Search Marketing ROI

So one of the things I think is really missing from the iPhone is the ability to cut and paste text, urls, etc.

And nowhere is this more evident than when I want to use this cool new wordpress for iPhone app. Just when I had visions of being able to edit my blog remotely…I can’t even add some anchor text and a link to this entry.

Maybe I can add a random photo though…

This is for all our search marketing firm and ad agency friends. I’ve used this tool before to train in-house staff, but never in a client meeting covering search marketing bid management. I have to say it is definitely the best tool to explain to clients how bid management work. It visually shows what happens to impressions, clicks, and position when budget, targeting, keywords, bids/CPC are adjusted up or down using a “slider”.

https://adwords.google.com/select/sliderprimer/Overview

Technorati Profile

So we’ve been talking to our clients for about a year now about a what we call Proactive Reputation Management (PRM), and even built out a consulting practice around it. Here are the main 4 components of Proactive Reputation Management (PRM):  Read the rest

The Google Content Network consists of many, many sites that display Google Adwords ads in return for a cut of the revenue. It is basically no different from the scores of other networks out there. Except its HUGE. Easier to plan for. And you can buy inventory on a cost per click (CPC) basis.

In the past, the Content Network was a GREAT way to waste lots of money, as it was only purchased on a CPM (cost per 1000 impressions) basis, and you had many more limitations about which sites you could exclude or cherry-pick.  That’s all changed, however, and a number of our clients are getting good results on the Content Network.

Read the rest

According to comScore, Americans conducted 11.5 billion searches in June through the Big 5 search engines (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, and Ask) representing a 7-percent increase versus May.

Searches on the Engines Themselves: Google has continued to increase its dominanace month over month, with more than 7 billion core searches (up 6 percent from May), distantly followed by Yahoo! Sites with 2.4 billion (up 9 percent) and Microsoft with more than 1 billion searches (up 15 percent).  

Searches in the Search Networks (sites that incorporate search capabilities from 1 or more of the Big 5): In the top properties where search activity happens, Google Sites led with 9.6 billion searches, a 9-percent increase from May. Yahoo! Sites came in second with 2.6 billion searches (up 8 percent from May), followed by Microsoft Sites with 1.1 billion (up 14 percent) and AOL with 792 million.

One reason Microsoft may have seen such a jump in the gross number of searches may be a results of its Live Search Cashback program, unveiled in May.  This is a new program where Live Search Cashback will offer rebates to whoever searches and purchases something from companies enrolled in the new service.

Coming from Cybergold (now MyPoints), where we used to pay consumers for their attention,  I can see how incentives could help Microsoft improve its positon. But only to a point. Google’s brand loyalty is pretty strong.

Feel free to download one of the comScore stat charts in Excel here.

1. We’re building our site now. Once we launch it, we’ll SEO it.

2. We don’t have anything bad about us indexed too prominently so we’ll worry about Reputation Management when that happens.

3. Content development and Creative Services are a cost center, not a profit center.

4. SEO is handled by Site Services. Marketing handles paid search. 

5. Keyword Research? That’s easy…. we just go to Google’s free keyword tool……

6. We can’t constrain our copywriters and designers with SEO demands. 

7. We want our home page to come up high for the following 25 phrases.

OK,  so over the next several months, we will be exploring (exploding?) the following 7 misconceptions we encounter over and over again when we speak to both agencies and advertisers.

Top 7 Paid Search Marketing Misconceptions:

1. You can’t brand or raise awareness with Paid Search  - it’s strictly for direct marketing. 

2. Our site comes up just fine when we search for our name - we don’t need to take out paid search ads against our brand.

3. Its illegal and/or immoral to take our paid search ads against competitors’ names.

4. We’ve tried paid search and ”it just doesn’t seem to convert for us.”  

5. Our lead gen partners are providing us with better cost per lead results.

6. Its best to let an SEO firm do our SEO, and have a paid search firm do our PPC.  

7. If we just invest in some really expensive bid management software we should be all set with paid search.

An October 2004 MarketingSherpa study of b-to-b buyers reports that nearly 64% of b-to-b businesspeople said search engines are the first place they look when they are online researching a major purchase. This makes perfect sense since we’ve found exceptionally high click-through rates (2-15%, depending on the key phrase) and conversion stats for B2B campaigns in the following industries: storage(hardware and/or software), CRM software, financial services, and legal services.  

Though a numbers of research reports by various research firms have been projecting huge growth for search expenditures, it always seemed like it would happen ”in 5 years”.  Well, 2 years from now Piper Jaffray predicts we are looking at Paid Search as an increasingly mainstream advertising medium, with $33 Billion in ad spend by 2010. 

What’s interesting about these types of analysis is the wide array of methdologies each firm uses to project things, as well as their biases and (potential) conflicts since many of their clients are players in the search space.

For example, the Kelsey group has been working with and studying local search as an extension of its work with the yellow Pages industry.

However, regardless of what firm or estimate you want to go with, all research firms predict contnued growth in search spend for the next 5  years.