Optimizing a search engine campaign: The truth be known!
Whether your search marketing campaign never got off the ground or was so successful that the costs rocketed to unbearable levels the same questions are asked: "what can I do to optimize my search engine campaign?" Often the optimization is an exercise performed by the search engine, other times a firm specializing in search engine marketing does it, but what do they actually do to turn a floundering campaign into a profitable channel? This article opens the door to some of the secrets performed to help give your campaign the edge.
The pay per placement engine market is a billion dollar industry and is a platform that requires so little set-up and capital investment that a multitude of firms have embraced it as a front line marketing channel. But as with all ways to market this one is not without the pitfalls and obstacles. As more and more firms sign up the click costs on some of the most expensive terms increase. Position one in Overture soon becomes position six in the space of a few hours and irrelevant clicks can cost an absolute fortune if unchecked. So where do you start?
Understand your objectives - the first is to isolate your website objectives and tailor your traffic to achieve them. Driving traffic to your site and then the objectives being automatically achieved is very rarely the best solutions.
Track your clicks - whether you own or adopt an advanced web analytics tool or simply add an affiliate code to the URLs submitted to the engine you must make sure you track click activity against your objectives. This is such an important factor that even engines themselves are starting to offer this service recognizing that accounting for click to conversion is a sure way to measure success. Track these against metrics you understand, ROI, CPA or CPO.
Choose the right search engine(s) - don't be mistaken in thinking that all engines are equal, some are all rounders, some B2C focussed and some B2C focussed. Make sure you are aware of which does which so that you can start to focus your spend. Ensure that you learn the distribution channels of your engines, this will help with targeting the engines you require to be positioned on, and it will also help with establishing the audience of your click. As search engines become more advanced you'll be able to pick your distribution list, Industry Brains is an excellent example in the B2B environment of this very service.
Choose the right words - make sure you take into account the selection of words and phrases you use. The article 'Building Up Your Keyword Inventory' by Cindy McMahon gives great insight into the selecting and building a keyword list.
Writing 'killer' creative - one of the best ways to a) drive more qualified traffic and b) reduce the amount of irrelevant clicks is to make the visitors qualify themselves before they even click the link. Adding a call to action - such as buy, visit, compare, search - into your title and / or description will prompt interest. Qualifying them further with relevant descriptions that include enough information to wet their appetite yet at the same time provide enough information to dissuade a user who is uncertain as to whether they should visit you or not. A good tip is to talk with the search engines and find out what buzz words they recommend for your industry, Google for example often recommend words like 'compare, search, research' for B2B AdWords.
Brand vs. offering - follow the hints in this article (Branding vs. Offering) to get a good idea of how your brand name can either help or hinder your campaign.
Manage your bids and placements - the biggest difference between paid for placement and any other type of search engine optimization is that you have to bid for your position. Funny as it may seem this is the one area that many companies forget and languish in the depths of a PFP engine's listings when simple management can ensure that your words maintain within their distribution network. Learn the search engine distribution partners and where their listings go! The number of options available to you for managing bids is extensive; from doing it manually, to buying a service organization to perform it for you it is definitely the missing link to many paid for placement campaigns and can mean the difference between success and failure. Try to match conversion with costs and placement; can you get a better ROI from averaging in position 3 rather than position 1?
Be aware of seasonality - at peak times in your industry a lot of business can be achieved online, at the same time you can bet that a large number of your competitors will also be aware of this so make sure you watch your bids very carefully and don't neglect the PFP channel at the wrong time. Don't be afraid to change creative, you can make adjustments within a weeks turn around that represent seasonal trends and demand.
Choose the most appropriate landing page - don't land everyone on the homepage, you'll add to the users click path and increase your abandonment rate. The larger search engines will prevent you from doing this anyway but even if you can get away with it: don't! Just ask yourself the question when selecting the page, would you be happy if you'd searched for a product or service and then had to search for it a second time on the destination site?
Understanding all of these metrics and variables per industry gives the engines and in particular the search engine marketing specialists the ability to turn search into an extremely profitable channel. I trust they will help you.
The pay per placement engine market is a billion dollar industry and is a platform that requires so little set-up and capital investment that a multitude of firms have embraced it as a front line marketing channel. But as with all ways to market this one is not without the pitfalls and obstacles. As more and more firms sign up the click costs on some of the most expensive terms increase. Position one in Overture soon becomes position six in the space of a few hours and irrelevant clicks can cost an absolute fortune if unchecked. So where do you start?
Understand your objectives - the first is to isolate your website objectives and tailor your traffic to achieve them. Driving traffic to your site and then the objectives being automatically achieved is very rarely the best solutions.
Track your clicks - whether you own or adopt an advanced web analytics tool or simply add an affiliate code to the URLs submitted to the engine you must make sure you track click activity against your objectives. This is such an important factor that even engines themselves are starting to offer this service recognizing that accounting for click to conversion is a sure way to measure success. Track these against metrics you understand, ROI, CPA or CPO.
Choose the right search engine(s) - don't be mistaken in thinking that all engines are equal, some are all rounders, some B2C focussed and some B2C focussed. Make sure you are aware of which does which so that you can start to focus your spend. Ensure that you learn the distribution channels of your engines, this will help with targeting the engines you require to be positioned on, and it will also help with establishing the audience of your click. As search engines become more advanced you'll be able to pick your distribution list, Industry Brains is an excellent example in the B2B environment of this very service.
Choose the right words - make sure you take into account the selection of words and phrases you use. The article 'Building Up Your Keyword Inventory' by Cindy McMahon gives great insight into the selecting and building a keyword list.
Writing 'killer' creative - one of the best ways to a) drive more qualified traffic and b) reduce the amount of irrelevant clicks is to make the visitors qualify themselves before they even click the link. Adding a call to action - such as buy, visit, compare, search - into your title and / or description will prompt interest. Qualifying them further with relevant descriptions that include enough information to wet their appetite yet at the same time provide enough information to dissuade a user who is uncertain as to whether they should visit you or not. A good tip is to talk with the search engines and find out what buzz words they recommend for your industry, Google for example often recommend words like 'compare, search, research' for B2B AdWords.
Brand vs. offering - follow the hints in this article (Branding vs. Offering) to get a good idea of how your brand name can either help or hinder your campaign.
Manage your bids and placements - the biggest difference between paid for placement and any other type of search engine optimization is that you have to bid for your position. Funny as it may seem this is the one area that many companies forget and languish in the depths of a PFP engine's listings when simple management can ensure that your words maintain within their distribution network. Learn the search engine distribution partners and where their listings go! The number of options available to you for managing bids is extensive; from doing it manually, to buying a service organization to perform it for you it is definitely the missing link to many paid for placement campaigns and can mean the difference between success and failure. Try to match conversion with costs and placement; can you get a better ROI from averaging in position 3 rather than position 1?
Be aware of seasonality - at peak times in your industry a lot of business can be achieved online, at the same time you can bet that a large number of your competitors will also be aware of this so make sure you watch your bids very carefully and don't neglect the PFP channel at the wrong time. Don't be afraid to change creative, you can make adjustments within a weeks turn around that represent seasonal trends and demand.
Choose the most appropriate landing page - don't land everyone on the homepage, you'll add to the users click path and increase your abandonment rate. The larger search engines will prevent you from doing this anyway but even if you can get away with it: don't! Just ask yourself the question when selecting the page, would you be happy if you'd searched for a product or service and then had to search for it a second time on the destination site?
Understanding all of these metrics and variables per industry gives the engines and in particular the search engine marketing specialists the ability to turn search into an extremely profitable channel. I trust they will help you.
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