Transcript Paid Search Advanced Techniques and Processes Alan Boughen Director, New York ‘The 11 Things Google Doesn’t Want You to Know’

Paid Search Advanced Techniques and Processes
Alan Boughen
Director, New York
‘The 11 Things Google Doesn’t
Want You to Know’
Campaign Optimization
1. Throttle Up Early
• In the first few days / weeks of a new
campaign bid as high as you can
– Bid high enough to put your keywords into the top
positions
– The top positions will achieve the best CTRs
• Once CTR history has been established drop
bids to sustainable levels
– Because Google’s ranking algorithm takes CTR
into account, the historically high CTR means you
will now be paying less for higher positions
Case Study: Throttling Up Late
12000
Clicks
$2.00
$1.80
$1.60
$1.40
$1.20
$1.00
$0.80
$0.60
$0.40
$0.20
$-
CPC
10000
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2000
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/2
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0
CPC throttled up 2
weeks into campaign
Within 4 days CPCs can be
reduced to optimal level but
clicks have more than
doubled
2. Integrate With Other Media Channels
• Match the flight dates of search campaigns to other
online and offline media campaigns
– Especially TV
• Ensure daily budget caps are set sufficiently high to
capture the additional search volume generated
• Consider fully integrated ‘drive to search’ campaigns
such as Google: Pontiac and The Apprentice / Yahoo
– Beware of guerilla marketers who may seek to hijack the
traffic generated (e.g. Mazda in the Google: Pontiac
example)
Case Study: Integrating Search with TV
Measuring Demand Generated from Television Advertising
350%
AFC Season Finale Game
Kansas City 37, Cincinnati 3
"keyword" up 78%
AFC Wildcard Playoff
Pittsburgh 31, Cincinnati 17
"keyword" up 134%
AFC Divisional Playoffs
Denver 27, New England 13
"keyword" up 134%
24, Season Premier
Palmer Assassinated
Day-After Queries Even
24, Episode Two
Evidence Destroyed
Day-After Queries up 16%
AFC Championship Game
Pittsburgh 34, Denver 17
"keyword" up 217%
300%
250%
200%
150%
Baseline:
Dec. 12 – 18
100%
50%
0%
12/12/2005
12/19/2005
12/26/2005
1/2/2006
1/9/2006
1/16/2006
1/23/2006
Chart: Daily volume of Google.com searches on “keyword” originating from the US
1/30/2006
3. Utilize Bid Management Software
• Remove bid gaps on Yahoo
– Use the software to implement bid jamming rules
• Forces competing advertisers to pay premium CPCs
• Eventually causes the bid landscape to normalize
– This tactic will work until Yahoo changes their ranking
algorithm when Panama rolls out in Q1 ‘07
• Manage to the appropriate goal
– ROI / ROAS / CPA / CPO (you should always shoot for one
of these)
– Position
– Max. bid / Avg. CPC
• If you can’t use a tool then at least run a modeling
exercise to establish an allowable CPC
BPSuccessZone forces Revatio to pay $46.00
CPC while it only pays $0.76 for “Hypertension
Management”
1. Pulmonary Hypertension Medication
Get information on a treatment for PAH.
revatio.com
(Advertiser's Max Bid: $46.00)
2. Manage Your Hypertension
Request free information about the BP Success Zone program.
bpsuccesszone.com
(Advertiser's Max Bid: $45.99)
3. Natural Remedy for Hypertension
All natural Hyperexol™ is guaranteed to drop blood pressure 30 points in 30 days or it's free.
Clinically proven to work without side effects and backed by a 1 year money back
guarantee.
www.techmedica.com
(Advertiser's Max Bid: $0.75)
4. All-Natural High Blood Pressure Support
Proprietary blend effectively reduces blood cholesterol levels, strengthens heart muscles,
reduces tension, rejuvenates the nerves, & purifies the blood. Guaranteed results. Secure
ordering.
www.alternative-medicines.com
(Advertiser's Max Bid: $0.55)
5. Remedymd
Remedymd is a full-service provider of intelligent software solutions for physicians and their
patients. Our web-based products include Cardioemr, Outcometrack, and myhealthmanager.
www.remedymd.com
(Advertiser's Max Bid: $0.35)
Case Study: Lowering CPC’s By Finding Bid Gaps
Clicks
Our Cost
Their Cost
$700.00
$600.00
14
Competitor paid
$46.00 CPC
12
$500.00
10
$400.00
8
$300.00
6
$200.00
4
$100.00
We paid
$0.76 CPC
3/
29
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$-
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• For select terms, we
discovered large gaps in the
bid landscape between 1st
and 2nd position
• We dropped bids to 2nd
position, saving our client
money and forcing the
competitor in 1st position to
pay a premium for top spot
• In one case, we dropped our
client’s quarterly avg. CPC
by more than 50%
• In another case (left), we
only paid $0.76 CPC while
forcing the top bidder to pay
their full max bid price of
$46.00, a 5000% premium
4. Budgeting
• Cascade budgets
– Break out best performing / high priority terms into sub-campaigns
and ensure they receive the lion’s share of the budget
– Quarantine high volume / lower relevance keywords into their own
sub-campaign and ration their spend
• Break out separate budgets for CPA, Branding and Test
– Makes measurement easier
• Use the throttling tools appropriately
– Default is to spread impressions out evenly over the campaign flight
dates
– In some cases may be desirable to spend at 100% until budget is
exhausted (e.g. product launch / PR)
5. Keywords
• Use negative keywords to screen out
undesirable impressions
– e.g. When promoting the new ‘davinci’ chip from
Texas Instruments negative keywords such as
‘code’ and ‘leonardo’ were used
• Map keywords to the purchase funnel and
adjust creative according to the user’s intent
• Expand keyword lists to tap into the ‘long tail’
– Lower CPCs and higher propensity to convert
Map Keywords to the Purchase Funnel
Keywords
RESEARCH / ENGAGEMENT
CONSIDERATION/
COMPARISON
PURCHASE
digital cameras
buying a digital camera
digital camera reviews
Canon camera reviews
Canon s500 review
Canon s500 sale
Canon s500 in stock
Map Creative to the Purchase Funnel
Stages of the Buying Cycle
Search
Example
Keywords:
Example
Creative:
Awareness
Business
printing
Interest
Varieties of
Laser printers
Consider
Laser printing
comparison
Purchase
HP LaserJet
Printer
6. Creative Best Practices
• Run multiple creatives and track them back to conversions
– 3-5 creative versions per ad group is optimal
– Can also test multiple landing pages using creative rotation
– Be careful not to test too many variables simultaneously or you
won’t learn anything!
• Screen out the prospects you don’t want by using pre-qualifying
language in the copy
– e.g. ‘Buy Season Passes for Six Flags’ to dissuade users looking
for day tickets from clicking
• Make sure the keyword is in the headline
– Use dynamic keyword insertion
• If you are a brand name advertiser bidding against affiliates then
ensure you mention ‘Official Site’ somewhere in the copy
7. Day-Parting
• Analyze results to look at which days of the
week and times of the day achieve the best
conversion rate / CPA
• Use a bid management tool or site provided
day-parting tools to target your campaign
towards the best performing day parts
– Exclude or bid lower during the low-performing
day parts
– Heavy up during the high-performing day parts
Maximizing Reach
8. Use Psychographic Targeting
• Build out content only ad groups using non-search
keywords
– Use psychographic targeting information from your media
campaign to identify affinity keywords
• e.g. ‘best golf courses’, ‘fine wine’ for a financial services
advertiser targeting high net worth investors
– Run these ad groups in content only – opt out of search
distribution
• Do the same thing with Google site targeting
– Select channels which fit with the psychographic / affinity
targets identified, not just the obviously relevant channels
9. There Is More Than Just Google
• Consider running with the other players
–
–
–
–
–
Tier 1 :Yahoo, MSN
Tier 2: Ask
Vertical: Business.com
Contextual: Kanoodle, Industry Brains
Pay Per Call: Ingenio
• Consider Yahoo paid inclusion
• Consider shopping feeds / price comparison engines
Miscellaneous
10. Competitive Intelligence
• Search for your power keywords and look at your competitors
ads
– Monitor the positions they are in at different times of day
– If they disappear later in the day this is evidence of exhausted daily
budgets – may present opportunities to heavy up later in the day
and maximize on their lack of presence
– Look at the creative and offers used in the top ads and emulate
them
• Ask sales reps for industry benchmarks
– Will give you an idea of how your campaign stacks up against an
anonymous basket of your competitors (spend, clicks, CTR, CPC)
• Figure out the keywords your competitors are using
– ComScore qSearch
– Googspy.com
11. Protect Yourself From Invalid Clicks
• Track and optimize everything to conversion
• Look for spikes and report unusual activity to the
engines, especially if running in search and content
syndication
• Avoid geo-targeting the whole world
– Establish separate sub-campaigns for each country you wish
to target
• Beware of some of the smaller PPC engines
– They tend to have less stringent detection and prevention
methodologies than the larger engines
• Don’t panic – its not as bad as the scare stories
would have you believe!
Additional Resources
• Search Engine Watch
– www.searchenginewatch.com
• Google AdWords Learning Center
– www.google.com/adwords/learningcenter
• Google – The Maximum Effect
– www.google.com/ads/library/maximimum_effect_dec03.pdf
• Search Engine Marketing Inc.
– Bill Hunt, Mike Moran
• Various blogs, forums and helpful sites
– www.sempo.org/learning_center/resources
About NeoSearch@Ogilvy
• NeoSearch@Ogilvy is the specialist Search Marketing division
of Neo@Ogilvy, the digital and direct response media arm of
OgilvyOne Worldwide
• NeoSearch@Ogilvy has been running Search Engine Marketing
(SEM) campaigns for our clients since 1999. 30 search
marketing professionals are based in the New York office
• Specialists in both Organic and Paid search
• Fully integrated with Ogilvy, incorporating Search Marketing into
360 Brand Stewardship® and Customer Ownership™
• Strong relationships with major search partners
– Member of agency advisory boards for Google, Yahoo, MSN and
Ingenio
– Google Advertising Professionals Qualified Company
• Senior team with 5+ years experience in the search space
– Tremendous legacy in demand generation, ROI and optimization
Thank you
Alan Boughen
Director, New York
[email protected]