions. This manipulation of Google Instant was successfully tried for the term “Nathan Deal Ethics” to highlight the allegations against Nathan for corruptions.

As the dust settles down, the users will get more comfortable by evolving their own techniques of narrowing down their search queries. Perhaps over a period of time, a new usage trend may emerge. How the PPC & SEO landscape will shape up over the next one year may be difficult to predict. However, one thing seems to be clear – with one masterstroke, Google has ensured higher revenues from PPC advertisers; made SEO a lot more difficult and with increased search pattern of distracted searchers, increased their page-views (read market share.)

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Atul Gupta is the Co-Founder & CEO of RedAlkemi.com, a company specializing in Search Engine Optimization and Social Media Marketing. Atul is a thought-leader in Online Marketing industry and has been working in this field since 1996. His company has helped over a thousand clients succeed in their online businesses. Atul is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and has published several articles about SEM industry.

Are your web statistics revealing that more people are finding your site via social media channels? It’s no secret that social sites – Facebook and Twitter – are now significant players when it comes to search market share. Marketers are finding themselves investing more time and resources into social media marketing and with good reason–your potential customers could be among the Facebook and Twitter masses. Now more than ever, consumer decision making patterns are based on the correlation between search and brand discovery through social media.

A search and social media industry study revealed that searchers exposed to a brand via both Social Media and Paid Search are more willing to take action. These findings are proof  that consumers exposed to social media are more likely to click on a brand’s paid search ad compared to those exposed to the brand’s paid search alone. When users searched a brand’s product name, the CTR nearly tripled (from 4.5% up to 11.8%) from being exposed to a brand in social media and paid search.

Search and Social Media Survey Shows Consumers are Taking Action:
>   2.8x more likely to search for a brand’s products compared to users who only saw paid search
>   50% increase click thru rate (CTR) in paid search when exposed to both social media and paid search
>   42-point lift in searcher penetration for brand terms when consumers were exposed to social media and paid search
*Source: Research study by comScore, GroupM Search & M80.

Delivering Effective Social Media Marketing Communications on Facebook & Twitter
There is no question the interplay between search and social media will impact your search marketing ROI. And more importantly, how you  communicate your message via social media makes the difference.

>   Do: Approach social media marketing with the mindset of “sharing quality content” to inform and to offer relevant information.
>   Don’t: Use “push-marketing” tactics–avoid direct and blatant sales messages around your products or services.

An essential component in helping your customers find you in search and social media is about creating and sharing quality content. Providing relevant information, keeping content fresh, and making it easily accessible to your potential customers is key in increasing your online marketing results. Since just about everythig begins in search, an important element in both disciplines – search and social media marketing - is offering your customers relevant information to help them answer questions and address their needs.

For example, in Facebook, people ”like” content–and the more compelling your content is, the more potential there is for your message to be read and shared across unlimited social networks. Did you know a Facebook ‘liker’ clicks on 5x more links to external sites than typical Facebook users? This is great news if you are looking to increase your social media click thru rates! The same goes for Twitter–the new sharing of content capabilities on Twitter allow for more creative marketing. The chances of your message going viral is even greater as Twitter becomes more of an information channel.

With over 500 million Facebook users and 160 million Twitterers, the customer outreach potential is unlimited. Social Media’s upside over Google is the ability to take your message viral. The more ‘likes’ or ‘retweets’ your message has, the more visibility you gain, thus increasing your viral chances. New search mindsets are evolving with ‘Facebook Likes’ being compared to page rank due to the direct connection between likes and search. The search and social possibilities are endless as people turn to Facebook as a more common place to search and people use Twitter for more than just tweeting.

It boils down to helping your customers find you across both search and social media channels–and how you gain their attention is key! How are social networks (Twitter and Facebook) impacting your search marketing results? Share your thoughts.

Interview by Kelly Larsen, PPC Summit Director of Marketing

Pay-Per-Click Search Engine Marketing An Hour A Day
Authors: David Szetela and Joseph Kerschbaum, with Michael Flores

We recently had the opportunity to talk with David Szetela about his new book 
Pay-Per-Click Search Engine Marketing An Hour a Day and learned some exclusive insights into how Search Marketers can better leverage Pay Per Click (PPC) Marketing channels and tools. From the search engines to social media, David’s new book offers some invaluable tips that every Search Marketer should know.

A regular speaker at our PPC Summits, David Szetela is a master of the art in PPC Advertising. He has a unique ability to share his wealth of Search Marketing knowledge in a no-nonsense, easy-to-understand format. And in the new book, Szetela and co-writers do a great job sharing their PPC wisdom including everything from the basics to rules and best practices. The book covers it all from campaign development, management and measurement–offering many important takeaways for PPC success. 

Pay-Per-Click Search Engine Marketing An Hour A Day provides clear guidance for improving campaign architecture and creative execution. *****************************************************************************************************************

1. What led to the book’s creation and why are these lessons important for Marketing and Advertising Professionals?

Szetela: We decided to write the book because we wanted to provide a soup-to-nuts instruction manual for new PPC advertisers–even those with no formal training in marketing and advertising. The excellent books already on the market seemed to assume some familiarity with PPC advertising. We took a different approach: the book covers basic advertising and marketing topics before diving into the skills necessary to become an expert PPC campaign manager.

2. Tell us about your background and experience managing PPC/SEM campaigns?

Szetela: Even though I started gaining expertise in PPC advertising a few years after it became available, I had a head start by virtue of my 30 years of experience with direct response advertising.  When I discovered PPC advertising in 2003, I realized that it was classified advertising on steroids–a challenge to write persuasive ads using a small number of characters and an opportunity to improve performance over time by testing and improving ad copy.

3. Name the most important thing every PPC advertiser should do when setting up and managing a campaign?

Szetela: The most important thing is to fully understand your customers. Usually the set of a company’s customers can be broken down into separate sub-groups–each with its own unique jargon and perceptions of benefits. Understanding these differences are important in crafting persuasive ad copy and advertising on sites that are frequented by the customer sub-segments.

4. Sum up your top 3 tips for being a more effective SEM/PPC advertiser and maximizing your results? 

1. Understand that the creative aspects of the job – ad copywriting and landing page design – are as crucial to success as the scientific aspects like ad group and campaign structure, keyword bids, etc.
2. Adopt the philosophy that continual testing and optimization will produce continual improvement in sales volume and conversion rates
3. Learn how to spot the early signs of campaign problems like falling click-through-rates and rising costs

5. What is the most challenging piece of PPC/SEM (from your own experience), and what is your advice on how to tackle it?

Szetela: Over the years, as more and more companies have realized that PPC advertising provides the best ROI of any kind of marketing, the competition has steadily driven average click prices up. To counteract this, expert PPC campaign managers use exact and phrase match versions of popular keywords and continually test ad copy to obtain progressively higher click-through-rates. This improves keyword quality scores which helps advertisers obtain higher ad rank than their competitors at a lower average cost-per-click.

6. In this industry it is tough to stay current. How do you stay up to speed with current industry trends?

Szetela: I read every article that I can find on: Search Engine Land, Search Engine Watch, MediaPost, MarketingSherpa etc. I also Tweet about the most important developments in the PPC world so people who follow me on Twitter can keep up (@ Szetela) or http://twitter.com/szetela. I also moderate a PPC discussion group on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?mostPopular=&gid=1217347.

Overall the book covers many facets of search engine marketing—going beyond Google and much more than just AdWords. It takes you outside of the search engine results, into content networks and on to social media (Facebook). It’s a must read for all marketers!

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About the Author: Pay-Per-Click Search Engine Marketing An Hour a Day
David Szetela is Owner and CEO of Clix Marketing and specializes in PPC advertising: Google AdWords, Yahoo! and Microsoft. Szetela’s 25+ years working for small magazine publishers, Apple Computer and Ziff-Davis Publishing has provided him a deep experience in direct response marketing. David is a frequent speaker at industry conferences like Search Engine Strategies, PPC Summit and  MarketingSherpa Summit.

Last week Google launched “Instant Search.” Instant search essentially fills in words and phrases for you as you conduct a search on Google. For example, let’s say you start to type in “goo”. Before you get further, you’ll see a list of potential queries, like “Google” and “Goo Goo Dolls” and so on.

Google’s reasoning for launching this innovation, as with pretty much everything they do, is – on its face – simple: to improve user experience by helping users find what they need faster.  For search engine marketers, however, what’s good for users is not necessarily good for PPC campaigns. Will Instant Search fundamentally change PPC forever?

As I see it, there are two big impacts from Google Instant Search that SEMs need to immediately address.

1. Instant Search increases the importance of head terms. Head terms refer to generic or very popular keywords in your account. Tail terms (or “long tail”) are the much targeted keywords with few queries. A head term example might be “mortgage” whereas a tail term would be “mortgage rates in Miami Florida for bad credit.” Because Instant Search immediately starts to suggest words as a user types, it stands to reason that this feature will result in more head term keywords and less long tail keywords.

In the example I gave above, a user who typed in “mort” might immediately see a suggested query of “mortgage rates” and decide to click on these results long before they complete a much longer query like “mortgage rates in Miami Florida . . .”

From a PPC perspective, this means that volume on head terms – and therefore the importance of showing up on these terms – will increase. Another way of thinking about this is that the head terms will be taking traffic from the tail terms. Hence, if advertisers currently making money on the tail still want to get the same volume they were previously getting, they will now need to spend more of their budget on the head terms. More advertisers bidding on fewer keywords will result in higher CPCs and more money for Google.

I believe that this is pretty consistent with Google’s existing policies. Several years ago I pondered whether keywords even mattered anymore and whether Google would one day go from a keyword-based system to a “category” based system. This move to Instant Search is consistent with that prediction. Long tail keywords cost Google money; getting as many advertisers as possible to bid on fewer keywords is very profitable!

2. Instant Search increases the importance of bidding separately for Google versus the Google Search Partners Network. Many people do not realize that when you buy ads through AdWords, your ad can essentially show up in one of three places: Google search results, the Google Display Network (content sites), or on Google search partners like AOL and Ask.com. Often, the performance on Google search and Partner search sites can be very different, as the demographics of users on these sites vary.

The advent of Google Instant Search will further change the results between Google and Partner search results. Because partners like AOL and Ask do not have Instant Search functionality, you can expect to get more results on long tail queries on Google partners than on Google. If you assume that long tail queries are more valuable (since they are more targeted) than head terms, the result may well be that the relative value of partner search results vis-à-vis Google search results will increase.

While Google doesn’t currently allow you to bid only on the Partner network, you can at least set up two campaigns with one set to Google only and one to Google plus the Partner network. You could then focus on head terms in the Google only campaign, and focus on tail terms in the Google plus Partner network campaign, and adjust bids over time to reflect differences in performance.

Keep in mind that Instant Search is only days old at this point so no one really knows how this functionality will really impact AdWords campaigns. And like many Google product launches, the initial launch is usually fundamentally different than subsequent releases. So watch your AdWords campaigns closely, watch for announcements from Google, and don’t make rash changes until the metrics suggest to do so!

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David Rodnitzky is Founder of PPC Associates, a leading SEM agency in San Francisco. To learn more about full service AdWords management from PPC Associates, contact David at david@ppcassociates.com.

Over the years, Google has been consistently adding more “bells & whistles” to their AdWords Platform, and they are continuing to show signs of becoming their own PPC Management Software Company that could be a real threat to the existing leading companies in the marketplace today. In fact, if Google was able to get widespread adoption of the management tools by marketing to advertisers that, instead of spending  extra dollars for these tools, why not just use Google’s free tools and take that money and put it back into their monthly ad spend.

The movement by Google to offer similar PPC optimization tools for Free as compared to other companies such as Acquisio, ClickEquations , and others, where the advertiser has to pay, makes it a pretty good investment for Google and advertisers because those extra dollars would go back into advertising, or, in other words, Google’s Pocket. With that said, there are many questions that come to mind:

• How good is Google compared to those other PPC Management Companies who, not only have a loyal following, but also have familiarity with their products?
• Will the Advertiser see a higher Return on Investment using Google’s Tools?
• Will it force the 3^rd party companies to lower their rates to compete with Google?

Of all of the tools that Google is rolling out to their advertisers, there is one in particular which struck a cord with me and hinted on the fact that this maybe Google’s next frontier. For example, their new automatic bidding tool called Enhanced CPC is designed to increase ROI on an advertiser’s Max CPC campaign. Many PPC Marketers used to rely on this automation from third party companies so  time could be better spent on more important things.

Furthermore, another interesting point to note is the marketing language that Google is using to promote the tool. Here is a snippet from Google “Enhanced CPC can be thought of as an ‘‘ROI turbocharge” setting for your existing Max CPC campaigns. Simply check a box and let the AdWords system get to work improving your ROI.”  In essence, Google is trying to inadvertently eliminate the need for 3^rd party bid management tools, or at the very least take the API integration to the 3^rd parties out of the mix. However, in their marketing language, Google appears to be more sympathetic to other outside bid management tools by mentioning their Bid Tool is compatible with third party bid management systems.  This statement, even though soft and fuzzy, does not make a lot of sense to me because it forces the advertiser to make a choice of one or the other. How can an advertiser use both at the same time?

Another interesting tool from Google is their Analyze Competition product where advertisers can see what their competition is doing. Even though this is full release mode and was first introduced back in June 2010 and then expanded to all advertisers in August 2010, it’s another sign of more competing tools to come. In the past, we had to pay for this service from other 3^rd parties to get this information. But again, the marketing messaging that Google uses to describe this service reveals more than just a nifty tool. According to Google, “For the first time, you can see how your AdWords performance compares that of other advertisers.” So it’s pretty clear that Google wants to provide every possible tool to get their advertisers to spend more money with them.

In conclusion:

No matter how we view the trend of Google pushing more and more PPC tools that were once only provided by third party companies, it provokes competition, and that can only benefit Google and the advertiser. However, it does motivate and open the door for PPC Management companies to come up with something new and exciting that Google does not already have in their arsenal. On the other hand, Google could just buy out those companies and eliminate the competition altogether. We’ll just have to wait and see.

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Greg Meyers is the President/Founder of iGESSO Internet Marketing, LLC and author the Search Marketing Blog SemGeek.com.

The goal of the new Twitter interface is to provide a richer user experience and a more robust platform to search, share, access, and explore content and information. All 160 million registered users will soon be privy to the new features which include embedded media capabilities,  easier content sharing and more accessibility. Over the coming weeks, Twitter will continue to roll out the updated version to all users through the process of random account selection.

The upgrades are significant, and overall the new interface is a step in the right direction, especially from a marketing standpoint. As Twitter becomes more of a destination site and offers more than just ‘tweeting’,  it stands to provide ample ways for marketers to reach more targeted customers in real-time.

According to Augie Ray, analyst for Forrester Research, “Twitter’s new web functionality is a significant evolution that promises to attract more visits to Twitter.com, improve Twitterers’ interactions with content and each other, and ease adoption for Twitter newbies.”

The numbers speak for themselves!  In August Twitter generated nearly 3 billion tweets, which was up 33% from May. According to WebProNews, an average of 85 million tweets were posted on Twitter each day in August.  Now, with Twitter’s improved usability, marketers should take advantage of the increased customer engagement they can gain.

Twitter has now integrated features previously only available from third party vendors. This should ultimately help Twitter win back the 20% of users who have turned to third party tools such as Tweetdeck, Seesmic  etc. The new features go beyond just tweeting, as CEO Evan Williams suggests the site can be used as an exploring tool–and the new interface does just that. Not only is it more user friendly, it provides improved resources to access information and opens the doors to increase marketing outreach.

Here’s A Glance at the Twitter Redesign Impacts on Search Capabilities:

• Prominently displayed Search box is at the top of the page
• Unlimited scrolling option on search results
• Additional filtering features: Tweets with links and Tweets Near You
• Save this Search option is more visible
• Enhanced search features for retweets

Twitter’s Redesign Improvement Highlights:

1. New Interface Design: The infinite scroll and new architecture is more user friendly and allows for faster ways to view more related information. In the top navigation, you can easily access your timeline, mentions, retweets, searches and lists. The tweet stream on the left remains the same, however, when one clicks on a tweet, the right side populates with more detailed content.
2. Embedded Media/Photos/Videos: You can easily embed and view photos, watch live video and more within your Twitter account (offered by Twitter media partners: DailyBooth, Etsy, Flickr, Justin.TV, Kickstarter, Kiva, USTREAM, Vimeo, yfrog, YouTube and more). Media is displayed on the right side.
3. Additional Pane for Related Content: It’s easier to view more detailed insight on information related to tweets – see author or subject info, replies, other Tweets and a map for geo-tagged Tweets. You can now use the new pad/pen icon (overlay box) to tweet and not lose your place in Twitter. If a tweet links to a product on an e-commerce site partnering with Twitter, you can view the product.
4. Mini Profile View: You can get fast access to user account details without off-page navigation including bio information and Tweets.

The verdict will remain open until the roll out is complete, but it seems to be a step in the right direction. We will keep watch and report back with any findings at the end of the transition.

Let us know what you think of the new Twitter interface. Feel free to share your thoughts on the features that you like or dislike in the comments.

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.