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

This article is about hitting the right balance in content marketing, between providing practical, objective information, and delivering a blatant sales pitch. Get the balance right and content will win customers; get it wrong and your content creation efforts won’t pay-off.

photo by Todd Anderson

 So who am I to dish out advice about content marketing? I didn’t invent content marketing, but I did engineer an early content marketing success. Back in 1999 my three partners and I sold our boutique information security consulting firm to a NASDAQ company for a premium price. We achieved that price because we had a premium client list (including AT&T, American Express, Edward Jones, and Sprint). 

How did we build that client list? We attracted a lot of our clients through website content, notably a library of “free information security articles” which was one of the first things I created when I set up the company website. These articles were originally written by myself and my partners for publication in magazines and that meant they were written to professional editorial standards, one of which is objectivity.

Objectivity means the articles did not talk about our company and the services we offered, they talked about specific problems and solutions. The result? Anyone reading those articles was likely to think the authors knew what they were talking about and were happy to share their knowledge. If you needed to deal with these specific problems and solutions it didn’t require a big red call to action button to realize “these guys would be a valuable resource.”

Skip forward a decade or so and we find content marketing applied to any type of “useful” information employed to advance the marketing effort without making overt product claims, such as “custom magazines, print or online newsletters, digital content, websites or microsites, white papers, webcasts/webinars, podcasts, video portals or series, in-person roadshows, roundtables, interactive online, email, and events.”

That list is from the ‘content marketing’ entry in Wikipedia, which goes on to state quite clearly, and in my opinion correctly, that the purpose of this information: “is not to spout the virtues of the marketer’s own products or services, but to inform target customers and prospects about key industry issues, sometimes involving the marketer’s products.”

Unfortunately, the resources available to Marketing are always limited. Whenever sales slow down it’s possible Sales will question the use of resources for content marketing. Depending on factors such as workflow and company dynamics, you might experience “spout-creep.” That’s when open declaration of product virtues creeps into content marketing pieces. Unfortunately, because none of the forms used for content marketing dictate function, it can be difficult prevent spout-creep. So what should you do? Here are some suggestions.

1. If Sales has a good case for more direct product marketing materials then oblige Sales and switch resources from your content marketing. Better to scale back content marketing than risk polluting it with blatant product pitches. If Sales needs competitor kill sheets, generate them, just don’t pass them off as content marketing.

2. Adjust your content marketing to the different levels of awareness people have of your product and the problem it solves. Develop different nurturing paths for different levels of awareness. For people just becoming aware of the problem, go lightly on product pitching (they will appreciate you educating them and at this point they’re not ready to buy from you or your competitors). However, there’s still value in content targeted to people familiar with the problem, your solution, and your competitors’ solutions. Good content, freely shared, will always win the day with some buyers.

3. Think twice before placing content behind a click-wall that requires the completion of a lengthy form. Sales might be screaming for leads but requiring loads of details may be a mistake unless you’re talking premium content without a hint of pitch. Content that educates at the early stages of a market may travel further, to greater effect, if accessible without providing extensive contact data.

4. Consider just email registration. Concerns about spam are declining and people are more willing to supply an email address than a few years ago. But don’t abuse their trust. If you plan to send them more content, make that clear.

5. Have faith in your content but track access. Google Analytics tracks page access, not file access. Make sure you have server logs handy to see how often files themselves are downloaded.

6. Set expectations honestly, otherwise content marketing can hurt your reputation. Today there’s little tolerance for product pitches misrepresented as pure content. Be honest up front and you will avoid “blowback” from people offended at being pitched when they were expecting to get educated.

A prolific blogger and content marketing pioneer, Stephen Cobb has helped a series of hi-tech startups to achieve successful outcomes by educating the market for their products. Currently Marketing Evangelist for Monetate, the Philadelphia-based marketing optimization company, Stephen resides in Upstate New York.

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 Mary T. O’Brien, Founder PPC Summit

For years Search Engines have been pushing contextual ads (content advertising) as a way to increase their distribution and revenue, but it seemed like advertisers just weren’t buying it. Ads on content networks have historically performed far worse than their counterparts in search campaigns causing many advertisers to just give up working with content networks at all.

Now, finally, that seems to be changing.

At our recent PPC Summit in Los Angeles, David Szetela’s “Successful Content Advertising – Why Content Ads Can be Your Ace in the Hole” session played to a full house. Of course, that is partly explained by the fact that David is a great trainer and previous attendees know that David always shares a ton of great information and is a fount of search knowledge, but it’s also because content ads are finally coming into their own and capturing their share of advertiser dollars.

In addition to the offerings by Google Adsense, Yahoo Publisher Network and Microsoft adCenter, there are also many stand alone content networks that provide the opportunity to target your customers successfully earlier in the buying cycle, often at a cheaper price than a search campaign.

Some of the networks that you may want to check out include: Context Web (particularly their ADSDAQ self service product), Kontera, Quigo (now part of AOL) and Industry Brains (part of Marchex, and particularly good for B2B targeting). Bigger publishers/Social Networks are also getting in on the act successfully like Facebook, Linked In and Digg’s new content ads offering.

Many of these networks provide excellent Behavioral, Demographical and Geographical targeting that allow you as an advertiser to really drill down and reach your target audience. But still, this is a much more complex product than search. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you can blow through a significant budget in a weekend, hence the interest in David’s session in LA. Advertiser’s now get that there is opportunity in content networks – IF you really know what you are doing.   

So what are some things to look out for?

1) Assume that buyers reading content ads are in the very start of the sales process. Actually they may not be in the sales process at all yet. Your ad needs to whet their interest and push them into the funnel. Ads need to read like headlines from the National Enquirer, obnoxious, eye-catching, jumping off the page.

2) As keywords aren’t bolded in content ads, and aren’t counted for Quality Score, you can focus less on USP’s and more on just trapping clicks.

3) These potential customers need strong incentives to click through, so offer free white papers, samples, reviews, trials etc.

4)  Study your where your competitors ads appear. You are not only competing with them you are competing with all the content on that page, so your ad needs to shout just to get attention. Use all of those words that you would never normally use in your copy like: STOP! WAIT! CLICK HERE! LOOK! REGISTER NOW! Etc.

5) Include product prices and special offers. Just make sure they are tied back to specific landing pages on your site that mention these offers so there is no disconnect for your visitors.

6) Create separate search and content campaigns.

This will allow you to:
• Optimize your ad groups and ad text specifically for content pages.
• Target different audiences.
• Use more general (earlier buying cycle) keywords to strengthen the theme of your ad group, without affecting your search performance.

7) Before you even think about attempting a contextual advertising campaign, make sure you have a comprehensive tracking solution in place. Content campaigns can really benefit from testing and tracking, even more than search campaigns.

These are just some basic steps to get you on the right track with Contextual Advertising and there are far too many to list here. David covers more than an hour of tips in his Content sessions at PPC Summit and AdWords Advantage. Overall these campaigns take a lot more tweaking to get them to perform, but the point is they CAN perform very effectively if you do them correctly.

Think “Media Buy” rather than “Search Campaign” and that will help you to focus your attention more effectively. The networks will continue to add targeting and distribution options to make this traffic more effective as time goes on. Pay attention and keep up with the changes. Sometimes a little tweak that works for your particular audience is all it takes to make a content campaign really effective. Once you get this traffic source to work for you, it can really help your budget by allowing you to capture a much lower CPA. Just as with search where you what you take away (negative keywords) really impacts results the same thing is true of content. The traffic sources you remove from your campaigns will determine your success overall.

For more info on Contextual Advertising follow David on twitter http://twitter.com/Szetela or check out his upcoming session in Chicago at the PPC Summit or online at our upcoming online AdWords Advantage event.

Pay Attention. This could be the best source of traffic you’re underutilizing and you can’t afford to do that for much longer.

By John Robbins, Account Executive, Anvil Media, Inc.

According to Business.com, on average, 13 different people within an enterprise level organization touch a purchasing decision before final approval.  Even within mid size companies, those 13 people are likely spread throughout the organization horizontally, and, even more so, vertically.  Because of this, only targeting upper level management is a short sighted and typically ineffective model for advertising for a B2B provider.   By understanding how each level of an organization searches for your solution you can effectively target multiple management levels by advertising to their needs, desires, and wants.

Middle Management

This is the level of a company where most pain points for day-to-day operations come to a head.  Because of this, these managers are likely to perform searches that are solutions based and are attempting to solve a specific problem.

How do they search?
For example, your company is offering document management software solutions and a potential customer is experiencing issues with processing document approvals efficiently.  A mid-level manager may not be familiar with industry jargon or terms and instead performs a query for “help with document approvals”.  This is a very broad query as they may not even be aware there is a software solution out there to search for. 

How do you reach them?
Unless you are using broad match, in your PPC efforts, on a term like “document approval” you would miss this impression and this initial touch opportunity.  Using the search query tools provided can help you ensure you are not missing opportunities at a broad match/very general keyword level. 

Also, these searchers are seeking education and solutions.  The messaging and landing pages for these keywords should reflect this need.  While seeking information, this level of management is less likely to provide contact information as they often do not desire or feel comfortable being the original contact point.  However, that doesn’t mean you should not track how they interact with the site.  Tracking paid visitors that used these keywords and creating specific KPI’s for them can help ensure your first impression is a good one.  While these visitors may not convert often, understanding and tracking how they interact with the site is still important and they should be given specific KPI’s that track their on-site engagement through metrics such as time on site and page/visit.
 
Upper Management

When a need for a solution to a problem reaches this level of management, it usually is receiving some significant attention by the organization.  However, the focus will be on product specific queries as they will already been given a list of 2, maybe 3, options of solutions with recommendations potentially already made.  While using jargon can be a dangerous proposition in marketing, if the search volume is there, there is no reason not to go after it as long as the messaging is not overloaded with it.  Besides jargon, more specific industry terms will also fall into this bucket as upper level management will either have, or have been given, information/research about these terms.

How do they search?
This level of manager doesn’t have the time or even the need to research solutions based keywords (as this has already been completed).  Where lower management is often seeking solutions to specific problems, upper management makes the shift to searching for the products that provide these solutions.  Instead of searching for “help with document approvals”, upper level managers will search for “document management software”.  These types of keywords are likely your current bread and butter for generating leads and this is for good reason – you are now speaking to those who are decision makers and instigate conversation with potential vendors. 

In addition to product specific keywords, these folks will also use branded searches to quickly find the site for review.  Ensuring your branded campaigns are properly optimized and the ad messaging is speaking to the big picture solution your company provides will help to ensure these final searches are effective.  For example, say an Information System Manager participated in your webcast and is the initial lead, remember they have likely passed that information on to at least 2-3 other people that will be involved with the decision and they are now searching via branded terms (either company or products).

How do you reach them?
As the goal of this keyword group is to have a high conversion rate, focusing on providing options to convert will allow the highest opportunity to produce a viable lead.  This level of management is where real lead generation begins and the conversion points should reflect this by collecting as much contact information as possible through a wide range of capture points on the site – webcasts, downloads, white papers, sign-up forms, etc. 

While this strategy focuses on tracking keywords based on management level, don’t forget about the content network.  This strategy can be augmented to target placements based on what each level of management is reading online.

Now, I am not recommending you change how your PPC accounts are organized as this method is about tracking keywords and their reach and effectiveness at driving the next touch point.  What this really comes down to is Attribution – tracking your many touch points within an organization using broad terms to reach mid-management, using product and branded terms for upper management and high level executives.  By understanding why each management level is searching for your solutions and providing a targeted message to each, you can ensure your brand is presented to each level of the decision making process.

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John Robbins is an Account Executive at Anvil Media, Inc.  John graduated from Portland State University with a BS in Marketing.  John has been working with Anvil Media in Portland since 2008.  John has extensive experience with both B2B and B2C clients, specializing in developing SEO, social media, and PPC strategy to increase client visibility and ROI.

By Elisa Gabbert, Content Development Manager, WordStream

It’s crucial to find and use negative keywords if you want to maximize the value of your pay-per-click campaigns. Setting negative keywords ensures that you don’t waste advertising budget on impressions for search queries that aren’t really relevant to your ad. Those useless impressions will quickly drag down your click-through rate and Quality Score, driving PPC costs up.

So how do you develop a list of negative keywords for your PPC campaigns? You can sit around and brainstorm for possibilities, but this is inefficient, and there’s no way you’ll dream up every negative keyword that your ad might match for.

Here are four simple ways to discover negative keywords, and some tips on how to implement them.

1. Generic negative keyword lists
Pre-assembled lists of negative keywords are available for a number of industries. For instance, if you’re selling a B2B product, you might want to include “free” as a negative, or you might want to create a list of adult terms you don’t want your ads to match on. These can be a decent way to get started on building your list. However, the downside is there in the name: these are generic negative keywords, and they may not all apply to your specific business niche. In addition, many potential negative keywords may be missing from these lists.

2. Through keyword research
 You can find negative keywords while you’re conducting regular keyword research; just keep your eyes open for keyword suggestions that aren’t relevant to your business. For example, one of the top keyword suggestions for “monitor” (as shown in the results from WordStream’s Free Keyword Tool below) is “heart monitor.” It’s a good bet that a number of those thousands of suggestions are similarly irrelevant to your computer supply business.

Start to create a list of negative keyword possibilities through your research, in much the same way as you would a list of keywords you want to target.

3. Search query reports
A third way to find negative keywords is to look at your search query reports in AdWords (or pay-per-click platform of choice). This report shows you the actual search queries that are triggering your text ads (as well as the match type, number of impressions, number of clicks, CTR and other relevant information). Accordingly it’s a good idea to comb through these regularly and eliminate any irrelevant keywords from your ad groups. This method of negative keyword discovery is more thorough than the above options, because it’s based on real data from your own PPC account.

4. Your organic search (SEO) log files or analytics
Perhaps the best method of all these four options, your own log files or analytics are an excellent source of potential negative keywords. These files keep a record of every phrase that drives a visitor from a search engine to your site. There’s one main advantage to this method of negative keyword discovery over search query reports: You can catch negative keywords before they trigger your ads. (And as a best practice, you should eliminate irrelevant keywords from your organic keyword research as well.)

Implementing Negative Keywords in Your PPC Campaigns

Those are some basic ways to expand your negative keyword research. But what do you do with the list once you’ve found them? You probably know about the various match types for keywords (broad match, phrase match and exact match). These match types also apply to negative keywords.

For example, you can use the broad match option (-heart monitor) to prevent your ad from showing for any search query that includes both “heart” and “monitor,” such as “heart rate monitor”; phrase match (-”heart monitor”) for any search query that contains “heart monitor” in that order, such as “holter heart monitor”; or exact match (-[heart monitor]) to eliminate only searches for “heart monitor” verbatim.

Experiment with these negative match options and monitor your campaign to see which is the most effective and cost-efficient for each negative keyword.

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Elisa Gabbert is the Content Development Manager at WordStream, Inc. You can get in touch with Elisa by sending her an Email at egabbert (at) WordSteam dot com, by following her on Twitter, or by reading the WordStream Internet Marketing Blog, where she is a frequent contributor.