Pay Per Click
30 November 2009
Brand bidding strategies in search engine marketing
It is obvious the importance of SEO and PPC advertising strategies to brand marketers, however to what extent should these strategies be implemented together for branding queries? It is quite usual to find corporations bidding on brand terms while at the same time running a PPC campaign, mainly because brand terms usually drive quite a large amount of traffic at a low cost per click (CPC). It has been proved that being in both top sponsored and top organic positions for brand queries can lift the site traffic, however it can also cause traffic cannibalization. Should marketers bid on brand terms when a website is already appearing in top of the ranking in Google organic search results?
Brand bidding tips
Below are few tips why you should or shouldn't bid on brands terms.
Generally it is not recommended bidding on brand terms when:
1. Your website is ranking number 1, your brand is trademarked in Google (therefore no one can bid on it) and you are the only one in the sponsored listing
2. Your paid search ads are similar to your organic search results therefore there is no added value to it
3. Your website is ranking number 1 for search queries that include a variation of your brand name and you are the only one in the sponsored listing
4. Your website is ranking number one and only results not related to your brand are coming up in the sponsored search for search query - if users are searching for your brand, users are most unlikely to click to an unrelated ad
Or
Generally it is recommended bidding on brand terms when:
1. You are not ranking number one for brand terms (and generic terms)
2. There are several results and businesses associated with your brand name
3. You are on top of the organic search results, however you want to push users when looking for your brand to a special product/offer page
4. You own different sites for the same brand and you need to differentiate
5. You want to test different promotions
Recommendations
Make sure your brand is trademarked in Google, (you can submit your request directly to Google) to stop advertisers appearing against your brand. Test the impact of pausing PPC ads appearing for a brand related search query for a period of time (ideally 4 weeks). Look at conversion data for the same keywords from paid and organic and run a cost vs. revenue comparison.
Conclusions
Bidding on brand terms really depends on the industry you are in and how competitive it is. You should evaluate the ROI for these terms and test how much traffic you are getting from your organic search results when paid ads are paused. Even if the CPC for brand terms can be very small, the overall cost can become quite considerable for large brand that can drive a large amount of clicks. Don't waste your money for traffic that you will get anyway, especially if you have budget restrictions.
Posted by Raffaella Bronzi on 30 November 2009 at 3:34 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
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22 May 2009
SEO vs Paid Search
When people hear about internet marketing, they often think of two of the more popular methods used to enhance visibility on the web, namely search engine optimisation (SEO) and pay-per-click advertising (paid search).
In an ideal world both should be used strategically to maximise your site's profile and ROI.
Search Engine Optimisation
As many recent studies have shown, search engine optimisation offers several distinct advantages over pay-per-click advertising campaigns.
1.Tendency to Click
Numerous studies show people are less likely to click on paid search ads as opposed to organic search results.
For example, one study found that search users are up to six times more likely to click on the first few organic results than they are to choose any of the paid results (Oneupweb study), while an eye tracking study showed that 50 percent of users begin their search by scanning the top organic results. Other studies have shown that only 30 percent of search engine users click on paid listings, meaning 70 percent click the organic listings (Are Corporate Web Sites Optimized for SEO?).
2.Trust
Crucially, studies show that people trust organic results more than paid results.
The "An Examination of Searcher's Perceptions of Nonsponsored and Sponsored Links During Ecommerce Web Searching" by Bernard J. Jansen, reported:
"The major reason for not examining sponsored links was lack of trust."
Another study found that only that only 14 percent of searchers trusted paid listings, with 29 percent saying they were "annoyed" by them. (eMarketer)
3.Value of visitors
Search engine results tend to be seen as non-biased and are therefore able to provide visitors who are deemed more "valuable" to the organically listed sites. According to the "Are Corporate Web Sites Optimized for SEO?" by Paul Bruemmer, recent trends show that more sales originated in organic search listings than paid listings. We see this across the majority of our clients where organic traffic conversion are significantly higher than paid conversion rates- sometimes up to 3-4 times better conversion rates have been observed.
Photo by Danard Vincente via Creative Commons |
4.Relevance
Users also have rated organic search engine results as more relevant than paid results. "An Examination of Searcher's Perceptions of Nonsponsored and Sponsored Links During Ecommerce Web Searching" by Bernard J. Jansen, also found:
• "Participants rated 52% of the organic listings as relevant compared to only 42% of the sponsored listings"
• "When using a Web search engine for e-commerce searching, searchers will evaluate organic links as more relevant than sponsored links".
• "Summary [?"description" meta tag] (42%) and Title [tag] (41%) were the primary bases that searchers used to determine if an organic link was relevant. Title (60%) was the primary basis for determining that an organic result was not relevant. Interestingly, iProspect, Survey Sampling International, WebSurveyor, and Stratagem Research reports:
"On Google, 72.3 percent of users felt that organic results were more relevant, while only 27.7 percent of users rated paid results as more relevant. Yahoo offered similar results, with 60.8 percent of users calling organic results relevant compared to only 39.2 percent of users for paid."
5.Long Term Results
While a pay-per-click campaign may produce results more quickly than a search engine optimisation campaign, search engine optimisation campaigns can give results that last.
Paid Search
While the above statistics may make search engine optimisation seem the clear choice in all cases, it is only half of the story. In certain situations it actually makes more sense to do pay-per-click advertising.
1.Immediate Results
As stated above, results from pay-per-click advertising are immediate. On the other hand, a search engine optimisation campaign may take months for results to be apparent.
In this case, pay-per-click is advantageous for those who are looking to promote an initiative that will go live in a short amount of time, or whose business is seasonal in nature and who only do promotion during certain months of the year.
2.Type of search
The type of search is key as to how users interact with search results.
"An Examination of Searcher's Perceptions of Nonsponsored and Sponsored Links During Ecommerce Web Searching" by Bernard J. Jansen found:
• "If the e-commerce query is general, the searcher will be equally likely to view either organic or sponsored links."
• "If the e-commerce query is location specific, the searcher will be less likely to view a sponsored link."
• "The participants viewed more sponsored links for brand-specific queries than for general or location queries. If the e-commerce query is brand specific, the searcher will be more likely to view a sponsored link."
• "If the e-commerce query is location specific, the searcher will be less likely to view a sponsored link."
3. Small initial investment.
The search engines generally don't charge a fee to place or run your advertisement. You only pay for the users that click through on the ad
4. Budget flexibility.
PPC advertising allows businesses of all sizes to advertise and reach their target customers. Because setting budgets and cost-of-traffic acquisition is under their control. Therefore, small businesses can also take advantage of PPC marketing to reach their target customers, both in domestic and international markets
5. You can experiment cheaply.
The good thing about advertising on Google is that you don't have to create a huge budget for advertising, you can throw as little money as you want, experiment efficiently, get the ratios where you want, and then expand.
Conclusion
Clearly, search engine optimisation has some distinct advantages over paid search. However, there are certain situations and scenarios where pay-per-click advertising makes better sense strategically.
That being said there has been a recent study concluded by Hitwise that shows the decrease of paid search over the past year.
The bottom line is that businesses should not rely solely on one or the other, organic or paid, but need to tailor their approach based on their business, driving the highest converting traffic and the highest return on investment traffic to their site.
Posted by Valeriya Tselebrovskaya on 22 May 2009 at 1:59 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
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6 April 2009
Steven Power on PPC for the SME
The 1st session in the SME Track is "PPC for the SME" by Steven Power, CEO of ReachLocal.
In 2006, Steven began working with Netus, one of Australia's pre-eminent technology investment companies, focused on bringing proven technology-based services and products to the Australian market. Netus entered into a joint venture with ReachLocal Inc to found ReachLocal Australia.
Steven became founder and CEO of ReachLocal Australia which has quickly become a leading Digital Advertising Agency, providing local online advertising solutions for prominent national and local businesses (SMBs).
Even before starting a PPC campaign SME's need to be ready to handle increased demand from prospective customers. Who's going to respond to sales queries by phone/fax/email. What about after hours and on weekends? Search queries don't stop happening outside of your business hours. Steven outlines how SME's should figure out what each lead is worth to them and how much they are willing to spend to get each subsequent lead.
Businesses embarking on a PPC campaign need to concentrate first on promoting the products/services which have the highest profit margin, regardless of whether the PPC budget is large or small. Steven has found that SME's don't need to have fancy websites to get a lot of leads. Simple websites with key product information and clearly visible contact details on each page, especially phone numbers, can be really successful in gaining relevant leads
Steven concludes by suggesting SMEs spend their budgets wisely to gain the best possible ROI: test, measure, learn and improve.
Posted by Neerav Bhatt on 6 April 2009 at 10:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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Cogentis, Chris Dimmock - Up Close With Google AdWords Quality Score
Chris is the MD of Cognetis, an organization that provides website marketing strategies & search engine marketing services. This session takes a fresh look at the current state of the Google quality score, how it is implemented and tips on using it to your advantage.What is quality score?
- It is a dynamic variable assigned to each of your keywords
- Its calculated using a variety of factors and measures
3 components in Adwords search QS
- Click Through weight-largest single factor, now accounts around 60%
- Ad to keyword relevancy- how well your ad campaign is structured 30%
- Landing page relevancy- worth about 10%, relevance of landing page, ease of use etc
Quality Score and Ad Rank
- Adrank = maximum bid X quality score
- Actual cost per click = Adrank of the advertiser below you/ your quality score and add one cent to that answer
- Improving quality score reduces your CPC
Posted by Kate Gamble on 6 April 2009 at 9:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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3 April 2009
Blitz Local, Dennis Yu on Advanced Paid Search Tactics
Dennis Yu has been doing web analytics and PPC since 1995, maximizing online leads and revenue for companies such as Yahoo, American Airlines, JC Penney and is the co-founder of Blitz Local. In this session by Dennis, tips and techniques to help you get even more out of your paid search campaigns will be covered extensively.
Dennis says in his opinion Adwords quality score is all about the landing page and using SEO techniques to improve the landing page. It's all about getting more conversions at a lower CPA. Increased volume generally leads to increased CPA. Your profit margin = lead value - CPA.
7 ways to flush money down the toilet
- Indiscriminate bidding on your own brand
- Starting off with a zillion keywords
- Choosing the most expensive software possible
- No conversion tactic
- Using default campaign settings
- Staying with keyword targeting-Google is not the be all and end all
- Relying completely on the agency
[Just to drive home the facts above Dennis includes a quality 'flushing' sound grab as each point animates onto the screen. Love the powerpoint skills here! - Kate]
After this intensive session that squashed in about 2 hours of content into 30mins the afternoon fatigue is setting in somewhat and I am looking to a nice coffee or 3 before spending some more time with the search engines.
Posted by Kate Gamble on 3 April 2009 at 2:37 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
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Fairfax Media, Lucas Ng on Creative Management, Writing killer ad copy
Lucas Ng is the Director of Search & Analytics at Fairfax Media where he manages search marketing and web analytics operations for many of Australia's most viewed websites. His session concentrates on writing relevant ad copy and how this affects the SEM process.
Google's guidelines to ad copy
- Use the keywords in the headline
- Use prices and promotions so users know what to expect
- Use a strong call-to-action
What else is there to killer ad copy?
- Capitalise the first letter of every word
- Understand the audience - what is the audience profile and behavior?
- Who is it for? What has triggered their search process?
- Who else is influencing the searcher?
- Killer Ad copy differentiates itself from the crowd by understanding the audience better than the rest or identifying a unique selling proposition that the product/service has
- Killer ad copy is highly relevant to your landing page
- Killer ad copy uses a psychological trigger i.e. emotion, sense of urgency, instant gratification and a desire to belong
- The copy needs to filter clicks so all your leads are qualified
- Test, refine and test some more
- Put the product/service/brand into the display URL
Finally if you're stumped for ideas Lucas suggests using magazine covers to get ideas for copy.
[-- I always read Vogue to inspire internet marketing brilliance, it's not bludging, its work! - Kate]
Posted by Kate Gamble on 3 April 2009 at 1:05 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
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Found Agency, Tim McDonald on Ad Group Management
Tim is the founder and CEO of Found Agency. Found positions themselves as the paid search advertising experts in Australia.
Tim will explain how imperative it is to group keywords and ad copy correctly in order to have an optimised paid search campaign.
Being from an organic search background I am really excited for this session, it's always nice to see how the 'other side' live and work.
Plan before you start
- Research your market
- Key drivers for buyers?
- What makes you better?
- What do people actually search for?
- How much time for SEM?
- Budget?
- Audience- geo/time/network type?
- Search/content?
- Creative options?
Targeting Options
- Search/display
- Geo/time/demographics
- Start/end dates
- Daily budgets
Campaign targeting
- Keyword and sites
- CPM/CPC bids
- Ad creative-text, display
Ad group targeting
Adwords Limits
- 25 campaigns per account
- 100 ad groups per campaign
- 200 keywords per ad group
Why be concerned with CTR?
- Direct impact on ROI
- Metric of ad/keyword effectiveness
- If little/no relevancy, ads may not sure
- High CTR= more visitors and better ROI
What's the best AdWords structure?
- No single structure is best
- Make it granular and manageable
- Clustered keyword themes
- Test and adapt
Consider separating:
- Brands and high performance
- Content/display
- Head vs. longtail
- Keyword match type
- Keyword topics/themes
Content network recommendations
- Separate content-only campaign
- Fewer keywords per ad group
- Broad match
- Separate bids for content audience
- Consider top-performing placements
This past session has been somewhat of a technical nature and judging by the looks on the faces around me along with the fact that the day is slowly drawing to an end, the next speaker Nathan Stewart had better ramp things up a notch in order to keep this audience captivated.
Posted by Kate Gamble on 3 April 2009 at 12:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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Marc Elison
Kate Gamble
Martin Orliac
