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

For many of us, Pay-Per-Click marketing is perceived and utilized as a fast and sometimes cost efficient way to drive qualified visitors and conversions to an advertiser’s website. Many PPC agencies and freelancers spend their time optimizing and strategizing around improving conversions and improving ROI. However, over the years PPC has evolved not only in traditional uses, but also has established itself as a multi-faceted platform that has been used to protect company/personal reputations, defend political agendas and drive awareness to issues outside of the online world. In this article, I will discuss the other benefits of PPC and why we should consider these initiatives more often.

Reputation Management

We have seen this most recently in political jabbering amongst candidates at all levels as well as national and global level for incidents such as the BP oil spill disaster where people are leveraging PPC as a fast and efficient way to protect themselves from negative news coverage.

If you remember, BP was using PPC for reputation management because of the bad PR they were getting all over the world.  BP used text ads as a sounding board to tell the public that BP is working hard everyday to make sure they were doing everything they could to “make it right”.

Web Design Testing

How many times have you heard from a potential prospect saying “I’m not ready for PPC yet because we want to redesign the website and when were done, we’ll give you a call?” Well, traditionally that makes sense from a CEO’s perspective, but what many people fail to realize is that PPC can open the door to testing design, layout, and usability before committing thousands of dollars to something that has not been tested or seen by the public.

I have encouraged many prospects to look at PPC as a testing vehicle before shelling out the money for a complete overhaul of a website.

New Audience Testing

Imagine a typical retailer or manufacturer who is eager to test a new target audience because they have a product or service that can be distributed to a wider market. If this testing was done offline using traditional channels like TV, radio or print advertising, it would be costly and would not generate detailed analytics to pinpoint its effectiveness. Moreover, PPC can not only enable companies to do all of this testing much more affordably it also allows for much more detailed analytics beyond online perception and adoption. It also provides much better “message testing” which can then be used in any other offline strategy.

New Product Retailer Advantage

Getting an advantage on the competition is sometimes a very difficult task to accomplish. That advantage could be improving customer service, lowering prices, offering free shipping, etc… On the other hand, many retailers cannot start promoting new products until the shipments come in to make it available to their customers. Here is where PPC can be a powerful tool to get a leg up on the competition.  For example, a creative merchandising team can leverage PPC to get those products to the public before any of their competitors by offering the product as a Pre-Order item. This tactic was a huge success in the past and quickly became a merchandising “must do”.

Offline Influence and Promotion

This strategy has been mostly triggered by what we have seen on TV, listened to on the radio or read in a newspaper or magazine. It’s the holistic behavior of migrating from offline to online in order to get that personal “branded” engagement for more information. In fact, increasingly frequently TV shows and even commercials are telling their audiences to go online to get more information. This is significant for marketers because they can use PPC to leverage offline awareness from news events, upcoming trends and other offline buzz.

In conclusion:

In a nutshell, PPC has evolved itself into having many more benefits for advertisers other than just driving traffic and increasing conversions. It’s now making a name for itself in the overall marketing strategy for both offline and online initiatives. The more we start looking to PPC to increase awareness, the better we can measure its effectiveness.

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

When marketers create budgets for paid search campaigns, a question that sometimes comes up is “do we really need to spend money bidding on our own brand name?”. The short answer is, yes, it’s generally a good idea to bid on your own brand name. It might seem redundant if your brand already dominates the search results page organically, but there are some compelling reasons to support a branded paid strategy.

Here are just a few reasons to consider bidding on your own brand:

1. Get more total click-throughs from the search results page
2. Defend your turf, dominate the page
3. Manage your brand’s reputation
4. Create additional opportunities for messaging

More total clicks from the search results page

Studies we’ve conducted have shown that typically links and ads together on the page will attract more total clicks when the brand is dominant on both the organic and the top ad space. Yes, the paid clicks may come at the expense of some organic clicks, but overall click volume increases. With an optimized paid campaign, this strategy can be very cost effective.

Defend your space on the page

Bidding on your own brand can be a good defensive strategy to reduce competitors’ exposure on the same page, by taking up more space with your brand and pushing other results down the page, or even off the page altogether.

Managing your reputation

Had some bad news or bad publicity? Got an uncomplimentary organic result showing up on the search results? A paid ad is a chance to voice your response and meet the challenge head on, with specific and timely messaging.

Take advantage of another opportunity

If you are bidding on your own brand and placing an ad on a page where your brand is already represented organically, use that opportunity to provide a deeper engagement. A recent example on Google US for the search term “Samsung tv”, provided an example of this. Samsung shows up well in the organic results, but they used the top ad spot to promote a special “Black Friday” offer that was timely, and more direct for some shoppers than drilling down through the Samsung web site.

Relevancy of Google Ads Affects the Whole Page

The new option on some Google searches to see up to eleven ads at the top of the search results page could put even more emphasis on the need to make sure ads are relevant. Our studies have clearly shown that if the ads are not deemed relevant to the intent of the person searching, they tend to discount all the results on the page – yes, even the organic results. Your wonderful organic listing could also get pushed down below the fold, so placing a branded result in the ad section can mitigate that problem.

Recent Changes to Google Results

Recently, Google have made a number of changes to how they present their search results pages. In case you’ve lost track, here’s a quick list:

• Google Instant
• Google Instant Previews
• Google Places
• Google Places with Hotpot
• Google Product Search with Local Inventory Count
• Google Ads (formerly known as “Sponsored Links”)

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Karl Hourigan is a Digital Marketing Strategist with Mediative. Mediative is one of North America’s largest integrated digital marketing companies. Their results-oriented marketing network is supported by industry thought leaders and a data-driven platform.

By Dane Christensen, Search Engine Marketing Manager at Lyris, Inc

Countless articles have been written about the importance of focusing on long-tail keywords for both Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.  It’s generally agreed that long-tail keywords produce higher quality traffic at a lower cost. 

It’s a great theory.  But there is the small matter of generating the massive number of long-tail keywords needed to build a significant amount of traffic.   By its very nature, long-tail keyword traffic is scattered across a very wide landscape. 

Using the Lyris HQ demo website “Top 5 Flicks” (www.top5flicks.com) as an example, a very small list of possible long-tail keywords could be:

• ”action flick starring orlando bloom”
• ”horror movie without blood”
• ”buy romantic comedy movie”
• ”war movie about macarther in Japan”
•  “directed by martin scorsese”

When you factor in all the possible movie genres, subjects, settings, actors, directors, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, etc. can you imagine how many possible permutations of long-tail phrases there could be?  Oh, and then there are misspellings (yes, I spelled “macarther” wrong on purpose above) meaning that keyword phrases could easily go into the millions.  Some of those keywords will get a handful of searches each month; many of them will just get a single random search here and there.   But that’s the long-tail.  Individually, the keywords probably aren’t worth the effort of researching and plugging them in to your system.   But collectively it can account for a significant amount of high-quality traffic. 

To go after the lucrative long-tail, you must have an effective way to harness massive numbers of keywords. 

Following are five techniques that will allow you to do just that:
Website Content Mining
You know all of those websites that marketers have been working hard to optimize for years?  They can serve as a great source of valuable long-tail keywords.  But how do you scoop up the keywords that are just floating out there amongst all those websites?  Some people have created screen scraper bots—applications that scour the web extracting keywords from websites. 

But this method has been rendered obsolete by Google’s (relatively) new Search-based Keyword Tool .   Using the SK Tool, you can specify a particular website address and it will instantly produce a list of keywords found on that site.  Click on any of those words to go straight to a search results page where you can find other websites to enter into the tool.  In no time you’ll find a plethora of long-tail keywords. 

The tool also provides a way for you to organize these keywords into categories.  If you have an AdWords account you’ll also have the ability to store keyword sets so you can build lists over time.  Once you’ve got a big enough list you can easily export the list for import back into Google or any other search engine.  It’s a great tool.  And it’s completely free.

Search Engine Query Analysis
While the above method focuses on pulling keywords from content, this method involves analyzing what people are actually searching for in the search engines.   While there is undoubtedly a great deal of overlap between these two sources, analyzing what people are looking for may be a way of getting the jump on all those websites that have not yet picked up on the latest trends.

The Keyword Discovery tool in Lyris HQ mines query data from over 200 search engines world-wide, compiling nearly 38 billion searches.  When used with the Lyris HQ Search Marketing tool, researched keywords can be automatically dropped into your PPC campaigns with no export/import required.   The Keyword Discovery tool is included in the Lyris HQ fee structure, allowing Lyris HQ users the ability to easily tap into the most extensive database of keyword data on the planet.

PPC Competitive Intelligence
Competitive intelligence tools take yet another approach to keyword research, focusing on the keywords on which PPC advertisers are bidding.   The idea here is that if companies are actually spending money on these keywords, they must be the most important keywords.  Two such “spying” tools are Keyword Spy and Spy Fu, with service fees ranging from $59 to $139 per month.

These services allow you to input the domain of your competitors’ websites, and it will return a list of all the keywords on which they are bidding.  In addition to the keywords, there is information such as how many searches are done on the keywords, how many companies are bidding on them, and what the cost is for the top bid position.   This allows you to easily focus on the least competitive keywords.

Permutation
If you want to bid on the keywords that no one else has even thought of, the tool for that job is permutation.  Permutation means assembling words together in various combinations form different sets of words.  Using the “Top 5 Flicks” example, our permutation may look like the three lists below:

List 1                List 2                   List 3  
movie              starring              keanu reeves
dvd                  featuring            russell crowe
flick                    with                   harrison ford

These three small lists can be combined into 27 (3x3x3) different keywords such as:
* movie featuring harrison ford
* dvd with russell crowe
* flick starring keanu reaves
* Etc.

Add just one more three-item list like genres (e.g. action, comedy, drama) and you’re talking about 81 long-tail phrases (e.g. “comedy flick with harrison ford”).  Adding more items to each list can grow the list to massive proportions very rapidly.

The key here is to save the energy of researching what people are bidding on, searching on, or putting on their website and just pump out the keywords programmatically.  Using this method you’re bound to generate a lot of phrases that nobody every searches on, but you’ll also catch a lot of those very low-volume searches that are missed with the previous methods–or even those that haven’t even been searched on yet.  

Unless you have unlimited time and patience, you’ll need a tool to pull this off.  The leader in the field is Boxer Software’s “The Permutator,” an installed software that cost about $50.

Web Analytics
If permutation is like casting a very wide net in order to scoop up all the stragglers, using your web analytics data is more like using a fishing pole with the perfect bait to catch exactly the right keywords.  Any respectable web analytics application has some form of keyword report that will show you what keywords visitors searched on in order to reach your site.  That is your prime list. 

Some keyword reports are more sophisticated than others.  The keyword report in Lyris HQ allows you to segment visitors and the keywords they searched on using a wide range of criteria, allowing you to focus on the highest value keywords. 

You can even take it a step further and capture the data from a search form on your own website.  This way you not only know what people searched on to reach your site, but what they are searching for after they reach your site.  Now that is targeted!

Summary
Implement all five of these techniques and you won’t miss any high-value long-tail keywords.  And you may actually find that you have no more use for the big-head keywords at all.

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Dane Christensen is the Search Engine Marketing Manager at Lyris, Inc. where he uses the company’s integrated online marketing suite to manage a six digit monthly marketing budget over seven different search engines.  He has been involved in the Internet industry as a trainer, web developer, webmaster, online marketer, web analytics specialist, product manager, and entrepreneur since 1994.

Article 2 of 3: Drive Best-in-Class Results by Integrating Your Pay Per Click (PPC) with Other Online Marketing Channels

By Mary Huffman, Executive Vice President, Ionic Media

In the first article in this series, we reviewed the workhorses of online advertising:
* Pay-Per-Click search marketing (PPC)
* Search engine optimization (SEO)
* Display advertising (e.g., banners)
* Email (to house list)

Each marketing channel has a sweet spot for the type of product or situation in which it performs best.  The same is true for the six marketing channels we are exploring in this article:
* Mobile 
* Online PR
* Blogging
* Viral /social media
* Email (to rented list)
* Affiliate marketing

In this article, we will explore relatively new media options along with tested media vehicles like email to rented lists and affiliate marketing.  At this time, the new marketing choices are riskier than the ones we reviewed last time, but there are some stand-out results that cannot be ignored (especially among the adventurers out there).

First, let’s review how the six marketing vehicles we are focusing on perform on the “Branding” vs Direct Response” two-by-two matrix.

The six marketing vehicles we are reviewing in this paper are spread out across the branding vs direct response spectrum.  Now let’s review the summary and then we can dig into the detail on each of these more newly-minted marketing vehicles.

Now let’s look at each of these marketing vehicles in more detail.

Mobile Marketing:
The mobile marketing umbrella includes a number of different marketing vehicles.  Let’s look at each one individually.

Banner/Text Ads On Phones:
* Using a mobile ad network, marketers can place display or text ads on websites viewed with phones or on content sent to mobile phones (like daily weather updates)
* Allows you to reach a young, tech savvy audience
* Also allows you to reach older audiences, though at lower volume
* High response rates currently (likely because the technology is newer)
* As mobile coupon technology improves, this will be a great way to push coupons to users who are in-store and more likely to purchase

SMS Messaging Campaigns:
* Using a mobile service provider who furnishes a short code, you can entice people to “Text sweepstakes to 22456 for a chance to win a new car.”  It is the beginning of a mobile or email communication that must be managed carefully
* Most mobile service providers have a relatively high monthly minimum cost so it is not easy to test these types of campaigns unless you go through an agency (like Ionic Media)
* While the largest population using messaging is younger, don’t count out the 30-54 year olds, as they are the fastest growing segment for mobile messaging

Mobile Search:
* Using existing search engine ad interfaces as well as those from new companies, a marketer can choose to display a paid listing within the results when mobile users make a search
* Costs little but often delivers few leads

Mobile Applications:
* This can involve either developing a custom application, or sponsoring an existing application
* The trick is aligning the brand with an application that addresses what users care about and want to do while mobile

Mobile Website:
* Note that for many of these campaigns, you need a mobile website
* Some smartphones (e.g., iPhone, G1, Blackberry Storm) can render “regular” websites pretty well
* But most phones require a scaled-down mobile site

Online PR:
* Online PR is an easy and effective way to drive more buzz about your company
* Existing press releases can be uploaded to syndication sites that drive the story across online press sites
* Each time you upload a press release, the syndication site charges a fee (up to $200 depending on the site and the package)
* This can be an effective way to drive authority for your site (lots of relatively good inbound links) which helps with organic ranking

Blogging:
* Using easy-to-install blogging software, a marketer can create an on-site or off-site blog where one or more people can chronicle their thoughts and opinions
* A good blog with lots of followers can drive organic ranking and therefore organic traffic
* To ensure good pickup, blog often and reach out to potential readers to become loyal followers
* This marketing vehicle takes a commitment to the activity.  Blogs should be updated at least once a week and better to be updated every other day or even everyday.  That takes a high level of commitment

Viral Marketing:
* Viral marketing is a catchy name for an ill-defined group of marketing tactics.  For example, all of the following would be considered viral marketing:
     * An on-line widget that lets you upload photos to turn your friends into dancing elves a la Chorus Line
     * A video of claymation bunnies frolicking in New York City to advertise the Sony Bravia television
     * An email message you send to a friend with Bob Dylan holding up cue cards that display your message and which    ends with a plug for his latest album
     * A video of preppy white boys doing a rap about throwing a tea party (to advertise Smirnoff)
     * A widget with a man dressed in a chicken suit who performs whatever action you command him to (Burger King’s Subservient Chicken)
     *  These are all wildly popular examples of viral campaigns.  There are 2,356,744 other campaigns that companies tried to make popular but did not, in the end, “go viral.”  Note: That number is approximate and might be off by a lot
     * MarketingSherpa reports that the most experienced viral marketers report that only 50% of viral campaigns break even and only 1 in 80 are home runs
     *  So, the message when you are starting a viral campaign is to be creative, turn to the experts and run 80 campaigns at a time so you can get one home run (that would work, right?).  Actually, just be thoughtful when you are planning your viral campaigns and watch your costs as most do not deliver on the hype

Email to Rented Lists
* Historically this medium has delivered poor performance to marketers
* It can be used effectively to drive awareness and action if you carefully select the list provider of the leads

* When looking for a rented list to email with your message, check for the following:
* How was the list assembled?  Did they scrape websites or did people sign up for a special offer for information one individual at a time?
* Is the list single or double opt-in?  Double opt-in is the gold standard.  If it is opt-in, what do the people think they opted in for (information from a certain vendor, information for a series of vendors in a category or a chance to win a long-past sweepstakes)?
* How old are the names on the list?  If everyone opted-in to the list within the last 30 days, you should be willing to pay more than if the list was built over 5 years ago
* How often do they mail to this list and what are the response/opt-out rates?
* Consider a co-branded email campaign with another, more established brand.  Use that brand’s email list and send a dedicated email that has an implied endorsement from that brand

Affiliate Marketing:
* Affiliate marketing includes the broad reach of affiliate networks such as Commission Junction as well as working closely with a small number of “super affiliates” who carefully drive leads and sales to your business
* Working with affiliate networks such as Commission Junction and ShareASale makes affiliate recruitment easier (as they have hundreds of thousands of members) but you have less control over the quality of the affiliates and the messages they are putting out to your target market in your name
* Creating super-affiliate relationships with a handful of sites is more work but can deliver a better end result in terms of volume and quality of leads/sales
* And the bounty is often a key driver here.  If you are willing to pay more per lead or sale, more affiliates are going to give you more attention and drive more volume

While these six marketing vehicles are not the online marketing staples from the first article in this series, there is a lot to be said for testing these media.  Each medium listed above requires either time or money to make it happen.  For any given company only two are likely to be a strong fit with the target market of that particular product.

In the last in our series on the online marketing landscape, we will be looking at how to intelligently integrate your PPC marketing with other online vehicles for maximum effect.

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Mary Kingsley Huffman is a co-founder and Executive Vice President at Ionic Media, a firm with deep experience driving bottom-line results for clients using search and online marketing. Previously, she was Director of Marketing at Overture Services where she was responsible for the acquisition marketing and communication departments, leading all advertiser acquisition efforts and customer communications. Prior to Overture, Mary was an Engagement Manager in the London office of McKinsey & Company, specializing in marketing solutions. Mary has an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a BA from UCLA.

By Mary Huffman, Executive Vice President, Ionic Media

Article 1 of 3 Series: Drive Best-in-Class Results by Integrating Your Pay Per Click (PPC) with Other Online Marketing Channels

It is a mistake to rely solely on PPC as your go-to  marketing channel to drive the success of your business.  While effective, PPC cannot always deliver great results when your brand is unknown, your product is commoditized or you are in a crowded field, for instance.  Smart marketers understand the online marketing landscape and know which levers to pull given their market position.  This article is the first in a series of three articles which will describe the online marketing landscape and provide some tips on driving revenue with PPC and other effective marketing vehicles.

In the first two articles in the series, we will explore the following marketing channels:
*  Affiliate
*  Blogging
*  Display (e.g., banners)
*  Email (house and rented lists)
*  Mobile
*  Online PR
*  Pay per click (PPC)
*  Search engine optimization (SEO)
*  Viral/social media

Then in the final article, we will describe how to integrate your PPC marketing with other vehicles to drive better results than one vehicle alone would deliver.

Let’s first look at how each of these marketing vehicles compares to the another on driving branding goals (building awareness and interest but not necessarily trial or purchase) and driving direct response (DR) goals such as visits, downloads, sales, etc.

Email (to a house list), PPC, SEO and mobile marketing are generally the most effective DR channels.  They are best at driving traffic and sales in the most controllable way.

Online PR, blogging and viral/social media can do a lot for driving awareness and interest but are less likely to drive measurable increases in sales and revenues.  Make no mistake, though, these more brand-building marketing vehicles have an important job of raising awareness and driving interest.  Awareness and interest are the foundation of success for sales.  Without these elements, you can be left sitting in your office wondering why no one wants to buy your wonderful, ground-breaking product.  Pssst…they don’t know about it.

Display is balanced between DR and branding.  So too are affiliate marketing and email (to a rented list) marketing, although they are generally harder to make as effective as other channels.

Let’s dig in and review the strengths and weaknesses of four of the most-used channels: PPC, SEO, display and email to a house list.  Here is a handy summary chart that you can use as we review each marketing channel in more detail.

Pay-Per-Click Search Marketing (PPC)
*  Can be a laser-focused traffic and sales driver
*  Develop a keyword list that numbers in the tens of thousands (not in the tens or hundreds)
*  Write ad copy in the context of the other ad copy that may appear on the search results page
*  Ensure your landing page is relevant and meets the needs of the user (based on the user’s keyword)
*  Test everything…constantly
*  Best used for: Products/services with some inherent demand.  Your PPC results will be disappointing if no one is   searching for what you offer

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
*  As much art as science
*  The goal with SEO is to raise both the relevance of a webpage to a given keyword as well as increasing its authority. 

This translates to extensive on-site work as well as off-site link building.
*  The ROI for SEO can be in the thousands of percents – it is well worth the effort
*  Best used for: anyone with a website who wants to build traffic levels in a cost-effective way.  Note: it takes several months to begin driving traffic so you need to be in it for the long term (e.g., 12 months at least).

Display (e.g., banners, rich media, video)
*  Banners have a bad reputation for delivering few sales and being priced based on impressions
*  Look again, as banners come in many more shapes and sizes and some of them can now do tricks (e.g., expand on roll-over, peel off a page, allow for in-banner video or in-banner form completion, synchronize so two banners on a page can work in tandem to communicate a message)
*  New tracking techniques allow you to measure the “assists” from banners so you can see how many users viewed a banner several times and then later searched for the product and bought something from your site.  The assist value of banners can be very high and is easily overlooked if you do not set up the tracking correctly
*  While clickthrough rates for traditional banners remain at less than 1%, the new formats and new tracking mean that banners can be a huge activity driver if the creative and call-to-action are compelling
*  The ROI from display advertising can vary.  We have seen instances where banners were MORE effective than a PPC campaign when a product was not yet in high demand and we needed to increase awareness
*  Best used for: products/services with lower awareness or interest, and those offerings that benefit from visual explanations and/or more explanation

Email (House List)
*  Generally delivers the best ROI as recipients are familiar with your product/service and may be previous purchasers
*  Typically inexpensive since the only costs are usually creative development and actually sending the email
*  Best used for: anyone with a house list.  Do not let your house list age and wither without using it to drive additional revenue with re-sell and cross-sell efforts.  If you do not have a house list, begin building one (perhaps by using the other channels described here).  Test continuously to improve performance on metrics like bounce rate, view rate, open rate, clickthrough rate (by link) and conversion rate.

These four marketing channels (PPC, SEO, display and email to house lists) are the workhorses of online advertising.  Consider them (and more importantly, test them) carefully before you eliminate one from your marketing mix.

In the next article in this series, we will review the other online channels (mobile, online PR, blogging, email to rented lists, viral/social media and affiliate marketing).  The final article in the series will provide tips for how to integrate these various marketing vehicles effectively with PPC.  Our goal is to make the integrated marketing plan deliver more than the sum of the parts.

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Mary Kingsley Huffman is a co-founder and Executive Vice President at Ionic Media, a firm with deep experience driving bottom-line results for clients using search and online marketing. Previously, she was Director of Marketing at Overture Services where she was responsible for the acquisition marketing and communication departments, leading all advertiser acquisition efforts and customer communications. Prior to Overture, Mary was an Engagement Manager in the London office of McKinsey & Company, specializing in marketing solutions. Mary has an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a BA from UCLA.