Gord Hotchkiss has spoken and written on many occasions about internet speed and what this means for organizations trying to adapt to a rapidly changing competitive landscape. The question regarding internet speed is how fast are you willing to move to adapt to the changing online landscape, but the question also has to be asked; how fast are you willing to fail?

To determine the most effective marketing mix online, at some point a failure must be encountered. The question regarding optimization of paid search campaigns may come down to complacency. If everything is working well, ROAS is good, CTR is good, Quality Scores are good, then why mess with a good thing? Well, the quickest way to being overtaken by your competition is to stand still, and yet the problem is that when we optimize, we risk failure.

Not too fast, not too slow
Starting to optimize conservatively can lead to long, drawn out failures which can do longer-term damage, and yet going to the other extreme can lead to some very large disasters. It is more about balancing speed and risk with optimization testing. When starting testing it is important to define the scope of the test and determine what the acceptable rate of failure would be (i.e. negative impact to the bottom line) versus time needed to realize statistically relevant information. For example, when testing new ad copy or a new landing page, it is important to measure the volume of traffic you will direct to the landing page compared to the amount of potential loss of business due to that change. The margin of error associated with the test can also come down to the size of the change. The more significant the change, the faster you will see results (positive or negative).

Test markets
As with traditional marketing, definition of the test market will help to control the scope of the testing as well as the amount of volume exposed to the test. Limiting the scope of the test to selected ad groups or specific campaigns, or leveraging geo-targeting to isolate markets exposed to the test, can assist in balancing quick results and risk. The selection of test markets will also assist in providing a comparative bench mark for the test; although it is less of an issue with A/B testing.

Avoid the knee-jerk reaction. Testing and seeing results quickly is great, but ensure the statistical relevancy of those results is accurate. Before declaring a test a success, determine exactly what degree of data is required to see an effect from the test. Remember Statistics 101: what size of result is required to determine a 90 or 95% confidence interval with the test? The confidence intervals are going to be directly impacted by the amount of data; the more data, the smaller the interval required for statistical relevancy. There are two ways to increase the amount of data: time or scope. Increasing the duration of a test will assist in driving towards statistical relevancy or increasing the scope of impacted ad groups/campaigns will increase the amount of data.

Where do you want to go?
Testing in marketing is 70% science and 30% art. Even the most lackluster creative developer can design a highly successful campaign with enough iterations and testing. Before implementing a test, start with a hypothesis. I know, its high school science all over again, but without an idea of what the expected outcome of your testing could be, it’s going to be like going flying without a destination; you’re going to end up somewhere, just maybe not where you would like.

Knowing what works is only valuable if you know why something didn’t work and therefore failure is the only real way to drive success. Failure is only really a bad thing when nobody learns from it, which is why when implementing a testing framework, recording specifics about how each change affected the campaign’s performance is imperative to a successful testing strategy. Each test should be followed up with a detailed analysis as to how the test impacted the results. What was it about the test that caused the specific result?

The key to a successful optimization and testing program is designing successive tests and constantly challenging the status quo. Just remember you’re going to fail once in a while, but you can learn a lot from failure and take what you learn to help you succeed that much more next time.

Times change (quickly) and this industry evolves (rapidly) and now search query data is available from a variety of handy sources. Let us count the ways:

1. AdWords Search Query Performance report: the traditional method of running a Search Query Performance report from the AdWords report center still exists. It provides some advantages, such as being able to see ad group and campaign status. There are still some ‘x other unique queries’ results, but much less than in the past.

2. Within AdWords Keyword data in UI: Recent enhancements to the AdWords user interface include the ability to generate an ‘on the fly’ report on search terms. From the ‘Keywords’ tab, you can select the ‘See search terms’ button to go to a report on search terms. This shows all the search terms used (with the exception of those that are lumped under ‘other unique queries’ in the Search Query Performance report), with indications as to which ones are currently being bid on. The nice thing here is that you can instantly add keywords or even add negative keywords directly from this report. And you can also download the report in CSV format.

3. Google Analytics AdWords data: With the new AdWords reporting enhancements to Google Analytics, it is easy to get a look at actual search terms being used. Simply go to ‘Traffic Sources’>’AdWords beta’>’Keywords’ and then use the second dimension box to select ‘Matched Search Query’. Here you get a nice side-by-side listing of keywords you are bidding on along with matched terms. The additional advantage, of course, is that you get all that juicy post-click behavioural data, such as bounce rate, goal completions, and – if you have Ecommerce tracking set up – revenue.

So there are 3 ways that I know of to investigate AdWords search query data and use it to improve performance of your keyword advertising. Maybe there’s others I’ve missed? If you have any other favorite ways to view AdWords search query data, let us know!

Bing serving up an eBay ad promising Fantastic prices on slaves

eBay ad on Bing

Here’s another DKI fail on Google Canada this morning, courtesy of eBay: “Looking for Bear Parts. Find exactly what you want today”. Who needs the black market when you have eBay doing all the work for you?

Google serves up an eBay ad for bear parts

eBay ad for Bear parts on Google

Note: Dynamic Keyword Insertion does not add the user’s search query into the ad, but pulls the keyword that the search query is matched to in the Adwords account. In other words, in the Bing example, “slaves” is a term in eBay’s keyword account – they’re bidding on it. If you actually search eBay for “slaves” you get mostly books, movie posters and that sort of thing.

To assist with helping to save some time and frustration (even possibly a lawsuit or just plain embarrassment) here are some tips to assist with dynamic keyword insertion (DKI).
1. Create tight ad groups where only highly related keywords are found within the same ad group.
2. Always read your ad, with each keyword in the copy to ensure that the ad continues to make sense.
3. Use negative keywords to avoid bad matches.
4. Use match types to in cases where they connotation of the keyword can have both literal and alternate meanings.
5. In Yahoo, use alternate keywords to better fit within your dynamic keyword insertion.
6. Description lines are difficult to use DKI within and maintain proper syntax and readability. Title tags are easier.
7. Avoid automated systems for writing ads. Ad copy is vital to your advertising campaign; would you seriously let a system write a TV commercial, design a magazine spread, or a radio ad? If not, why would you entrust an automated system for digital ads?
a. Avoid using keyword tools to add significant numbers of longtail keywords to campaigns when you are using DKI. The keyword suggestion tools can be tempting to hit “add all,” but can really start to interfere with your DKI. Additionally, each keyword should be analyzed to ensure a fit with the intention of the search and the desired action you want them to take.
8. Avoid using DKI on the Content Network. Your content network keyword list should be designed to describe the sites that you are looking to appear on and which content on those sites that would be relevant to your product. Therefore, using DKI on the content network can create some pretty messy ad copy.

When using DKI, here are some syntax guidelines to ensure proper capitalization:
{keyword} – ppc management — all lower case
{Keyword} – Ppc management — 1st world initial caps, all lower case
{KeyWord} – Ppc Management — all words initial caps
{KEYword} – PPC management – 1st word all caps, all other words in lower case (great for acronyms).

I had a chance to sit down with YouSendIt’s Director of Product Marketing, Angela Sanfilippo, at their office in California just before our latest B2B Expert Series: Face-to-Face event. We talked through the advances her team has made over the past few months with their paid search campaigns. This success has led to increased investment in SEM moving forward.

This webinar will be of interest to other marketers that have struggled to get budget increases for paid Search. It also highlights the power of campaign segmentation, vital for a company like YouSendIt that works across various markets, and in B2B/B2C.

The Opportunity Cost of PPC

Date: January 19, 2010
Time: 11 am PST
Length: 30 minutes
Webinar registration >>

What would happen if you turned off all PPC advertising for a month?

This is exactly what the YouSendIt marketing team did last October, a risky manoeuver which ended up proving the value of their search marketing program.

In this 30-minute case study webinar, an Enquiro client shares her recent B2B/B2C marketing success that has been driven by paid search.

1. Improved SEM performance through proper segmentation of campaigns

We take a look at how YouSendIt increased the number of subscriptions to their service by 70% while also reducing overall ad budget. Strategic adjustments effectively reduced cost-per-click by 18%, and increased the amount of qualified traffic from paid search.

2. The importance of nurturing a lead

Once they’re in the door, it’s important to maintain the conversation. Search marketing’s effectiveness increases when coupled with email nurturing.

3. Demonstrating the value of search internally

YouSendIt’s Director of Product Marketing, Angela Sanfilippo, was faced with the challenge that many marketers face: prove to the board that the money you’re spending on paid search is actually driving revenue. In this webinar, Angela walks us through the numbers and her approach.

Case Study Background
YouSendIt offers an online solution for independent professionals and businesses for sending, receiving and tracking large files and digital content without email and ftp limitations. YouSendIt has over 10 million users across 220 countries. Prior to initiating an SEM partnership with Enquiro, YouSendIt was running a paid campaign that drove few leads and qualified visitors at a high cost per lead of $442. They needed help in developing a more robust sponsored search strategy that would increase the number of registrations and subscriptions while reducing overall costs.

Presented by:

Angela Sanfilippo
Director of Product Marketing, YouSendIt

Angela Sanfilippo has over 13 years in the marketing industry with a multi-faceted background in brand strategy and awareness, marketing communications, product marketing and demand generation strategies. Currently, Angela Sanfilippo is the Director of Marketing for YouSendIt Inc, the number-one secure digital file delivery company serving professionals, businesses and government agencies on the Web. As Director of Marketing, Angela is responsible for establishing YouSendIt’s market leadership in file transfer services and oversees the company’s demand generation and user acquisition strategies. Prior to joining YouSendIt, Angela held various management positions at Rainmaker Systems, an outsourced provider of sales and marketing services managing B2B technology clients such as HP, CA, Lenovo, Sybase and Symantec and the HotJobs.com division of Yahoo! Inc.

Angie Dzwonkiewicz
Search Marketing Strategist, Enquiro

Angie brings forth a background knowledge and expertise in email marketing and community relations with skills in reporting and analysis, building strong operating mechanisms and process management. She manages several of Enquiro’s B2B client accounts, and worked with YouSendIt to deliver impressive results for their PPC campaigns.

Hosted by Bill Barnes – Enquiro’s EVP of Business Development

Mr. Barnes is a marketing veteran who has been in the marketing, advertising and promotion industry for over 20 years, the last 10 of which have been focused on Search Marketing. He co-founded Enquiro along with Gord Hotchkiss in 1999. Mr. Barnes is a featured speaker at events presented by Search Engine Strategies, Ad-Tech, Jupiter Media, SIPA, Forrester Research and Frost and Sullivan. He has also conducted workshops designed for Marketing, Editorial and Public Relations departments.

At Enquiro Bill has overseen explosive sales growth. In fact, Enquiro was listed on Deloitte’s 2004 North American Technology Fast 500 and has appeared on Profit Magazine’s Top 100 for three consecutive years. Bill has extensive experience in setting up and implementing Search Marketing and Research campaigns for such companies as AIG, AT&T, IBM, HP, Lexis/Nexis, Siemens and Grainger and strives to always help companies succeed in Search.

While we are thinking about the question of whom do we accredit the quote to, now let’s think more close to home; how to we accredit revenue to individual marketing channels?

The double edged sword of PPC measurability is the ability to measure with a great deal of accuracy how paid search is performing and yet it is still easy measure impact wrong when looking at performance rather myopically. There are many different ways to attribute ROAS, such as first click, last click and a linear attribution model. Making decisions based on an individual attribution window could introduce significant error into your decision process and affect the total ROAS of your paid search campaign.

The problem with most analytics tools is that they attempt to apply linear modeling to explain a problem solved with bounded rationality. Business-to-business purchase behaviour is not a simple linear series of events, but more of an entanglement of communication touch points where a decision can be easily swayed by a chance encounter or incalculable externality. Most revenue attribution models ignore that paid search is only one marketing channel that is interrelated to all other marketing activities; which involve both online and offline company touch points.

With B2B marketing, many purchases involve multiple interactions with the vendor from multiple touch points prior to purchase. A study of a retailers, conducted by Coremetrics, indicates that all buyers had interacted with at least 3.9 campaigns prior to purchase; in a B2B environment it can easily be many more. This does not factor in many of the elements active within the B2B purchasing BuyerSphere. Enquiro’s Brand Lift of Search research also indicates that sponsored listings increase a prospective customer’s propensity to purchase by 8% and occupying the top sponsored position increased aided brand recall by 150%. These are all facts that a simple revenue attribution model can easily de-emphasize.

The majority of companies are still solely relying of the last click attribution model, which attributes the entirety of the revenue to the last point of interaction with the site before purchase. The inherent risk with this type of attribution model is the emphasis on the conversion-oriented campaigns and gives no attribution to the campaigns that originally started the marketing conversation. By making bid management and investment decisions based on only this information, the risk of divesting into the acquisition or branding channels increases substantially; effectively reducing the overall effectiveness of the marketing efforts. This risk increases if the company has a relatively unknown brand in the marketplace. The same can be said for focusing only on the first click attribution where we are looking only at the value of the keywords at the beginning of the purchase decision cycle and can ignore the importance of the conversion keywords at the end of the purchase process.

The only answer to this analytics dilemma is to strike a balanced measure using multiple attribution windows. Coremetrics has recently released a great whitepaper on Appropriate Attribution models which is a great read for any marketer on how to better attribute revenue to your online marketing efforts. For quite some time Enquiro’s Sponsored Search Team has been using a similar model of revenue attribution within the confines of the abilities of existing analytics programs, which vary depending on the provider you are using. However, we have also found great success in determining how paid search integrates into the macro-level marketing equation by using a micro-conversion and correlation analysis.

Often Paid Search campaigns are evaluated based on the number of qualified leads they have brought in or the strict revenue they have generated, but there is a missing element of how this impacts the overall marketing efforts. Post click behavior is an important element to any revenue attribution analysis such as the subscription to an email newsletter, requesting a catalog, downloading a whitepaper or other important marketing collateral, calling the phone number listed on the site. Each of these interactions with the website is part of the marketing conversation and can be assigned a value based on historical conversion rates and average order values. These numbers can then be applied to the paid search campaign as part of the revenue attribution model to assist in determining the value of paid search.

Another important metric is to measure the correlation of paid search traffic with direct and branded site traffic. Paid search may be the gateway to starting the marketing conversation with the prospect, but may only be the initial touch point. Measuring the impact of paid search on the direct and branded traffic can indicate how paid search is acting to acquire customers and brand the company in the marketplace. A simple correlation analysis is effective in revealing whether paid search is having a positive impact on the overall traffic to the site. The user may not necessary complete the desired conversion in the same session, but may use a direct or branded search to navigate back to the site at a later time to continue the relationship building process. 

Unfortunately, analysis of the marketing efforts often collides with internal politics which often complicates issues and can even impact the distribution of budgets. However, knowing how your paid search campaigns interact with other marketing channels, drive revenue, and build relationships can assist in determining the total value of the marketing channel.

The key takeaway from this is to look at the impact of your paid search campaigns as holistically as possible to determine your total ROAS. What is the direct revenue from the campaign? Does the ROAS change when using an appropriate attribution model? How does your paid search campaign initiate the marketing conversation and act as a relationship development tool?

1. Preparing for a Site Redesign – when planning a redesign and making sure that all of the SEO best practices are being put in place as you prepare to launch. You’ll want to bolster your online campaign with sponsored efforts as you transition from the old site to the new site. Once the SEO efforts kick in post-launch, you can reduce your PPC spend and focus your sponsored efforts elsewhere.
2. Preparing to Launch a Micro site – Micro sites allow you to try out a more targeted online strategy. For quick traffic generation to your new micro site, you’ll want to utilize a well planned sponsored strategy. At the same time, your SEO efforts can be geared towards a focus on long-tail and less competitive keywords to drive additonal traffic to the micro site.
3. Launching a new Sub-Domain – Similar to launching a micro site, sponsored efforts can be used to direct traffic to the new sub-domain while an SEO strategy can be developed to obtain long term rankings for the sub-domain.
4. Launching a new Website – Any time you launch a new website, you should have both an SEO and SEM strategy working together to help obtain traffic to your new web property. Initially, your sponsored strategy might be the only means of driving traffic to your new site, until you can improve your visibility in the natural search results of the search engines.
5. Marketing Your Website on a Shoestring Budget – If you have a tight budget, you can focus efforts on SEO and complement that with a smaller PPC strategy where you bid on phrases that are less expensive. You may want to focus your PPC spend for local search while you concentrate your SEO efforts for more general search engine rankings. As you develop content through SEO and on-page optimization, the only cost you incur is time.
6. Company Mergers & Merging Web Properties – In the dynamic economic environment that we have experienced in recent years, it’s not uncommon to see companies merge. Quite often startups are bought out and you are left with multiple web properties at your disposal. This is another great example of when you should be using SEO and PPC simultaneously to educate your target audience of your recent merger or acquisition. You may want to phase the old company out, and as a result move some content from that company’s website to your own. Developing an SEO transition strategy that is backed up by a solid PPC strategy can be an effective way to educate your existing customers as well as any new prospects who may be looking for your solution.
7. Releasing a New Product Line – PPC can be used in conjunction with SEO to promote your new product or solution line. Chances are that your new product name will be easy to rank for organically; back that up with some non-branded traffic from sponsored efforts and you can quickly acheive some additional branded and non-branded traffic that will convert on your site, with the proper type of messaging and promotion.
8. Online Reputation Management Campaigns – Experienced some negative press? Use SEO and sponsored solutions to protect your brand in the online space. From an SEO point of view, you’ll want to ensure that any negative organic listings are pushed to page two of the search results page, by optimizing your site for blended search, and leveraging social networks to dominate the SERP landscape. Furthermore, you will want to protect your brand via PPC efforts so that negative or “questionable” listings do not appear within the sponsored results.
9. Entering New Markets – If your company is large enough to go global or is entering new regional markets, you might want to use SEO and PPC to target these geographic demographics. Depending on your expansion, you might want to try a GEO-targeted sponsored campaign, backed up with content development for organic rankings in the natural search results of the search engines.
10. Plateauing Search Engine Traffic – Seen your website traffic start to plateau? Maybe you need to modify or add a sponsored strategy to your SEO strategy or vice versa. Revisit both your SEO and PPC efforts and get creative with some new messaging to drive more traffic to your site.

While many companies are doing SEM or are developing SEO strategies, there are still a number that are not leveraging SEO and PPC efforts together. If your company is experiencing any of the ten issues above, you may want to establish a co-existing SEO and SEM strategy to ensure that you effectively intercept your target audience and that you continue to drive qualified traffic to your site. Search engine optimization and sponsored search marketing efforts can work together to provide you with optimal results. The more effective you become with your online marketing efforts, the less spend it will take to drive more business. While it takes time and is subject to the changing nature of the Internet, realizing when to use SEO and PPC together can return tremendous results.

Original Post Courtesy of SEO-Space:  SEO & PPC Working Together

As you track the return of  your sponosred campaigns,  remember this little stat.  Based on some of our original research inside the mind of the searcher, we found that Organic results received the majority of clicks on a SERP.  We found that the split between organic vs. paid clicks was as high as a 70%-30% split.  Over the past couple of years this ratio has changed slightly, but the fact of the matter is, more people click on organic results.  Now of course further research suggests that there are other factors that affect what people click on when they perform a query in a search engine.  Factors such as:

• Blended Search Results appearing
• The phase of the buying cycle that the searcher is involved in
• Brand Awareness or lackthereof
• Type of keyword/phrase queried

Ah yes the all mighty key phrase.  Depending on what the users types into a search engine may dictate whether they click on a sponsored listing or an organic result.  So as online marketers, where should you spend your time?  Organic or Sponsored?  The answer quite simply is both.  SEO and PPC work together quite nicely when establishing your keyword strategy for your online campaigns.  However, how many of you have a balanced SEO/PPC online marketing campaign?  When it comes to keyword strategy, something to think about when planning your keyword strategy is understanding where you are today.  That is how competitive is the online space that you are trying to occupy?  Are your "money" phrases hyper-competitive and expensive to bid on?  Ask yourself if you can really rank for <insert your desired key phrase here>.  Note: Prior to establishing your final keyword list it is assumed that you have performed research into your target audience and have identified the language that they will be using to search for your solution or product.

Keyword Strategy:  SEO or PPC?

Ok so you have an understanding of your target audience and of what they may be searching for online.  You’ve looked at some of your competitor’s web properties and you’re aware of what they are trying to position their sites for now what?

Step One:  Determine the Genetic DNA Make Up for your Keyword Strategy - When you think about it, there are three types of key phrases.  Head Phrases, torso phrase and long-tail keywords.  You will need to establish which combination  will work best for you in terms of being able to intercept your audience.  How does SEO and PPC fit in?  Well head phrases tend to be hyper-competitive but can drive a ton of traffic to your site.  In this case, a simple SEO strategy may not get you the rankings that you hope for, instead you’ll want to utilize a sponsored strategy where you bid on some of these hyper-compettive phrases to drive this traffic to your website.  Depending on your budget, the level of success depends on which phrases wil provide the best bang for your advertising buck.

SEO on the otherhand can be effective when optimizing your site for long-tail keyphrases that are more specific to your industry.  These tend to be phrases that the user will type in a search engine when they are closer to making a purchase decision.  A lot of times long-tail phrases tend to be less competitive, but they drive more qualified traffic.  More qualified traffic to your site means more qualified leads.

Step Two:  Monitor Your Exisiting Visibility – from an organic (SEO) point of view, monitoring your visibility in the search engines will determine where you draw the line between sponsored budgets and organic SEO for your site.  If by chance you are lucky enough to rank in the natural search results for a relevant head-type key phrase, you may not need to put sponsored spend towards this phrase.  Instead you can either A).  Save this spend (which affects your bottom line as less money going out) or B).  Put this spend into other keyword groups or baskets that may require a boost.  By monitoring your visibility, you will determine the right balance needed between SEO and PPC when positioning keyword visibility for your site.

Step Three:  Consider Timing – Considering the timing of when to use PPC to boost SEO is critical to the success of any online marketing campaign.  We all know that SEO can be very rewarding and that the results are longer lasting, but the fact is that SEO takes time.  Do not expect to improve your website’s visibility overnight with SEO.  So as part of an effective keyword strategy is understanding when to use PPC and SEO and when to use PPC with SEO.  For example if you are planning a website redesign, you will want to use PPC to mitigate any risks from organic ranking decreases as a result of transitioning your website durning the redesign.  For a period of a couple of months, you may need to use PPC to boost site traffic until the SEO and organic results are "revived".  Also if your business is somewhat seasonal, you may want to boost sponsored spend during this time while optimizing your site for organic visibility.  If all goes well, once you enter your "slow-season", you can reduce sponsored spend and time it so that your organic rankings drive traffic to your site.

Step Four:  Revisit Your Keyword Baskets – for both SEO and PPC, you’ll want to visit your keyword groups and baskets on a regular basis.  Your target audience will not remain status quo with their searching habits.  Identifying the latest buzzwords that your audience is using is critical for obtaining qualified traffic to your site. 

SEO and PPC work nicely together when establishing an effective keyword strategy.  The key is to know when to empasize one over the other, or when to use when to support the other.  SEO is effective when focusing on long term keyword strategy.  PPC is effective when you need immediate traffic, together the two of them work to ensure that your site remains visible in the competitive online space that is the World Wide Web.

Over the past several months, in part due to increased economic pressures, we have seen an increase of importance placed on improving return on investment (ROI) from search-based activity, particularly from PPC campaigns. ROI attribution and measurement becomes especially important when justifying the cost of the online sponsored advertising and improving the return on advertising spend (ROAS). Here are some tips on improving your search performance and getting the best ROI possible.

1.      Know Your Analytics

This statement may seem fairly redundant, but all too often search marketers find themselves flying blind without proper analytics. Much of this article will focus on using analytics to optimize for ROI and knowing the limitations of your own analytics program is extremely important. Additionally, ensure that your ROI metrics are tied back to search-related key performance indicators (KPIs).

 ROI attribution can become more cumbersome in the business-to-business (B2B) market place as sales cycles can be extremely long as well as potential of the sale occurring offline. In cases such as this, ensuring lead sources can be captured into CRM systems can provide vital statistics to the health of your campaign. (Yes, pun intended) Several CRM programs, such as SalesForce and Oracle, offer integration with some of the leading Analytics software providers. Simple Access or Excel spreadsheets can also be used to tieback the sales, lead value, or other KPIs to your search activities.

 2.      Optimize Landing Page Performance

So you’ve paid for the click; what now? Your landing page and ad copy must work together to assist in the sale of your product and convince the user into taking your desired action and converting into a lead/sale. On average, you only have 8 seconds to reassure the prospect that you are what they are looking for and convince them to stick around.

 Landing page testing is incredibly important to the success of a paid search campaign and to improving ROI. With a landing page the simple combination of titles, copy, images, and call-to-action can make sweeping differences in the performance of the page. The difficult question is which combination? Unfortunately; other than best practices there is a limited supply of instructions and guidelines to assist search marketers in developing the perfect landing page, but there are testing tools that can help us along the way. Testing tools can range in abilities and cost, but one of the better landing page testing tools on the market is Google Website Optimizer. It is fairly intuitive, easy to implement, and provides clear results analysis, best part is that it’s FREE.

 Your landing pages are perhaps one of the most important factors influencing the ROAS for Paid Campaigns. Simple landing page testing can be an easy quick win for any paid search campaign.

 3.      Optimize Conversion Paths 

Conversion path optimization is the next important aspect of ROI optimization. We all know that attrition occurs at each stage of the conversion path, the key to optimizing ROI is mitigating the loss at these key stages.

 Many of the analytics tools on the market do offer conversion funnel analysis which will allow you to dive deeper into the ‘fall out’ that occurs at each stage in the process. The key objective in this analysis is to determine at which stage in the funnel you are getting the largest amount of abandonment. Once you know where the users are leaving the funnel, you can then focus in on the potential problems with that page; what barrier exists, hindering final conversion?

 Enquiro’s has used funnel analysis to optimize conversion funnels for its clients and has improved the conversion rates by up to 150%.

 4.      Leverage your SEO & SEM Together

Enquiro’s research has proven a significant branding advantage can be achieved by having a top paid ranking and top organic ranking above the fold. However, budgets can be saved by lowering paid ad exposure for those key phrases also occupying top organic position; allowing for more focus in other key opportunities.

 With your SEM campaign, you are able to quickly test the traffic volumes and conversion rates for many keywords as well as determine what the best messaging is for communicating with your market. This knowledge can then be applied to your SEO efforts to help mitigate the costs of PPC. Although organic rankings take time to take achieve, there is significant benefit the can be attained by gaining organic rankings for your top search phrases.

 Additionally, through landing page testing and ad testing, it’s possible to determine what messaging resonates with your target audience and which calls-to-actions are most effective.

 5.      Trim the Fat

We all have heard of the 80/20 rule, but in paid search campaigns it’s more like the 95/5 rule. Ninety-Five percent of your revenue will come from 5% of your keywords. Using your analytics and appropriately tagging your conversions to indicate, on the keyword-level, the source information can assist you in finding those 5% of the keywords and truly optimizing those ad groups. On the flipside this source can also indicate which keywords are simply driving up costs without producing results.

 This should not be confused with eliminating long-tail keywords because they simply have not collected significant click volumes, but more so, finding those head and torso keywords that are costing a lot of money without driving conversions. Don’t be afraid to lose the dead weight in your campaigns.

 6.      Use Testing Budgets

When looking at paid search campaigns, once you feel you have developed a winning formula, there is a hesitancy to not want to mess with it. I know this feeling all to well, if it’s not broken, don’t fix it; but the truth of the matter is, if you don’t break it once in a while innovation cannot occur. To work around the hesitancy of making changes for fear of losing ground or ROI, assign a certain percentage of your budget that can be used for testing. Depending on how risk adverse you are, will determine how much you will assign.

 Using a testing budget (in a separate campaign or even account) will allow you to perform keyword analysis, landing page testing, A/B ad copy testing, as well as experiment with different bidding strategies without affecting the performance of the main account. Once a winning strategy has been proven it can be migrated over to the main account to improve its performance overall.

 One important caveat about testing to remember: one experiment = one independent variable. That is to say only make one change at a time; otherwise you will have difficulty in attributing positive or negative results to the correct changes.

7.      Leverage Quality Score

Although I  normally encourage focus be placed on optimizing based on conversions, optimizing  on the basis of quality score has its advantages, there is nothing detrimental from using quality score to enhance your ROI. So what do I mean with that seeming contradiction in terms? Simple, look at the quality score suggestions and your campaign goals. Make the changes to your quality score that will not adversely affect your campaign. For example, using your ads to pre-qualify visitors may decrease your CTR; in turn negatively affecting the quality score. However, pre-qualifying visitors prior to their click will achieve a stronger Conversion rate, thereby increasing your ROI. Using keywords in the ad copy and landing page can boost the quality score without losing the pre-qualifying messaging.

 8.      Use Micro Conversions as an ROI Indicator

Sometimes it’s not always easy to attribute ROI to your paid search campaigns, in fact in most cases its down right difficult. There is hope, however, in using micro conversions. Micro conversions are those actions that a user will take on the path to conversion. For example sites using a demo can calculate the conversion rates from demos to leads to sales. It simply takes a bit of reverse engineering to the sales cycle and determining values.

 However, with appropriate analytics, you know the demo to lead ratio, the lead to sale ratio, and average sale amount; therefore using your average sale amount multiplied by your lead to sale ratio, gives you your value per lead, then simply multiply that once again by your demo to lead ratio and you’ve calculated your value per demo. The same can be applied for filling out a contact us form, engaging in an online chat with a sales person, adding to cart, product customization, etc. Micro Conversions can assist in determining the value of a paid visitor by the actions taken leading up to the offline sales process where tracking can be more difficult, impossible even.

This is the final installment of the 4-part series on key PPC best practices (PPC Best Practices Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3).

Speak Their Language

There has been constant debate as to what to use for keyword analysis with regards to long-tail versus head phrases and which yields the better results. Head phrases are the very generic and broad search queries where there is enormous search volume, but costs associated with the keywords are quite high. Torso keywords are the more-specific keywords; the 2- to 4-word search queries that still have lower search volume compared to the head phrases, but also tend to be cheaper. Long-tail keywords are the keyword phrases over 4 words where the costs tend to be minimal, but search volume is also sparse.

When doing keyword development, first look at the torso phrases and develop your keyword strategy using 2- to 4-word search queries to develop the keyword basket. Once you have the torso phrases, run the account and closely monitor the performance of the individual keywords down to your most granular KPI (ideally ROI or cost per conversion on the keyword level).

Once you know which keywords are driving highly-qualified traffic in the torso, it is then possible to look at the longer-tail keywords associated with the high converting torso phrases. Accounts with literally millions of keywords are not necessary when only a small percentage are actually working; spend where the ROI is made.

When developing your keyword basket, make sure you step into the mind of the searcher. Which keywords is your target market most likely to be using when searching for your product/service? Ensure you are not simply bidding on the marketing language you use internally, but also the language with which your market is most likely to initiate a search. (Hint: Talk to your sales department. They know the language your customers will be using.)

We recently took over a PPC campaign from a client doing it in-house and our first step was to look at the keywords. By refining the keywords based on user intention we decreased the Cost Per Click (CPC) by 23% and doubled the Click Through Rate (CTR). The conversion rate also increased substantially.

It is also possible to break out keywords by the Purchase Decision Process (PDP). By paying close attention to the keyword refinement process, it is possible to determine which keywords are being used at the beginning of the research phase, in the consideration and comparison phase and in the purchase intent phase of the PDP. By allocating these keywords into appropriate campaigns, you can then control the budgets associated with those keywords and effectively increase ROI, awareness, brand reach or whatever your PPC goals are.

Quality Score Is an Indicator, Not a Destination

There has been lots of debate around quality score and what it means to PPC advertisers. The long and short of a quality score is that it is designed to assist the customer. Google and Yahoo (with MSN just coming on board) have been using quality scoring to increase the quality of ads to improve the user experience. That being said, quality score should not be managed.

If you, as the advertiser, are looking to provide the consumer with the best experience possible (a good idea if you’re looking for conversions), then your quality score should naturally be good. A colleague of mine, Chris Davies, gave the perfect analogy for quality score: "It’s the ‘check engine’ light." If you have a poor quality score it serves as indication that it’s time to look under the hood and see what’s causing the issue. Look to your ad copy, landing pages and keywords, or reassign ad groups to adjust your quality score.

Ultimately, if you have a poor quality score and conversion rate is good and cost per conversion is good, then the few cents difference a better quality score can make is irrelevant.

Stop Measuring Cost Per Click; Start Measuring Cost Per Conversion

Ultimately, every change made to a PPC campaign should be to lower the cost per conversion. Therefore, don’t be afraid to bid aggressively on high-converting, high-quality, traffic-generating keywords and bid lower on the other 90% in your campaign if at the end of the day you are achieving the end goal.

Don’t Guess… Test

With a PPC campaign, testing is the campaign manager’s best friend. Testing is a constant, iterative process that must be followed to refine the effectiveness of your Search Engine Marketing (SEM) campaigns. Multivariate testing can be as complex as developing a multitude of landing pages and testing multiple aspects (such as images, titles and page copy, to name a few) or as simple as using versions of a landing page or ads in A/B tests and constantly refining the best performing versions.

The key with a testing strategy is to balance the size of the test with the size of the account. The larger the test, the longer the testing process needed to gain statistically-relevant data. No matter what the size of the test, budgeting the necessary time is as important as budgeting the media spend.

Don’t Get Punished for Bad Behavior

Behavioral targeting has become one of the more popular buzzwords in the industry and rightly so; after all, the better we can target our market the more effective our campaigns. Several options are available to better target our online market, including geo-targeting, day-parting and demographic targeting.

For example, geo-targeting can be used to communicate more efficiently with users in a particular region and better allocate your product offering. After all, selling snow shovels in Florida wouldn’t be particularly advantageous, whereas selling air conditioners would be.

Finally, it is possible to target based on demographics. This targeting is most effective when using a content network and using site targeting based on the demographics of the audience for a particular site. However, although the information is available through such tools as MSN’s Ad Intelligence, I would stay away from disqualifying keywords because they are not in line with your target market’s demographics.

For example, according to the US Census data, most HR managers tend to be female, yet in targeting this audience I would not disqualify the keyword "Human Resources Management" because the demographics are skewed towards men. One of the marketing basics that’s literally been engrained into all marketers is to advertise where your market is and one very effective behavioral targeting mechanism is the use of vertical engines in your paid search strategy.

Get Vertical

Vertical search engines are an effective method of lowering CPC and improving the overall quality of traffic. The quality of the searches with a vertical search engine also tends to be better due to the increased propensity for buyers to use vertical search engines later in the purchase decision process. This presents an opportunity for those with more limited budgets (and those with the budget, too) to more effectively spend online and generate higher ROI.

Vertical engines also offer the ability to access a much more targeted audience which will allow you to develop custom ad copy for the particular demographic. Although the traffic on vertical engines is no where near what it is on Google, Yahoo, or MSN, it is important not to discount these engines from any paid search strategy.  The ROAS that can be gained from advertising on vertical engines can far exceed what any mainstream engine can provide. The detriment to working on vertical engines are the differing revenue models ranging from CPC to fixed cost and the management nuances to be learned for each engine.

Of course there is a lot more to these best practices than the little snippets above, but those will be the subjects of future, more in-depth articles to come. For the continuation of this series, please visit PPC Best Practices Part 4.