5 Reasons SEM Agencies Should Do Social and SEO

I'll admit it; I was wrong when I thought that social media was a stretch for SEM and SEO agencies and that a separate set of agencies would be required to fully tap the social media marketing opportunity for advertisers and marketers. And I was wrong when I assumed that marketers for whom PPC search was critically important would turn to boutique specialist agencies that excelled in PPC search either exclusively or primarily, not one-stop shops. After reevaluating both my decision-making process over the last decade with regard to focus, and by talking with clients, prospects, and fellow folks in the industry, I've become convinced that the benefits of a unified approach to search and social marketing handled through a team with high levels of communication with each other is superior to a fragmented approach.

What was my response after a reevaluation of the landscape that suggested a significant strategy change? I bought an agency that put me back into the one-stop shop business. But let's look at you and your strategies and how you should approach the tasks of resource and budget allocations across paid and organic search as well as social media.

Much of my earlier decision process supporting the boutique model was based on the behavior of IT departments at enterprise clients and the way mid-size marketers decided who should "own" the website (generally IT). IT departments 10 or 15 years ago were far more likely to have resisted the necessary changes to a content management system (CMS) or e-commerce site based on SEO recommendations.

However, in the last 10 years (when I made the decision to double-down on PPC search and make SEO more of a hobby), many IT teams finally learned that SEO is a necessary part of having an online presence. From 1996 through 2002, my recollection is that when we put together SEO priority lists and itemized the SEO initiatives that would be required in order for clients to reach their potential in the vast majority of instances, months would pass and progress of SEO would be slowed due to IT teams dragging their feet. That still happens to some extent, but far less frequently. In addition, Google and Bing rely more heavily on external ranking factors to break a tie between two sites, both of whom have great, relevant content.

That brings us to social media. It turns out that the evolution of social media advertising and earned social media (as some people call it) has several factors that make the expertise of the SEM and SEO agency and team relevant to social media. Regardless of whether or not the search engines are using social media signals in their ranking formulas (many people believe that it's already happening, if not imminent), earned social media is clearly a catalyst for coverage in the blogs and press, much of which includes links and citations. There's the SEO to social media link.

So, the first reason a holistic digital marketing agency with strong competence in SEM should be running social and SEO is:

Social media supports SEO. You need good social activity to maintain buzz and get links.The lines between earned media social and paid media social are blurring. Facebook's Sponsored Stories ads work best when the brand has interesting things to say and is well-known within the social media ecosystem. So, paid social media advertising is more efficient when the social media strategy and tactics are coordinated with teams that are in regular communications.Attribution. I barely need to say more. Brands that also invest in early buy funnel (that outdated yet very useful concept) marketing communications get more mileage out of social media and SEM campaigns even with last-click attribution. When digital "marcom" is handled either by a single team with access to all the data on paid and earned media social and search (including SEO), or information is shared freely, the results are better. Access to the full spectrum of marketing data allows for both experimentation and modeling, taking us one step closer to a marketing mix model (including earned social and SEO).Targeting and audiences. SEM folks understand targeting and the various forms that targeting can take (beyond the keyword). An SEM team understands and can appreciate the differences between search and social media audience targeting and how best to combine targeting options.Convenience. This seems like a trivial reason, but I've heard it far too many times from client-side marketing departments not to mention it. When a client-side marketer has only eight to 15 hours a day to work every repeated conversation about campaigns and their effectiveness, it slows that marketer down from taking on meaningful projects.

So, after having been a stubborn believer in the "boutique agencies rock" as the only solution for 10 years, I've decided that if a marketer can find an agency that is great at the most important channel and competent in the other important supporting areas of online marketing, then indeed the one-stop shop can be the right decision. Agencies that are great in a couple of areas often end up acting as general contractors themselves, farming out the tactical work to freelancers or other agencies. The client gets a single point of contact and responsibility. The alternative of hiring best-in-class boutiques and project managing those is clearly an option, but requires a commitment from the marketer to staff the internal teams appropriately.

SEO Social image on home page via Shutterstock.

This column was originally published on Aug. 31, 2012.

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5 Ways You Pay More for Google Clicks

The transition to Google Enhanced Campaigns - where you'll be bidding for tablet clicks combined with desktop/laptop clicks - will result in inflationary trends in billed CPCs for many advertisers. However, the advent of Enhanced Campaigns is just one of five reasons you might be paying more for clicks than you could otherwise be paying.

Before I delve into the additional four reasons, let's spend some time on Enhanced Campaigns because this topic is currently on marketers' minds.

Enhanced Campaigns' Influence on CPC Inflation

The strategic decision as to whether or not to accept a blended average conversion rate and/or influence/micro-conversions across the mixed stream of clicks as your basis for bids will often have to do with the elasticity of the marketplace. For example, let's assume that your CMO has asked you to manage campaigns based on conversion rates and ROI with a combination of attribution and last click. Assume you've calculated that tablet clicks are worth 80 percent of desktop/laptop clicks (after having optimized your site for tablets including Flash removal). Also assume that 20 percent of clicks come in from tablets when you are bidding the same cost-per-click (CPC) under Enhanced Campaigns.

So, one would expect that the calculated reserve price on your blended clicks would drop by approximately 4 percent (20 percent of 20 percent). Keep in mind that if that 4 percent bid reduction results in an average positional change, then the loss in volume of clicks may not be worth the tradeoff. If your competition responds by lowering bids as well, one could expect a positional status quo (complicated slightly by differences in Quality Score). In the end you'll have to make your own ROI-to-volume analysis and judge the elasticity of the marketplace for your keywords. My guess is that many advertisers will simply "suck it up" and take a hit on measurable ROI in order to maintain click volume. As you move campaigns over to the Enhanced Campaign structure you'll be able to run tests to determine the best strategy.

However, Google's Enhanced Campaigns and general competitive pressures are not the only CPC inflation causes. In the remainder of this column, I'd like to discuss a few others you may not have thought of.

Geographic mix. While you may have remembered to opt out of surrounding countries or geographies when setting up your campaign, perhaps you've forgotten, or perhaps you've inherited your campaign from someone else. Getting the geographic mix right goes beyond, for example, removing Canada from the default campaign setup for a North American Google campaign. One of the positive outcomes from Enhanced Campaigns in Google (not live yet as of this writing, but announced) is the ability to do negative geographic bid modifiers. My team and I have spent hundreds of hours and filled terabytes of data warehouse space to crunch client data alongside IRS, Census, and third-party data sources on geography and demographics. One can adopt quite a sophisticated positive or negative geographic bidding strategy even if mobile isn't a big deal for you yet.

Don't pay for clicks from the wrong audience and make sure you bid aggressively for your perfect audience.

Google Grants. Ever see a non-profit in the SERP near your ads? Well those ads might be paid for by a Google Grant of in-kind advertising funds. It's great that Google supports non-profits, but those bids escalate your bid prices and potentially even knock you down a position. This is quite an interesting side effect of Google's grant program that may almost pay for the program due to increased bids all the way up the chain in the SERP. Medical and pharmaceutical advertisers are in an industry category more likely to see competitive bidding from a non-profit running a Google Grant.

Session-based broad match. In order to adequately cover all eventualities, even the tightest Google AdWords campaign requires some use of broad match. Unfortunately a byproduct of broad match is session-based broad match clicks. You used to be able to see them listed separately when running a keyword detail report, but a recent test shows session-based clicks simply labeled as "broad match."

Affiliates, competitors, or brand bidders flying under the radar. Just because you can't see an ad in the SERP doesn't mean it's not running. Affiliates, competitors, and channel partners that you have explicitly requested or contractually prohibited from brand bidding often use elements of day-parting and geo-targeting to jump in when you are unlikely to see them bidding.

Some of the above click inflation issues can be mitigated within Google. But don't forget Bing adCenter. The Bing/Yahoo partnership and other syndication partners are big enough that you should start paying attention to campaign performance there as well.

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6 Reasons Search Clicks Rock!

 

If you're reading my columns, you probably rely on search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO) heavily in your overall online marketing plan. Despite the occasional bout with invalid bot clicks, traffic from the search engine results pages (SERPs) has always been the kind of traffic we love and lust after. Hey, I buy display media (particularly behavioral) and love an "earned media" campaign that's kicking ass within social as much as anyone. But for steady, high-value clicks, nothing rocks like pay-per-click (PPC) search and SEO clicks. Not that we need a pep rally, but other media is being portrayed as sexy and is getting the attention of marketing departments and distracting agencies with "shiny object syndrome." So, here's my list of six reasons why search clicks rock:

The humans doing the clicking wanted to click. As a matter of fact, banner click intent was recently measured to be missing in approximately half of banner clicks. The study was conducted and reported by Ted McConnell, VP at the Advertising Research Foundation (and an online industry veteran). The study authors indicated that "Half the clickers told us they were curious, the other half admitted to a mistaken click." In search, we get some mistaken clicks, but I'm confident we don't have a 50 percent mistaken click rate (now, I'm sure Ted will spend another $480 to prove me wrong).Search engines filter bots. The search engines are still imperfect at filtering bots because perfection is impossible, but Google and the rest have had well over a decade to learn how to filter bots. Recently Facebook was again accused of being lax in policing bot activity (a previous lawsuit on invalid clicks is still pending, I believe). This is a fresh complaint.

For most publishers, some if not all of the bot clicks still make it through to your site, but the current consensus is that the search engines do a good job of filtering out invalid clicks for billing purposes. Opinions clearly differ regarding Facebook. Many years ago I served on an IAB working group/committee that strove to define valid clicks (therefore also helping define an invalid click) and the search engines were active participants in that group. Despite conspiracy theories to the contrary, I believe that the search engines wanted to retain a level of trust in their click auctions to keep cost-per-clicks (CPCs) high and marketers interested.Signal and intent. Nothing signals intent better than search. Other forms of media are intrusive or clicks are serendipitous (your friend just announced her purchasing of an iPad via a social media platform and you decided it's time to buy one too). Search clicks are loaded with intent.We get to control the level of intent in the search clicks. Think of all the great ways we can tune intent with keyword match types and negative keywords. We can't perfectly impute buying intent based on "early funnel" vs. "lower funnel" keywords, but we still have amazing control. That control allows us to build landing pages that more accurately address the needs of the visitor. A banner click? Who can guess their intent, even if they clicked on purpose?We can control audience with PPC search. Sure, adCenter still lets you bid boost by age and gender, but Google and Microsoft both let us target based on geography and daypart. Those are great proxies for your audience in ways you probably haven't fully imagined nor taken advantage of. My team and I have been doing some fun work in the area of audience tuning within PPC search, beyond the obvious.Frequency capping is automatic. Display and even PPC social suffers from a lack of easy frequency control, particularly for large campaigns trafficked to larger publishers and ad networks. Sure, a searcher might see your ad more than once, or even click on it more than once, but the search is usually a new one (change in intent), and one certainly wouldn't expect searchers to engage with our listings in a SERP dozens of times a month the same way you see an ad dozens of times a month.

One more bonus reason came to light as I was penning this column. The Wall Street Journal reported that "The Federal Trade Commission is expected to announce Wednesday new rules that close loopholes that currently allow companies to gather information despite a 1998 law that was supposed to protect kids' online footprint." Well, as long as you are following the original COPPA guidelines, it's unlikely these changes will have an impact on search. We expect searchers to search anonymously and when they become customers, we can address regulatory concerns at that time.

I hope you remain as excited about search engine marketing today as I am. The opportunities to refine and improve campaigns are still there. Sure, check out the latest shiny objects, because you never know, one might be the killer app; but stay true to search engine marketing. It may not be as sexy as the new stuff to everyone, but we know and understand the elegance and power SEM holds. Search clicks rock!

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This column was originally published on August 3, 2012.

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6 Ways to Survive a PPC Budget Sequestration

Just like U.S. government agencies, you may find yourself with a sudden unexpected budget cut; a "sequestration," if you want to use a topical reference.

However, before I get into the strategic and tactical response to an arbitrary PPC budget cut, I think it's important to say that as digital marketers we must understand the increasing role that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will be playing in regulating the digital marketing ecosystem. I'm referring not only to "online" as we define it now, but also to apps, mobile, interactive TV, digital radio, online video, and social media. Just this past week, the FTC voiced its concern that marketing messages on social media and mobile devices are not properly disclosed to consumers. Retrofitting social media platforms to conform to the FTC's recommendations may be quite challenging and it will be interesting to see how the industry handles placement of "disclosure on all devices that consumers may use to view the ad." It's likely that search will be revisited at some point in the future as well.

Now back to PPC budget cuts. Sometimes the boss wants to cut your PPC budget even though you feel like your budget should actually be going up. As search marketers it's not unusual for us to have data that proves that we are buying revenues and profit at a positive cash flow (after some lifetime value calculation or even immediately). That data should be a shield against budget cuts because you are essentially buying revenue and customers for the company profitably. However, despite the data, the "bean counters" may not agree with you about increased budgets and instead reduce your PPC search budget.

Below are six ways that you can survive a PPC budget sequestration.

Dayparting/DOW scheduling. How much less are clicks worth to you during different times of the day? How about days of the week? You have two options. If the click value is considerably lower due to conversation rate, changes in shopping cart size, value of leads generated, or even better predicted lifetime customer value, then you can either lower bids proportionately to the change in value or you can pause the campaigns completely. I recommend changing bid multipliers because it's often the case that certain keywords and ad groups will still have a positive value, even during the "worst" times of day and/or days of the week.Marginal keywords. Each keyword has a marginal profitability value. The first keywords to cut back on (either through reduced bids or by pausing) are the ones that are the marginal performers. However, keep in mind that some of these keywords are often attracting searchers who later direct navigate or come in on brand search terms. So, while you are continuing to harvest existing demand, you won't be using search to create additional demand or change preferences in the later stages of a consumer's decision-making process.Negative geographies. Did you know that you can set negative geographies? You can essentially opt out of certain geographies, even in the pre-enhanced Google AdWords platform. But with bid modifiers (or bid vectors), you'll have an opportunity to depress bids in geographies that do poorly. Of course, when your budget returns you should be using the same process to raise bids on important keywords in the geographies that do best.Cut smartphone spend if you're a pure-play online company. Recent data indicates that a high percentage of mobile searchers actually take a positive behavior as a result of their mobile search session. But if your success metrics are purely online conversion, then you may want to cut your smartphone mobile spend.Make sure you have your engine mix right. It's amazing how many search marketers I talk to are not advertising in Bing adCenter. For this reason, there are often opportunities for good ROI in that engine. You need to be in Bing in the U.S. and you can take your lower ROI keywords in Google and lower bids, investing the savings in your best keywords in Bing.Hope that your investments start yielding fruit. SEO and social media investments take time to yield fruit. I include this to make the point that a well-rounded search engine marketing strategy includes SEO, and an SEO strategy includes social media that can deliver links. If you haven't been investing in SEO, then when your budget returns take a fresh look at your SEO and social media strategy.

The above tactics and strategies work just as well in reverse and apply quite well when you get additional budget instead of a budget cut, allowing you to properly evaluate new opportunities. Let's hope the economic recovery stays strong, decreasing the likelihood that you'll have to weather a PPC budget sequestration.

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AdWords Enhanced Campaigns: New Campaign Checklist

Getting ready to start on fresh campaigns in AdWords? This checklist takes Google AdWords' new Enhanced Campaigns changes into consideration. A good place to start for beginners and some are nice reminders for the "regulars."

1. Ensure each campaign has clear goals. PPC accomplishes a number of goals; how we reach the goals (conversions) defines the success - i.e., how many sales, leads generated, brochures downloaded, event registration, etc. Many advertisers have several goals in one account. This will determine the networks targeted, the type of keywords, ad copy, and many other campaign components. A branding goal is very different from a sales goal, so the approach to the account is determined by its goal. For ideas to help with goal setting, look here.

2. Choose your networks. Want to advertise in search, display, YouTube video, or a combination of them all? Review your goals and determine the best way to accomplish them via the available networks. For conversion goals, the search network is the strongest channel, while the display network is branding winner.

3. Consider multi-screen and mobile devices. In new Enhanced Campaigns, ads will show on all types of devices by default. Here on ClickZ, Kevin Lee wrote about switching to Enhanced Campaigns and considerations in doing so. Are mobile and tablet users visiting your site and converting? Tablet users will be included in desktop targeting, so it will be important to research and test this segment to optimize accordingly. Mobile will be a bit different because of the limited capabilities of the smaller screen. If mobile is not right for you right now, you can "opt out" of mobile by setting bid adjustment to -100 percent in the settings tab under devices.

4. Best budget. You can estimate traffic and CPCs in the Traffic Estimator tool. Simply enter in your keywords and AdWords will estimate the average cost-per-click (CPC), number of clicks, and cost-per-day. This isn't guaranteed or the final word, but this data can be used directionally to determine a budget.

5. Ad extensions. There are a variety of ad extensions that help to pump up your results with "extras" such as additional links, phone numbers, product, social with Google+, etc. If you are not sure which extension is appropriate or how they can help, opt out when first starting out and add to the to-do list to research them. You can always add them in later.

6. Messaging for ads. Match up the messaging to meet your goals. What are the key features and benefits? How does your offering solve a problem? Consider how the keywords will be incorporated into the messaging, from a technical standpoint, branding, and goal meeting. Mobile ad preference can be selected in the upgraded campaigns so that mobile-optimized text ads and extensions are given preference on mobile devices. This enables you to customize ad texts with mobile-specific messaging, specials or discounts, mobile display URL, and landing page. For more technical details and creative, read about PPC ad fundamentals here.

7. Landing page strategy. The most overlooked of the checkpoints for new PPC campaigns is the landing page. If you can drive prospective customers to your site, but they don't convert because of a poor landing page, you will be very disappointed. Besides the best practices, there are a few new considerations as they relate to the Enhanced Campaigns. In the new Enhanced Campaigns, tablet users will be going to the same landing pages as desktop users so it will be critical to optimize for both platforms. For mobile users, since it's possible to specify a mobile ad preference, it's possible to denote a mobile landing page. This may require tweaks to accommodate tablets or possibly a different strategy for mobile ads.

8. Bidding options. A great way to control costs and ROI is to increase/decrease bids based on what is performing better in the AdWords account. The new Enhanced Campaigns allow you to bid more or less (by percentage )than your max CPC based on criteria like location, device, and ad scheduling. If you are not sure, leave this setting for later, watch performance for test period, and then adjust based on results.

There are so many considerations in a new AdWords campaign, and now it has become even more complicated with the release of the Enhanced Campaigns. It can be easy to forget to plan for some of the new changes, especially where mobile is concerned. Share what your checklist looks like in the comments.

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Applying Big Data Insights to Ad Copy Strategy: Travel Edition

From agencies and big brands to small businesses, the art of ad copy and messaging can take years to learn, let alone master.

What makes an ad engaging or compelling? What combinations of messages drive the best performance and quality? These are questions Bing Ads recently tackled in a study of over 250,000 unique ads from the travel industry with more than 300 million ad impressions, in a 30-day period. Here are two interesting insights you might apply to your next ad copy review:

The combination of the price points and percent off in ad copy had the strongest overall ad quality out of the 23 ad copy variables identified.Ads that included at least one of the 23 ad copy variables (see below) in either the ad title or the ad description scored 110 percent higher in ad quality vs. ads that did not include these variables.

Research on the Best Messaging Combinations and Where to Use Them

For insights on how to improve ad quality and engagement, I spoke with Bing Ads Research Analyst Vivian Li, a PhD in Industrial Engineering who works to solve big data problems.

She analyzed all ads on the Yahoo Bing Network with at least five impressions serving on non-brand keywords in the travel vertical for a 30-day period. This surfaced 23 common keyword variables within the ad titles and ad descriptions, which appeared in nearly 70 percent of the 250,000 unique ads. She then measured the ad quality of these variables when used in various combinations.

Her conclusion is that "ads with any of these 23 variables in their title or description have a higher quality on average. For example, ads using variables in both the title and description scored an average of 110 percent higher in ad quality compared to ads that did not include them. Using the variables only in the title still provided an average lift of 75 percent and, if the variable was only used in the description, there was a 44 percent improvement on average."

And she mentioned, "Including Sitelinks in an ad served in the main line improved the likelihood of getting a click by nearly four times."

Top Performing Messaging Combination Across Travel Sub-Verticals

The study also showed the best keyword variable combinations varied depending on the sub-vertical. Ad copy strategies that performed for cruises were different than ones that worked for hotels. Here is a breakdown of the top combinations across the top five travel sub-verticals.

 

When you look at over 250,000 ads serving over 300 million impressions in just 30 days, you'll come away with a few insights. Remember, even if the combination of the price points and percent off variables has the strongest overall ad quality, it has to align with your brand and offering. Using that combination may not help your campaigns, so always make sure these learnings connect to your overall business strategy.

The application goes beyond search marketing, and I hope it starts a conversation about your messaging strategy. Have you experimented with price points and sale variables in your ad copy? We'd love to hear your experiences, so comment below.

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As the Buy Funnel Evolves, Here Are 4 SEM Metrics You Should Consider

Admit it. You are a slave to your SEM direct response metrics, even when you use attribution models or assign an "assist" value within search - or across search and other digital media. However, an exclusive focus on direct response metrics may cause you to miss out on opportunities to invest in your business for the long term. As a savvy search engine marketer, you likely deserve access to branding budgets - not just direct response money. But if you're not factoring in SEM's ability to generate awareness and influence eventual purchase behavior, your chances of gaining access to these budgets is slim.

Most advertising dollars outside of search engine advertising are used to generate awareness and change brand preference at the product, retailer, or service provider level. Many folks call the metrics used to drive awareness and preference "branding metrics." In the old-school way of thinking about the buying funnel we have:

Awareness. In some cases advertising is as much about awareness of a problem as it is about awareness of a specific brand. Pharmaceutical advertising, for example, often educates consumers that there is a fix for a problem they are living with.Familiarity/opinion (not always used or measured as a stage). This stage describes the fact that there is a recall of a brand or company in relation to a specific industry category, product category, problem, or solution.Consideration (sometimes called refinement). Only a few make it into the consideration set. Search can play a major role in assuring inclusion in the consideration set.Preference (brand, store, or service provider). At some point, the decision as to preference is made. This can be very proximal to the sale, and in retail can occur at the store (physical or virtual/online).Purchase.Loyalty (not applicable in every business, but applicable in most).

Google Analytics even has a "Goal Funnel Visualization" tool that assists you in understanding the portions of behavior that occur on your site. However, we know that lots of touch points the consumer has with your company and brand occur outside of your site, including the web, social media, the regular press, the online press/blogosphere, retail stores, the SERP, and any other place where your brand could be mentioned.

Clearly, the old-school marketing funnel has evolved over time. Recent changes have included the addition of feedback loops to illustrate any repeat purchase behavior that might occur at the brand, retailer, or service provider level. For example, McKinsey published a report titled, "The consumer decision journey," in which the company used an illustration of the consumer decision-making process as a "circular journey with four phases." The reality is that when one thinks about search engine marketing, online marketing, and marketing more broadly, one can still use the existing funnel but add the concepts of trigger events and the concepts of influencers. Sometimes the two can be one and the same. Triggers are critical because they are the catalyst that gets consumers off their butts and into buying mode.

The explosion of social media that has made more visible the phenomenon of influencers is causing a wave of research, testing, and strategy around the value and role of influencers in the purchase decision process. Searchers don't search in a vacuum: something triggers that search and that's why the search behavior lines up really well with the trigger event used in the newfangled marketing funnels and marketing ovals.

To succeed long term in search, it's helpful to not only use the new way of thinking about the purchase decision process and a more advanced funnel paradigm, but also to add success metrics to our SEM campaigns that reflect the reality of how consumers buy and make purchase decisions.

Even for the best performing sites, the vast majority of visitors don't convert using your sales or lead-gen metrics and KPIs. This means you need to serve the needs of the early stage researcher and visitor. Since you've set yourself up to do that, it makes perfect sense to allocate some branding dollars to the SEM campaigns.

Consider these four metrics:

Pages per click: How many pages of your site do visitors see after visiting and how do these change based on keyword, time of day, day of week, geography, and any other targeting variables at your disposal? Make sure that your site is informational and serves the needs of those visitors in the early stages of the decision-making process. The more engaging your site, the more pages per visitor and therefore pages per click you'll get.Cost per page view: Once you know how many pages the visitors are consuming, you can also factor in the cost of the visitor from search (or, for that matter, other paid media).Cost per touch point: Visitors are registering using good old-fashioned email, and increasingly they are liking, following, and engaging with you via social media.Cost per influence point: Not all social media followers are equal. The tools that can assign influencer value are just starting to evolve. Klout and Kred are just two of them and my team actually has an influence score we are working on that is node specific (not everyone is influential in every subject).

If you are only managing search to direct response metrics but have long-term P&L responsibility - and even if you don't - perhaps it's time to help your customers move down the funnel, regardless of what shape it is.

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