Search Exchange Day 3 – In-House SEM, Using Analytics, and Measuring PPC Campaigns

“In-House SEM: How to Get What You Want” – Dan London

The CEO says “Why are some results highlighted in yellow?”

The Lead Engineer says “What exact percentage of my work impacts Google? I read on Wikipedia that Google doesn’t even look at the copy on a page to determine the value of a keyword.”

The VP of Marketing says “Why dont we bid on the term Brittney Spears?”

The CFO says “If we dont bid on any branded terms, we could save thousands.”

The PR says “Our PR service automatically search engine optimizes our Press Releases.”

The Social Media person says “Look at all our Facebook fans.”

So…what can you do?

Show a clear ROI Path through the sales lifecycle.
Do a thorough competitor analysis.
Educate people – show them the right information.
Speak the language of the different people in different sections of the company.
Show that the changes you’re going to make can provide a return on investment.
Don’t tell people what to do, let them feel involved.
Use the fear card when you have to – Use a worst case/best case scenario.
Get on the Roadmap – Find out what’s happening – don’t be reactive.
Make friends – Find people in each department to make friends with. They may also do work for you on the side to help you out.
Tattle – Go to the right people to get things done. Know when to jump up the ladder, back it up with data.
Be Pushy…Sometimes Know what’s valuable and which need immediate attention.
Teach People how to do the work for you – Help the PR people, the bloggers etc. Teach them.
Make it Easy – People are lazy, make everything easier on everybody means getting more things done.
Do it Yourself – When it needs to be done, do it.
Ignore Sales Calls – If you’re showing ROI and benefit within the company.
Large Company = Not an Excuse – Find out who you need to talk to.

“Using Analytics to Optimize Landing Pages” – Benjamin Rudolph

What Analytics Does

Drives decision that improve site user experience and increase marketing ROI.
Provides insight into why customers interact with your website.
Allows you to track trends and performance over time.
Analytics is the practice of using web analytics software.

Key Metrics:

Visitors
Sources
Content
Goals
E-commerce
Conversion tracking

E-commerce is:

Lead Generation
Brand awareness
Member acquisition

Analytics and Search Marketing

Identify keywords with high ROI.
Track organic and paid traffic.
New keyword opportunities.
Eliminate unprofitable keywords.
Develop new content for your website.

Beware of the HiPPO (Highest paid persons opinion):
Democracy of data – if your information or data shows that what you do performs better, present it.

Landing Page Goals:
Provide a a consistent experience.
Help a user completer a task.
Post search experience – content should be tailored to the query.
Clear call to action.
Clean, simple design.
Maximize the value of the searcher.

Key Takeaways

Less is more with landing pages.
Goal of page; don’t make me think.
Make your copy clear and easy to understand.
Provide multiple options to contact you.
Match content to the query.
Remember this is not your home page.
Never stop testing your pages.

Multivariate testing:

Allows you to test multiple landing page configurations.
Google’s Website Optimizer.
Ables you to make data-driven decisions.
Give the proof of data to CEO.

Web Optimization:

Visitors spend an everage of 8 seconds before deciding whether or not to remain on a website.
Goal is to drive the visitor beyond the landing page.
Google’s Website Optimizer can help you convert a visitor into an customer.

Free Resource:
Book – Web analytics an hour a day
New Book: Web analytics 2.0 the art of online accountabilty of service
Occam’s Razor

Sitescanga.com – Free diagnostic tool which verifies if your Google Analytics account is active on all pages.

Quick Recap:

Define your goals.
Audit landing pages.
Create and test new landing pages using multivariate testing.
Refer to analytics resources regularly.

“Measuring PPC Campaigns” How best to tell if things are going well, and what to look for and change – Kate Morris

The Disclaimer: Every account is different – these are just guidelines. Test everything before you take it as gospel. Even the most core principles can be rightfilly violated for your busness.

Keys to Success in PPC:

Poetry License
Strong OCD:
- Organizations kills
- Customer knowledge
- Data Analsyis (Love Excel)

General Review
A general review should contain:

Clickthough Rates:
- Campaigns
- Ad Groups
- Keywords
- Ads
- Impressions
- Conversions
- Quality Score

Steps for Review

1. Look for trends

Time Frames should be within: 1 month, 3 months, 6months, 1 year.
The metrics you should look at should be: Cost, CTR, clicks, Impressions, and conversions.

2. Identify issues
Poss issue #1 Cost is too high.
Poss issue #2: CTR is too low.
Poss issue #3: Clicks vary substantially.
Poss issue #4: Low conversion rate.

3. Drill down to culprit

Possible Issue #1:
Compare to your budget.
Look at high spend keywords.
Check match type settings.
Look at the number of long tail keywords the campaign/ad group has.
Think about possible seasonality issues.
Talk to produce people/client about new marketing pushes.

Possible Issue #2:

CTR is Too Low:

Check drill down to find Keyword culprit or ad (or both) and analyze.
Think: Is this a content network issue?
Think about the organization of your groups.
Look at the impression count in comparison to history and other campaigns.
- Look at key phrase match type.
- Think about Searcher intent.

Possible Issue #3

Clicks vary substantially:
Compare to history and other ad groups or campaigns.
Look at your ads for approval status.
Check for keyword relevancy to ads.
Like cost being too high:
- Think about possible seasonality issues.
- Talk to product people/client about new marketing pushes.

Possible Issue #4
Low Conversion Rate:
Check out relevancy of keyword to ad.
Run a search query report.
- Identify possible negatives

Find the culprit ad group or ad category.
- Is the CTR normal or pretty low?

Check out relevancy of LP to Ad.

4. Run Reports

Search Query Report
- Negative Keywords.
- New long tail keywords.
- New ad Focus.

Keyword Report
- Identify problem children.
- Include quality score and conversions.

Destination URL Report
- Identify Issues with Landing Pages.

5. Fix / Test

There is no one answer.
Test new ad copy and keywords.
Test landing pages.

Always focus on: The bottom line (CRO), Searcher intent (QS)

David Kyle – Local Search Strategy

History of Local Search – the Yellow pages are dead! Yellow pages are still good for something (ripping up).

Local search campaigns are all about.. blowing up the phone! You can expect calls even if you have a shopping cart. A phone call can raise trust level quickly – uncertainty can remain even with websites.

Useful Call Tracking with Marchex. Marchex has:

Call recording
Proxy & Javascript re-writes
Flexible programming
Call in/out
Detailed reports
Postback URl works with GA and Omniture
Great customer service

Proxy and JavaScript Rewrites:

Based on rules set by referrer and/or search query.
Javascript number rewrite is the easiest to setup and use.
Phone number is rewritten on the fly based on set rules.

Call Input:

Preset Tags based on who called.
Rating 1-10 scale: Will report based on user data and tells you when good / bad calls come in
Assign a revenue value to a particular caller. For example if they need to be called back.

Using tracking numbers can have a negative effect on ranking in Google Maps. You should use a consistent number for business listings on sites like Yelp, BOTW, etc

The state of Google Maps is chaos! Some local searches produce non-local results.

Quick rules for Map rankings:

Map Listings are the new #1.
Don’t use any keywords – just your business name.
The number of reviews have been devalued.
Powerful factor nobody talks about: Go to your Google account and my maps account, and save it and label it with a keyword. Google Maps seem open to a lot of abuse, which has both good and bad factors.

The Future of Maps Ranking:

Focus on getting quality listings that confirms the phone number and address of business.
Believes that location based Social Media will play a big part – i.e Foursquare, GoWalla.

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