PPC Articles by SEO Speedwagon

June 13, 2008

Yahoo to Become Adsense Clearinghouse?

Sean saw it coming yesterday, and little more than a Month ago I thought it a Yang Threat to balance the Microsoft yin of bluster.

Yet here we have it, and have you ever read anything that made Yahoo suddenly seem more insignificant?:

If the Google partnership passes what's likely to be a rigorous review by U.S. antitrust regulators and lawmakers, Yahoo! intends to use its rival's superior search technology to display ads on its own Web site as well as those of its partners' in the United States and Canada.

Let us all give a collective search way of goodbye to the once great king.

Yahoo to Become Adsense Clearinghouse?
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May 21, 2008

The Ineluctable Organic Moment Gets a Big, Big Update

This is from much earlier in this fleeting year, admittedly, but with most focusing on the average words per search query increase angle of the story, I wanted to make sure and dig out a fine morsel from the very mouth of Google that may have been lost had I not:

14% of Google clicks come from paid search and 86% of clicks are organic.

True in court it may only qualify as hearsay, having come from the Google mouth of Avinash Kaushik to the ear of beu blog before finally being transcribed into print; yet, as you may remember from my earlier quest for a documented source behind that most mythical of numbers in all of SEM, the percentage of overall searchers clicking on an organic, rather than paid, search result, hearsay here surely now trumps unattributed there.

And the alleged statement is said to have come from Google's Analytics Evangelist, folks, so I think we are getting closer...

The Ineluctable Organic Moment Gets a Big, Big Update
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April 01, 2008

Google Serves Ads Based on Previous Queries

In 2005 (as reported by Search Engine Journal), Google applied for a patent called "Results based personalization of advertisements in a search engine." Part of the patent abstract reads as follows:

The search results are personalized based on a user profile of the user providing the query. The user profile describes interests of the user, and can be derived from a variety of sources, including prior search queries, prior search results, expressed interests, demographic, geographic, psychographic, and activity information.

Until now, I hadn't seen any instances of Adwords being served based on prior queries in the same session. (This doesn't mean it hasn't happened -- only that I haven't seen it.) But recently I've begun to notice it when signed in to my Google account. Each time I've noticed it (it's been hard to reproduce) it typically occurs after several searches for one particular topic, followed by a sudden shift to a query for another topic. For example, here is one recent search pattern:

[laptops]
[laptop repair]
[laptop parts]
[trucks]

Here is the resulting SERP for the [trucks] query. I've compressed the page so you can see both organic and paid results:

Here is the query set for the second example:

[gloves]
[work gloves]
[gardening gloves]
[jersey gloves]
[heavy duty gloves]
[wheelbarrows]

And here are the organic/paid results for [wheelbarrow]:

The second example is admittedly less convincing, because it's plausible that glove retailers could purchase bids for "wheelbarrow" terms. But I was unable to see any "glove" ads in subsequent searches for "wheelbarrow" terms.

This is interesting because query results like this allow the ad to really stick out contextually and give the advertiser the whole stage, so to speak, for a certain term. And even though the user has changed gears and is searching for something new, the "old" vein of queries is certainly still in his or her mind. I would love any feedback about how widespread these results are, CTR data for "residual" query ads, etc.

Google Serves Ads Based on Previous Queries
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March 27, 2008

What Happens When Your Paid Search Landing Page Gets “Site Linked”?

Recently, I was trying to decode some strange results that were showing up in my analytical reports. It appeared as though natural search results were showing up in my paid traffic reports. We racked our brains trying to figure it out, at first thinking that we had some tracking installed improperly or something along those lines. When that didn’t pan out we looked a little deeper to the actual key phrases that were showing up. On a hunch I typed one into a search box and what popped up at the top of the natural results other than the new and improved Google natural results listing with our landing page listed among the lucky 8 site links.

At first I was elated by the thrill of the hunt that you experience after you ‘bag your prey’. That soon wore off as we tried to figure out whether this was a positive or negative development. To be honest we haven’t quite come to a 100% decision yet but so far we think of it as a positive development. The conversion rates are good so we are viewing it as another way to more generic searches to our ‘action’ page faster.

Like I said the jury is still out on this one in our minds, but I will keep tracking and report back if we figure out some other clever ways to maximize this shortcut.

What Happens When Your Paid Search Landing Page Gets “Site Linked”?
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February 11, 2008

Reason # 1,000,000 That Google Adwords Isn't Going Anywhere

If you've ever wondered how long the Paid Search "Bubble" will last, I think you'd better start asking about how long until traditional advertising is eclipsed. I found a video from Google regarding Android, their new open-source cell phone software, and frankly it was an eye-opener. I'm not going to say this is an IPhone killer or anything flashy like that. Rather, I think we're just beginning to realize how pervasive and persuasive online advertising will be.

Imagine having a free phone that has IPhone like flashiness and all of the social networking (Facebook), web searching (Google), business application programs (Google Docs), email (Gmail), and even direction finding (Google Maps) programs already built in or a least easily available. All along all of us web types thought that these programs were just for us, but it appears that we are the tip of the iceberg. I would almost say that we're the beta testers for the non-techies but that would be going too far off the reservation.

Suffice to say that online advertising is not only not going anywhere, but soon people will see our ads and not even know that they're online. Knowing how to get the word out and manage your 'online' reputation will soon be a necessity as it will permeate more and more of our way of life.

I killed my cell phone over the weekend and had forgotten how it felt to not have one. I remember when I got married 10 years ago, I didn't even have a cell phone. It felt weird going to the gas station this weekend and not being able to get in touch with my wife to see if she needed anything while I was out. Imagine how I will feel in 10 years when my cell phone is DOA and I feel lost because it didn't load the latest and greatest local ads just for me when I get off of the freeway.

Not to be too sci-fi, but have you seen the move Minority Report? The deeper I get into the online advertising arena, the more I see the future of advertising being like it was in that movie. Although instead of retinal scans, your phone will be the device that triggers these tailored ads.

Wild and out there maybe, but the truth is always stranger than fiction. Oh and by the way.....I'll be the weirdo who's camping out for the Android phone in my town. I'd be foolish to bite the hand that feeds me. See you in line!

Reason # 1,000,000 That Google Adwords Isn't Going Anywhere
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January 16, 2008

Less Sponsored Ads = More PPC Revenue? Que Pasa, Google?

One of my favorite clients of all time, with us now going on 8 years and powered mightily by the rare, dual client-side SEO strengths of search understanding and inter-departmental implementation influence, recently noticed the same thing Mark Jackson saw in Google's most recent round of Universal Search peekaboo:

Notice the incredibly disappearing PPC Ads? My immediate explication was that surely this must be to prove, in a small test sample, that someone's bad idea from above would be a disaster, indeed.

Mark, though, has made me think again:

Google may succeed in encouraging companies to bid more ferociously for the top two positions. If universal search leads to more searches because it's fun, this could be a win for Google (higher revenues) and users (better experience).

Sometimes it's hard for us to imagine that there is a finite set of clicks on any given day. The business model in a closed set like this, then, must discover what to do to increase the value of the average click within the set on a given day. Mark's point about less ads likelier driving up value per is on target, I believe, but thanks to him getting me to think again I think the test layout in question has less to do about increasing searches "because it's fun" and much ado about that map, an image mind you, kissing the PPC ads at the right corner of the screen and making your eye immediately jump there to focus.

Take a look yourself and see where your eye is drawn, and then check out what eye tracking heat maps are telling us about how pictures affect focus on a search page.

Less Sponsored Ads = More PPC Revenue? Que Pasa, Google?
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October 23, 2007

Analyzing A PPC Campaign Without Analytics

In my mind’s eye I have an idealistic view of each paid search account that I manage. Of course it includes my clients achieving stratospheric ROI, but at heart I am a numbers guy. I know that in order to get the best possible results it requires the best possible data. However I do live with both of my feet on the ground and I realize that not all clients possess the ability to successfully deploy/integrate analytical tracking into their ‘web systems’ for a plethora of reasons.

The idealist in me wishes this were not so, while the realist tells me to move on. In that vein, and using the data that is readily available to all PPC campaigns there is still a lot of analysis that can be done to help guide us in making decisions. The hardest part is deciding which piece of the data that we do have should be ‘worth’ more than the others. In light of that, I try to visually represent things as much as possible so that they can stand or fall on their own merits and go from there.

To borrow a phrase from someone much wiser than me, I have found that where there is a will there is a way. Part of that way for me is described below in a section of a case study for a client that is not able to take advantage of analytics. Please keep in mind that this is not a complete analysis but rather highlighting how to find a way to gather useful data out the information that we do have.

Some Basic Facts:
•Who: A large client that has excellent brand awareness and a sizable spend
•What: Specific areas of interest are in brand vs. non-brand and key phrase length
•Where: Continental U.S.
•When: 3rd Quarter 2007
•How: Analyze the ‘big five’ data points (Impressions, Clicks, Click-Thru-Rate, Average Cost-Per-Click, Cost).
•Statistical Constraints: To be included in our data set each phrase must have had at least 1,000 Impressions and a Click-Thru-Rate of at least 5%.

Branded Terms

When I look at branded phrases the first thing that sticks out to me is the obvious dominance of the 4 word key phrase. In this instance the length of the brand name has a lot to do with this, also but notice that 1, 2, and 6 have roughly the same footprint. How do we make a judgment between 1, 2, & 6? Well, taking a more holistic view will aid us in this.

From the pie chart we can see that the 6 word key phrases rate far better than 1 or 2 word key phrase’s because of the negative impact of the higher cost associated with them.

Non-Branded Terms

When I look at the non-branded phrases I am first struck by fact that only key phrases with 2 and 3 terms qualified for inclusion in our data sample. The biggest difference, however slight, is in the impressions where 2 wins over 3.

The next fact that sticks out is how close the two phrases are together in overall performance. They may have individual nuances that can be tweaked but neither phrase should be overlooked in its importance to the success of the non-branded phrases.

Overall
The final piece that I will examine is comparing the branded phrases directly to the non-branded phrases. I find it important to introduce another measurement to the ‘big five’, number of keyword phrases, at this point to add weight to the question of reach.

The most striking thing besides the dominance of the branded keywords, is in looking at the enormity of the Average Cost-Per-Click for non-branded terms.

Conclusion
As a campaign manager one of my core duties is to make sure that I have collected as much important information as possible before we start to make decisions that guide the direction of the campaign. Although I would prefer a campaign with fully integrated analytics that is not always possible. In that case it is vitally important to make the best analysis that we can with the data that we do have.

Analyzing A PPC Campaign Without Analytics
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September 17, 2007

PPC vs. Yellow Pages vs. Direct Mail CPA

Via Chris Zaharias via MediaPost via Piper Jaffray, we get this stark contrast:

Search advertising has proven to be fertile ground for customer acquisition. A recent study by Piper Jaffray & Co. entitled, “The New eCommerce Decade: The Age of Micro Targeting,” indicated that the average CPA for search was $8.50, considerably lower than the CPA for the Yellow Pages ($20), online display ads ($50) and direct mail ($70).

Could you imagine how low the Organic CPA would have been in comparison, had they found a way to incorporate that into the study?

PPC vs. Yellow Pages vs. Direct Mail CPA
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August 20, 2007

New SEM Industry Term Coined: Disposable Clicks

We sure did have fun with this Quote of the Month while taking The Wagon for a spin this morning. From the magazine that takes itself so seriously it demands all caps, ADWEEK, we are treated to this breathless lede:

New research by Microsoft suggests a big chunk of search ad spending is wasted because advertisers pay top dollar for high ad placements clicked by consumers who are en route to their sites anyway. Listings tied to such "branded" keywords, typically a company's name or products, eat up about half of search budgets, Atlas estimates.

Wasted, indeed. Heard while The Wagon pulled up to fill itself up with coffee:

It's like saying Applebee's doesn't need specific signage or identifiable markings on its building to show out-of-towners where it is, because people are going to go there for dinner anyway. That is exactly how stupid this is.

Isn't this also an argument against any brand advertising of any kind?

New SEM Industry Term Coined: Disposable Clicks
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August 16, 2007

IAB, DMA, and SEO: WTF?

I just noticed this posted by Barry Schwartz over at SEL: The UK flavors of the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB UK) and the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) have joined forces "to establish industry-wide search standards", as they put it in their release on the IAB's UK web site.

Every few years I see this stuff and I try -- really, I do try -- not to by cynical. But trying to qualify and quantify best practices is like sprinting like hell to get to the end of a Mobius strip. Historically, any efforts to define acceptable and unacceptable practices in SEO have been either so rigidly prescriptive as to except significant portions of successful (and lauded) SEO companies, or they've been so toothlessly vague as to allow access to anyone who can forge a backstage pass.

To which of these camps does the IAB/DMA "charter" belong? Judge for yourself: Following (in bold) are the minimum corporate qualifications found in the IAB's charter document (MS Word, 238K), with a little commentary (mine) in italic.

• They must have at least two employees dedicated to search marketing
  Many -- many -- of the industry's best SEOs are one-(wo)man shops.
  
• They must have search engine accreditation (from Google or Microsoft with more to follow) and have received official search engine optimisation (SEO) training as relevant
  That's actually not a bad benchmark. For PPC. How about the other 80% of clicks?
  
• The company must have been trading for 6 months
  I'm not exactly sure what "trading" means, but I think it's a UKism for "having been in business." I certainly concede that most good SEOs have been in business for more than 6 months. But most of the lousy ones have been too.
  
• The company must be a member of either IAB UK, IAB Europe, DMA or Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organisation (SEMPO) or the Association of Business to Business Agencies (ABBA).
  Now we're getting somewhere. Explore the links to the membership pricing levels of the IAB UK, IAB Europe (PDF), DMA, and SEMPO.

I have nothing personally against any of these organizations, but answer this question honestly: With mass adoption of this charter by SEO companies, who benefits more -- these four membership organizations, or companies in search of a reputable SEO firm?

And in case you're still reading, thanks. Here's your reward, pulled from the original charter Word document, and delivered in the world's most accepted currency -- laughter:

Monitoring compliance
The charter will be self-policed by the SEM industry.

IAB, DMA, and SEO: WTF?
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June 28, 2007

Current Favorite Blogs on PPC

Today's entry is short and sweet: What blogs do I currently keep up on for PPC news and tips. I thought I would share these links as I've found that PPC blogs are a bit hard to come by. I guess people are afraid of spilling the beans on the secret sauce or something. Anyway, I don't believe that and to prove it here are my current favorites for in-depth PPC news and goodies (in no particular order mind you).

eWhisper

PPC Hero

SEOptimise

I know the list is short but there really aren't very many to choose from that I've found. If you know of another and would like to throw it up in the comments be my guest as I'm always looking for new resources and ideas.

Best!

Current Favorite Blogs on PPC
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June 21, 2007

Keeping Your PPC Campaign Regional & Relevant

In the past few years there has been a lot of noise about local targeting, how important it is, and how each individual engine is going to offer the best solution since the invention of the internet. It has been particularly interesting to see all of this noise now come into 'focus' as several similar yet distinct songs.

I for one have been happily awaiting the arrival of local targeting for everyone agrees that it can be particularly effective in getting the word out about the various good and services that we all offer. In the PPC realm though I have noticed several distinct issues that eventually formed my basis for creating and managing regionally targeted campaigns and I'd like to highlight them for you.

How Do People Search?
As with anything else in the SEO/PPC world people search by typing in keywords and so any good campaign must begin with this. With local/regional campaigns though we need to add special importance to keywords that contain any of the official or even unofficial 'local' names for the particular area that we are targeting. I find it particularly useful to separate these keywords from the general one's before going on to the next step.

How Do I Organize?
I like to setup two separate campaigns, one for the general terms, and one for the terms that contain the local names attached. For the general campaigns I have begun using the ISP targeting feature to more narrowly capture any searchers in the target area who happen to be using generic terms. For the other campaign I do not turn on the ISP targeting feature so that we can reach even those who happen to be out of the target area, but are still searching for our item within that specific area.

In theory this sounds simple enough but to make it actually work while following all the rules, I've encountered a few tips that help guide me in this:

1) Make sure there are NO duplicate keywords in either list. The engines do not accept more than one ad for fear that someone with deep pockets would buy up all of the top spots.

2) Make sure to group keywords tightly by location. This will assist in your evaluation of results and, as stated in #4, help you with discerning your target audiences search preferences.

3) Create ads that make good use of the regions names. (I.e. The Best Hot Dogs In South Florida). Test out the different names, like South Florida, Ft. Myers, The Gulf Coast, etc. These could all be ways that people search and research has proven that people respond to seeing their area name in the ads.

4) Pay particular attention to the other, more subtle details of the campaigns like, the click patterns throughout the day and which engines people use in different parts of the area that you are targeting. You will soon be able to compile some data about the search habits of people in your area because of the keywords that you have grouped together.

With these tips in mind I've been able to navigate the local search waters with much more ease and have found the results to be typically better than the general 'shotgun' approach. Good luck with your local search campaigns!

Keeping Your PPC Campaign Regional & Relevant
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May 25, 2007

PPC Management - Analyzing the Results

Analysis is a many faceted thing. Depending on how you choose to look at what you’re analyzing it gives off different impressions. The closest thing that I can think of for an analogy is a trying to buy a diamond. Depending on how you look at a diamond it can give off a totally different reflection. In fact, by not examining all aspects of a diamond you could be led completely astray in determining if it is valuable to you or not.

In my mind I’m immediately reminded of the process that I went through in purchasing the engagement ring for my wife. That turned out to be an education that took a lot of work, but in the end I ended up with just what I was looking for. I remember the whole thing started with me learning about the “4 C’s” of diamond shopping. All of you men who have ever bought a diamond for a lady can now recite them with me: Cut, Color, Clarity, & Carat. Although they are all important, I ultimately had to decide how my wants in each category matched up with my intended result and ultimately, budget.

In much the same way with PPC campaign management what I need to use to analyze my campaign depends on what I’m looking for, what’s important to me, and last but definitely not least, how much I am able/willing to spend. In the spirit of the 4 C’s let’s look at each of them.

1) Cut is the equivalent of how is my campaign designed? For CTR? For Impressions? For click quantities? These can all be measured fairly easily and should be monitored on at least a weekly basis. Contrasting current data with historical data should give you a good set of ‘pulse checker’ indices that can give you a heads up to any potential trouble. If the cut is proper, your stone/campaign will have the best foundation for stability and the ability to reach it’s greatest value potential.

2) Color relates to the question; What is my campaign designed to do? Drive traffic? Drive sign-ups? Drive purchases? This is a level deeper than ‘Cut’ and thus entails actual tracking of specific actions that are desired of the customer. Tools like Google Analytics can be extremely helpful in determining if specific desired actions are happening, and help provide us clues as to why or why not our desired actions are happening. Knowing the Color of the campaign will allow us to keep focused on what is important and what is not. In other words if we know the stone/campaign is blue, then we can make sure that those things that enhance its beauty are placed around it.

3) Clarity causes me to ask the question, Is it easy to see results? Do my measurement parameters match my customers buying cycle? Of all the of the 4 C’s in PPC Management this is perhaps the most overlooked key to proper analysis of the results. Every PPC manager & client should be acutely aware of this fundamental issue. It is easy to miss perhaps because it is so glaringly simple. But knowing this can allow for tracking cookies to be set for the appropriate period of time and allow for analytical calculations to take this into account. Not knowing this can lead to comparing conversions that should belong to last month, in the current month. I can’t overstate the importance of this, if the results aren’t clear, everything you do to optimize your campaign is like swinging at a Piñata with a blindfold on.

4) Carat is the equivalent of; Is my campaign performing as well as it could be? How big is my bang for my buck? I find sometimes that bigger is not always better. Sure, the more money we have to spend the more people we can reach etc., but the key aspect to remember is ‘qualified’. If just driving traffic with no regard to having qualified visitors is your goal, that would be akin to having a 7 carat diamond that is so cloudy and flawed that it is virtually worthless, but everyone WILL notice it. If we are truly honest, we would all say that we want to have the biggest Carat, but after we see what it costs and what our budget is we usually try to get best bang for our buck.

As with many things in life evaluating a diamond or a PPC campaign is not as easy just one or two of the 4 C’s. Inevitably we strive to get the best overall value that we can by incorporating all of the 4 C’s together and balancing them against our budget. In the end though diamonds are not a PPC campaign. For diamonds 3 out of the 4 C’s are determined by nature. For PPC the 4 C’s are all products of what is put into the campaign. Determining the balance of input into each category should match your goals and desires for the campaign. If that is followed, you will ultimately be poised for the greatest success in your campaigns.

PPC Management - Analyzing the Results
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May 08, 2007

PPC Demographics…. Mystified

I quite frequently run across strange ‘anomalies’ where a particular client will do well at one search engine and poorly at another. The obvious question is why? The obvious answer is …………well, there is no obvious answer but let me share the thought process with you.

It goes something like this……

Me: Why in world is ABC doing better at Google than they are at Yahoo?

Myself: Maybe it’s the different technical aspects to the PPC campaigns…..

Me: Hmmmm, that’s a good idea but I don’t think that’s it. I mean they both have a title, they both allow 70 characters, and they both try to rank based on quality issues.

Myself: Ok, so your saying technically there is no difference?

Me: Well…….there is a difference, just not a vast chasm.

Myself: So we can use the same campaign at both places?

Me: Not exactly, its okay to start with similar ones. They have to be fed to the engines in separate ways, but other than that……

Myself: So how does this help me with the why?

Me: I’m just trying to think the process through to identify or eliminate things.

Myself: Ah, okay. So what’s the next ‘step in the process’

Me: Well, the next step is the ‘creative’ side of things, you know, what the ad’s actually say.

Myself: Hmmmmmm that sounds logical. You’re saying that the ‘audience’ could be different at Yahoo than it is at Google?

Me: Exactly! Not only that, but the market share could differ from industry to industry based on demographic as well.

Myself: Wow! Why do you think that?

Me: Just observations at this point. I mean there really isn’t hard data to support this that I’ve run across. The closest I’ve come are market share reports for keywords.

Myself: That sounds like a start. What have you ‘noticed’ about the different engines?

Me: Well, now remember this is only speculative but……….Google seems to have more of the ‘business crowd’. The more high dollar value the item/search, the more success they seem to have at Google. Yahoo seems to be more of the non-business crowd with lower dollar value search items. Now I have seen high ticket items do well on Yahoo, but they tend be community based like, the racing community, or the hiking community, or the camping community. {DISCLAIMER: THESE ARE PURELY FICTIONAL COMMUNITIES}

Myself: Ahhhh, so by community you mean a group of people who share the same interests?

Me: Exactly. I would go further and say that they like to only go to one place to do things online. I.e. they probably use Yahoo mail, search the web through Yahoo, and connect with others through Yahoo.

Myself: That’s a pretty interesting theory. Seems to make sense though. You’ve failed to mention MSN though.

Me: Who? Oh yeah, MSN. Well, as of press time they are trying to make a splash by purchasing Yahoo but that would add how much market share to Yahoo’s 20-30%? About 5% by my [unscientific] estimate. MSN Paid Search seems to well if you’re targeting people who never change the browser after they buy it from Best Buy, Fry’s, and (Insert Big Box Store Name Here).

Myself: Isn’t that kind of harsh?

Me: Not really, when people ask me about what I do, most of them still aren’t aware that there are actually paid ad’s in search results.

Myself: Seriously!?!?!

Me: Yeah, it’s true, but that discussion is for another day – suffice to say that it’s important to think outside the ‘bubble’ of SEO when considering our audience and what our clients are trying to get the word out on.

That last sentence is important enough to repeat: It’s important to think outside the ‘bubble’ of SEO when considering our audience and what our clients are trying to get the word out on. In the same way that TV runs the Captain Crunch commercials on Saturday morning and not during the football game, it’s vitally important to be cognizant of our audience and where they are ‘at’ on the Internet.

PPC Demographics…. Mystified
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March 15, 2007

The Ineluctable Organic Moment Goes Primetime

It's one of the most mythical numbers in all of SEM, rarely published, seldom spoken; yet most industry insiders nod and agree, even if furtively, that the organic search share of total search clicks, meaning the percentage of overall searchers clicking on an organic, rather than paid, search result, is somewhere in the 70% - 85% region.

I was quite stunned, then, when by happenstance I came across this line in Macworld, of all places:

Site owners are eager to get their hands on the 75 percent of free Google traffic that is not affected by AdSense and AdWords, Google’s pay-per-click programs.

Still within that magical, mythical margin. Still unattributed. Damn nice to see as a given in a non-industry mag.

The Ineluctable Organic Moment Goes Primetime
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February 23, 2007

Thoughts On Current Search Behavior Study

One of my favorite classes in college was Consumer Behavior so I guess that explains my fascination with search behavior. I thought I’d comment on a recent search behavior study conducted by De Vos & Jansen Market Research.

De Vos & Jansen compared the search behavior of two groups of people: Buyers and Information Seekers. From the two groups of 25, their study concludes that the viewing habits of buyers and info seekers are different.

No shock there.

However, one interesting thing about the study is their conclusion that those searchers with the intent to buy viewed more search results and focused more on familiar brand names. More interesting is that while 98% of searchers reviewed natural search results, only 31% of those in the study viewed the sponsored (paid search) listings.

That 31% is probably a generous number, but with a sample size of just 50, I wasn’t surprised that much by it. Other search behavior studies have put this number in the 10-20% range.

The search behavior takeaway here is not rocket science.

If all your Search Engine Marketing eggs (dollars) are in the Paid Search basket (Adwords/YSM), you are missing out on a large percentage of your overall target audience.

Can your business afford to do that?

Thoughts On Current Search Behavior Study
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February 15, 2007

PPC Management Strategy - Part 2

Part 2: The Initial Campaign Phase

Much like a wedding ceremony, a lot of preparation has gone into the Conception & Setup of a PPC campaign. The research has been done. The guest list errr keyword list has been whittled down to VIPs’s, and the budget has been set for the banquet to follow the ceremony that gets the ball rolling. Furthermore as most if not all bride’s will tell you the ceremony actually passes in a whirlwind of activity, and before they know it it all has passed and the next stage of 'and they lived happily ever after' is just beginning.

Well, as we know the happily ever after only comes with hard work, perseverance and the willingness to try things out and accept mistakes. The is also the second step in the PPC Setup phase that I like to refer to as 'Getting Traction'.

Getting Traction
Getting Traction simply means that we've stepped on the gas and gotten this campaign up and running. Now let's play around a bit and find out where our limits are. We don't want to put too much money into the pot at this point because we're not sure at what point we stop spinning the wheels and actually accelerate. We also only now are gathering real-time data on what each keyword is going to cost us let alone which one's actually get traffic. It is important to remember that this aspect can be very volatile. It is important to have set a budget up front, before the campaign is live. Other than that I find it important to set few restrictions, such as time and date targeting, on the campaign until you can definitively tell when your words are being searched on.

Establishing a Baseline
They say that ignorance is bliss and I imagine that applies to marriage as well, but I also know that money is one of the biggest issues that causes problems in marriages as well. Not knowing where or why your money going where it's going will cause stress in any situation, and with PPC's propensity to go through money like water it is definitely no exception. To lay the groundwork for monitoring and controlling your monetary investment it is vitally important to start keeping track of results. No matter what the specific goals of the campaign may be I always track the 'big five' (Impressions, Clicks, Click-Thur-rate, Cost, and Cost-per-click). These five can act as a good indicator of what is happening with your account and point you in the right direction as you search for answers to anomalies in your ongoing campaign. The only one of the big five that I've seen any kind of standard for is the Click-thru-rate. With as many potential variables as PPC entails it is hard to have a hard and fast standard, but I typically use 5% as rule of thumb. Below 5% I start to search for what is dragging the CTR down. Above it I try to find what is making it work and how can I maximize this. Standards are nice but they will be useless unless you know where you started, where you've been, where you are, and try to have an idea of where you're going. To sum it up, track, compile, and analyze your numbers - they are the indices of health or sickness with your PPC campaign.

Give it Some Time
One day doesn't make a trend. Things tend to fluctuate wildly in the first days and weeks of PPC campaign. The engines are deciding what they think of your ad's, key-phrases, and landing pages. Your competitors are now reacting to the new kid on the block, and your customers are now seeing a new player in the market. It is vitally important to start off with a budget maximum in place to help alleviate any fears of rampant unchecked spending and to see if there actually is a ceiling on demand. Campaigns that will in time appear to never budge from the norm will fluctuate wildly in the beginning. This is not something to be alarmed about, but rather to be tracked as mentioned in the prior paragraph. I generally like to allow at least 1 month to accumulate before I start making optimization observations. This is not to say the account shouldn't be monitored, just that we need time and data to before we make any subtle changes to the campaign.

Overall, If I had to sum up the initial campaign phase I would say: Set a budget before you start spending, don't worry about fluctuations too much, don't over-react on anything just yet, and if it's not vital to the survival of the campaign.....leave it alone for a little bit and see what happens. If patience describes part 1, then nerves of steel would probably best describe this part.

Stay tuned for part 3: Analysis of results - in which I'll talk about what to analyze, how to analyze it, and what changes can we make based on the analysis.

PPC Management Strategy - Part 2
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January 05, 2007

PPC Management Strategy

Much like anything else effective PPC management is the result of comprehensive research, measured and structured setup, and diligent follow-up and monitoring. Often times the success or failure of a campaign depends on how these areas are defined and implemented. I want to lay out a basic strategy for your best chance at PPC success and to foster constructive dialogue between you and your PPC manager (or vice versa I suppose).

Part 1 - Conception & Setup
The most common first words I hear when launching a new campaign are some form of “we want to start our PPC bids today�?. Laying “black hat�? techniques aside, PPC offers the quickest way to get your name seen on the Internet these days. The distinct advantage of speed can easily be turned into the campaign’s biggest disadvantage when proper time and effort in the conception and setup phase are ‘thrown under the bus’.

I try to divide the initial conception and setup into 4 distinct phases:

1) Initial interview
Very crucial meetings in which timetables are flushed out, methodology is discussed, and most importantly expectations and initial goals are agreed upon. I try to use this meeting to find out about the details of any past PPC campaigns, what they liked, and what they didn’t. I also try to talk a lot about who their typical ‘sale’ or ‘lead’ is and how they measure success. I try to instill the idea that I am trying to now 'get in the head' of their target audience and I’ll need all of the seemingly irrelevant details that they can think of as to who buys, how they buy, and what they buy. Things like ‘sales cycle’ etc. can be very important in how ad success is measured and how a campaign is laid out.

2) Keyword research
Perhaps the most grueling part of the initial process is the keyword research. Imagine long lists of keyphrase variations that you either never thought possible or can’t believe that someone actually searches for. The task, although laborious at times, is crucial to seeing how people actually search in your field of interest. I have never failed to be surprised at how people actually search. I generally like my clients to go through the majority of the lists to make sure I am not missing out of some potentially good keyphrases. My mantra here is “nobody knows the business better than the client�?.

3) Ad writing
I often chuckle when a new upgrade comes to Google Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing. Most of the time the push towards more quality ads has little impact on how we do things except to increase our competition with the flood of people who are now forced to ‘do it the correct way’. There are many different techniques for writing and testing ads, but the bottom line for every ad ought to be that it is 1) about what you are trying to sell, 2) it includes the keyword if at all possible, and 3) that it is appropriate for the landing page that it is pointing to.

4) Campaign build out
Perhaps the least understood part of the initial process is the campaign build out phase. The best axiom I can think of to describe the rationale here is this: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure�?. It is important to set things up so that monitoring and the eventual tweaks and changes can be seen and made as easily as possible. Last but not least, it is absolutely vital to make sure that common themes etc. are tied together to add a sort of ‘strength of structure’ to the individual ad groups/categories, and thus the entire campaign.

Overall the conception and setup phase is vitally important because it sets the tone, creates the expectations, and adds the structure that will be necessary for the PPC campaign to be successful.

In my next installment I will address the Initial Campaign Phase and its attributes. Until then…

PPC Management Strategy
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December 08, 2006

Are You In Need Of A Little Holiday Cheer?

(More PPC result craziness)

This time of year can be very busy and stressful, and often I have to remind myself that now is the time for Holiday Cheer. The only problem is how to get it in short notice.

Fortunately I have Google, Yahoo, and MSN to help me find it. I decided to check the Pay Per Click results and here is what I got…

I’m glad to know that I can find it at places as reputable as Ebay, Amazon, & Target to name a few. I'm also glad I'm not up against Ebay, Amazon, or Target.....if they can dominate this type of phrase I hate to see what the competition is like for 'regular' words.

Note to self: check PPC engines “relevancy�? guidelines to see if I can write the same kinds of ad’s….

Cheers!

Are You In Need Of A Little Holiday Cheer?
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November 03, 2006

Does Content Match Work?

disclaimer 1: I am going to be blunt {“…Abrupt in address; plain; unceremonious…�?}
disclaimer 2: This post is not intended to offend, just ask some questions and hope for honest answers

You may know it as Contextual Advertising (Google), or Content Match (Yahoo). Unfortunately for me it has only been synonymous with the age old practice of flushing money down the toilet.

In almost every PPC campaign I’ve had the pleasure of working on this has become an issue that sooner or later must be addressed. And in every campaign that it comes up in the issue seems to be one of relevance, how ironic.

I can definitely attest to the fact that content match generates impressions and clicks. However I have yet to see it produce more relevant clicks than non-content match clicks. Back to being blunt, in other words it can whip up a ton of numbers – especially the kind that cost you money – but I have yet to see it meet the core goal of relevancy.

To take it a step further, every article I read about click fraud seems to describe, if not outright mention contextual matching being used in “Ad Farms�? (surprisingly Wikipedia turned up no definition of this term – check this blog post to get a definition if you need one.) This reminds me of a wise saying...."If it smells bad it probably is." Words to live by indeed.

Now I realize that I haven’t seen or done everything so I’m sure there must be some contextual success stories out there. I would love to hear from you and hear your experience with contextual matching. Please remember this is ultimately an exercise to make everything better, but it does feel good to vent sometimes too so let’s hear it.

Does Content Match Work?
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October 03, 2006

This is Why Users Mistrust PPC Ads

I'm often a little wordy in my posts, so as an experiment, I'm going to try to get my point across almost entirely with screen shots (and Alt tags, of course). Here's the scene: I wanted to buy a Spirograph for my daughter. Let's see how that goes.

Step 1. The search:

Step 2. The click:

Step 3. The PPC landing page:

Step 4. The internal search:

Step 5. The internal search result:

Step 6. Checking Adwords policies:

Step 7. Whatever.

This is Why Users Mistrust PPC Ads
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September 20, 2006

How Will Ask Profit? Should've Asked the Prophet

Our own Sean Bolton goes on a rant now and again, and more often than not, he's right.

Last December, he took Ask to task for not being particularly realistic in continuing with its homegrown PPC program. In particular, he had this to say:

Perhaps Mr. Jeeves should ask himself a few questions:

• Does it make sense for me to continue PPC when I can just earn similar or possibly better revenue by just leveraging the existing relationship with Google for AdWords rev?
• Will I do an effective enough job in PPC sales and customer service to some day kill my relationship with Google and keep all the green to myself?
• Why do I have less than 6% market share in the search engine war?

I kept this in mind when reading today's MediaPost article, Diller: Ask.com To Continue Outsourcing Paid Search, which specifically states that back when IAC purchased Ask,

...one of the company's priorities was developing its own paid search platform for advertisers. But Barry Diller said Tuesday that the company has since changed its strategy. Now, he said, IAC is focusing more on drawing consumers to the site than selling its own pay-per-click ads to marketers.

"Queries will build revenue," Diller said at a Goldman Sachs investor conference. He said the company's goal is to capture 10 percent of search queries--up from around 2 percent on Ask.com now and 5-6 percent considering other offerings.

Sean's above saying he told us so, but I'm not. He told us so.

How Will Ask Profit? Should've Asked the Prophet
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August 25, 2006

Conversions and Query Length - The Sequel

I was intrigued by a post a few weeks ago by my esteemed colleague Erik regarding Conversions and Query Length. (Disclaimer #1- yes, that is my comment at the bottom, and yes I did leave a comment at my own companies blog BUT it is there because I believe strongly in the correlation between metrics and decision making.)

The focus of this post is along a similar thread but it is related specifically Pay Per Click (PPC) and search Query Length. I did a study for a client of mine recently with the goal of finding what key phrases were converting the best, not just attracting the most clicks.

(Disclaimer #2- the names & labels etc have been changed to respect confidentiality, but the numbers are real.)

In this example our client Kramerica is selling their famous Muffin Tops. We have thousands of key phrases at our disposal but we want to know which terms to build on. Upon doing our research we get the following data:

This graph tells us that by far our best converting key phrases are either two or three words in length. Notice the dramatic drop off with longer key phrases, one’s that traditionally we would tend to view as ‘more qualified searchers’.

The next thing we notice from our research is how many key phrases we have that are giving us the conversions listed above:

Wow! From this we can see that out of 35 key phrases providing conversions 5 are dominating the conversion ratio’s (good fodder for a post about the 80/20 rule). Can you guess how many words are in each of the 5 key phrases that are providing all of the results. (If you need help refer to the first graph)

Finally we want to look and see if there are any trends in the actual words themselves that make up the key phrases.

This is a bit more challenging to the eye but let me cut to the chase. This chart is telling us that our ‘Top Converters’ also specifically begin with the word ‘Free’. Notice how poorly the phrases do that just contain the word ‘Free’.

So, all of our research and data crunching tells us the following:

1) We should expand on key phrases that contain two or three words.
2) We should begin them with the word ‘Free’

Now this is just a portion of the campaign strategy, but I’d say it’s a good place to start.

Okay, cool charts you say, but what is my point? My point is that metrics are important. Keyword discovery tools are great, Google Zeitgeist is great, Technorati is great, but the best data lies in your own campaigns. It may sound redundant but make sure you or your campaign manager looks at the wealth of data you already have compiled.

Conversions and Query Length - The Sequel
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July 11, 2006

Are you B2C or B2B? Are you sure?

Wendy Davis at MediaPost shared some interesting numbers earlier today (pulled from a JupiterResearch report) about how small businesses use the web for online shopping.

According to the report,

Sixty-two percent of those that make online purchases said familiarity with the vendor is among the most influential considerations; 46 percent said the same for online research and 39 percent said that advice of friends and business associates plays a major role. (Respondents were asked to choose up to three factors that influence online shopping.) E-mails and coupons were influential for just 21 percent of small businesses’ online purchases.

In the quote above, I've emphasized the key factors that drive employees to select an online vendor:

• Familiarity with the vendor. How strong is your web presence? Does your name consistently appear for searches within your niche?
• Online research. Do you own your online reputation?
• Advice of friends and business associates. What's your track record for keeping customers happy, and giving potential customers a reason to come back when they're more motivated (i.e., further along the purchase track?)

One of the report's major findings was that "almost eight in 10 small businesses, 79 percent, shop online regularly, compared to 65 percent of online consumers."

The end result is a blurring of the lines between B2B and B2C. In other words, while you can be pretty sure that an order of 8000 boxes of thumb tacks are a "business" purchase, there's also a pretty good chance that when Mark in Memphis orders a microwave oven, he might need it for the company break room. And maybe Mark's company is growing, so he might need an espresso machine soon.

What does this have to do with Search?

• Do your page descriptions and web copy (and thus, your search results) discuss corporate relationships? Corporate accounts? Bulk discounts? Despite the type of business you're in, are you friendly to both the big "B" and the big "C"?
• Does your PPC dayparting (changing bid strategy based on time of day) make (perhaps faulty) assumptions about who's coming to your site at 2 pm?

Search results mean very little if the user clicks over and doesn't find what she's looking for - either specific products, or even a subtle vibe. Ensuring that your site appeals to people when they're both on and off the clock, despite what you think you know about your vertical, is never a dumb move.

Are you B2C or B2B? Are you sure?
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June 30, 2006

Google and Yahoo leave me scratching my head

WARNING: this post may contain material not suitable for those who are willing give up a limb in defense of Google AdWords or Yahoo Search Marketing

Normally I'm not driven to extremes, I'm pretty easy-going and even-keeled. But every now and then the stars align and people do dumb things either around me, to me, or "for me". This time the honor goes to Google and Yahoo.

Google AdWords Related
Urgent, This Just In: We MUST designate our local time zone in our AdWords account or we will NEVER have the chance again after 7/31/06! What kind of offer is that? I’m sure it has something to do with the massive database that Google has to keep running in tip top shape, but come on, it seems kind of draconian doesn’t it? Now I’m FOR selecting a time zone, but why the urgency and the “speak now or forever hold your peace�? language? Seems to me an upgrade to AdWords is in order.

Yahoo Search Marketing Related
Urgent, This Just In: Yahoo Search Marketing Customer Solutions Team to get overhauled along with their interface. No not really, but it sure would be nice based on the report that I got in my inbox recently. You see I was offered a complete review of one of my Yahoo campaigns and you know what I received…..a suggestion that I cut my campaign by 90% because there wasn’t the search traffic for our terms. WHAT? Without getting into details I have no idea how they could have come up with their suggestions unless either A) it was completed by a bad computer program, or B) they gave somebody 15 minutes to complete it. Normally I wouldn’t speak out but this is not the first time I’ve received “suggestions�? like this from them. Who is running the Customer Solutions Team over there?

Excel corner...
(Macro to REMOVE hyperlinks in Excel 2000)
I do a fair amount of copy & pasting from the web to Excel and one HUGE pet peeve of mine is the automatic hyper linking feature that Excel introduces. And I have yet to find a quick and easy to remove them from inside Excel (they do provide a tedious and laborious way to do this – sigh), I did come across this little macro gem that allows a whole page to be “scrubbed�? at the push of a button. This has saved me from a pre-mature mental carpal tunnel meltdown.

Audiophile corner…..For those of us who remember what quadraphonic sound meant this will “blow your mind man�?. For the rest it will just be way cool. Try out Holophonic Sound. (Headphones are the best)

The most depressing moment in music over the past 30 years…
The comments are as funny as the video is appalling. Somebody make it stop!

And Finally…
Here’s a link to one the most underrated musicians out there, Owsley. Wow! What a great sound, it’s hard to believe that he’s not on the radio, but who am I eh?

Google and Yahoo leave me scratching my head
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May 16, 2006

The Second Cutts is the Deepest

You've probably read by now that Google has hired someone to help Matt Cutts in his work as liaison to webmasters. The new "MiniMatt," as he's been dubbed, is Adam Lasnik.

Until very recently, Adam was Intrapromote's Director of Paid Search, a role in which he handled PPC strategy for clients small, large, and very large. In his new role with Google, Adam's heading over to the organic side, where he'll be "hanging out at Webmaster conferences and various geek gatherings, occasionally replying to Google-related blog or forum posts, tackling some Webmaster-related e-mails, and undoubtedly popping up in other random places."

Intrapromote is proud to have had Adam on our roster, and we wish him the best in his new role at Google.

The Second Cutts is the Deepest
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April 13, 2006

Note to Self: Check Out Google Calendar - 8-9 am.

For over a year we've been hearing rumblings about Google Calendar, and Charlene Li was the first person I noticed who'd actually seen it.

Without further ado, here's the exclusive shot of the Google Calendar interface you've been waiting for:

That's a joke - sort of. Access has been sporadic all night, reminding me of the surprisingly resource-draining release of Google Analytics, which had to sit in the time-out corner after a quarter-million signups last November.

Even before I saw the Google Calendar interface, which is cool enough in its light-blue-trademark-Googlish-AJAXity, I got lost in thinking of the unprecedented ways Google will be able to integrate ads into your life when it decides you're ready for them.

Suppose you decide to have "Dinner at Buca" at 9pm. Contextually, Google could conceivably offer to make a reservation by linking to any of the Buca locations near your ZIP code. You could also get offers from Maggiano's, in the untimely event that Buca is full. And expect full integration with Google Maps to show you nearby cafes offering dessert.

Not that any of this is bad, of course. We're getting pretty used to it.