This work by Matt LeVeque is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Nov
2
Making Paid Search Profitable Using PDCA Process and Standardization
November 2, 2008 |
WITH THE RECENT economic tough times we are facing it has become more and more important to make sure the work you do is profitable. That is not to say that your work should not always be profitable but I believe in times of prosperity it easy to get sloppy and lose focus on doing the right work that adds the most value to your customer.
In Paid Search it is easy to get lost in a sea of keywords and ad creatives making the focus on what matters and what adds value hard to understand. This is where being more process oriented in your work rather than focusing on results can lead to better value-added implementation. The Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) process developed by W. Edwards Deming provides a frame-work for such value-added work to be completed by following simple, repetitive standardized work. Developing standardized processes for Paid Search ensures quality is built into your campaign designs. Customer satisfaction should increase as a result. Better Paid Search processes also will reduce the time and costs associated with your work. Becoming more process oriented, in economic crisis or prosperity, makes you and your organization more effective and efficient and ultimately more profitable.
Following the PDCA process I’ve developed some guidelines as to how each step applies to a new Paid Search initiative. The guideline is not exhaustive and it is not enough just follow the guideline and assume you are going to be profitable. It is critical for you to standardize each step of the process so it is easy to repeat.
PLAN
Planning is the most critical step in the Paid Search process - when done correctly everything else will fall into place. Planning includes:
- Review of Client Website and Offerings
- Assessment of PPC Accounts
- Assessment of Analytics Implementation
- Client Goals and Past performance
- Competitive Analysis
- Campaign Structure and Design
- Keyword Research
- Landing Page Assessment
- Ad Creative Development
- Budgeting
DO
Once the plan is communicated and agreed to it is time to implement your plan. Implementation can be broken down into two main areas - PPC Campaign Build and Analytics.
PPC Campaign Build includes:
- Campaign Settings
- Budgeting
- Ad groups
- Keywords
- Ad creatives
- Landing pages
- Destination URL tagging
Analytics Implementation includes:
- Java script development
- Site tagging for analytics packages like ClickEquations or Google Analytics
CHECK
Now that you’ve launched your Paid Search campaigns and allowed then some time to run it is time to check the progress. Monitoring & reporting on progress includes:
- Review keyword activity
- Audit analytics tracking
- Verify conversion tracking
- Weekly Dashboard review
- Monthly Dashboard review & analysis
ACT
Evaluation of the first three steps should provide insight in to ongoing continuous process improvement.
Actionable insights on where and what to do next to improve performance include:
- Campaign and ad group targeting
- Keyword performance and bid management
- Keyword and Search Query expansion
- Ad creative performance and future testing
- Landing page testing
Again this is a general guideline to follow. Using the PDCA process alone is not enough to keep quality, customer satisfaction, time, costs and profitability in its most effective and efficient state. You need to standardize the steps in each part of the process and be able to tie those steps back to the amount of time and cost it takes to complete each step. You also need to be able to standardize the processes so that you are using the most effective way to complete the various tasks in the fewest amount of steps. And lastly you need to make sure you are not only following the standardization of the processes, but that you are also choosing to do the right type of work that adds value and meets or exceeds customer satisfaction and expectations.
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