This work by Matthew I. LeVeque is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
May
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Paid Search Basics | Do the Right Thing
May 17, 2009 |
TWENTY YEARS AGO, well before paid search, SEM, online marketing or Google was even a consideration, Spike Lee released his film Do The Right Thing. I have been an admirer of Spike and his work so now, twenty years later, his film title and message is partially inspiring a paid search blog post. It must be the shoes!
At this point in my career I would, with modest distinction, consider myself an expert in paid search campaign design and best practises. I have come across a lot of paid search foul play via paid search assessments and even though every time I think I’ve seen it all, something new and ridiculous comes across my monitor. Tonight was such a time and what set me off this time was a post from the Google AdWords section of WebmasterWorld.com. The post from ‘Ember’ reads as follows:
I was running an AdWords campaign for a site but am no longer. I have a huge list of cheap, well-converting keywords in a particular niche and I would like to see if I can send them to someone else’s website and be paid a bit more than it costs us to generate the traffic. If I send the traffic directly to their site, they will see what the keywords are, drop me and generate their own traffic for less. I hate to see these keywords go to waste. Is there anyway to send the traffic so the webmaster can’t see the keywords in his logs?
Seriously? I mean WTF? I am trying my hardest to keep my emotional intelligence in check so I will keep this as constructive as possible. In my opinion Ember clearly has some highly questionable ethical ppc practises in play here. Assuming Ember owned the former account he would own the keyword list and should be able to do with it as s/he pleases. As stated that does not seem to be the case. It also seems that Ember is trying to deceive his new client to solely benefit one person - Ember. I don’t believe there has been labels associated with shady paid search practitioners (read: black hat SEO), but this certainly would be an example. And sadly, not the only case.
Doing Things Right for Sustainability
In this industry Google, Yahoo! and MSN make it pretty easy to run a paid search marketing program. Okay, so all the tools and variations of the platforms are not always so easy to navigate, but in general there is a clear road map as to how to design a paid search campaign and design it right the first time in order to receive the benefits of Quality Score. Even still there are shady practitioners that waste time trying to come up with short-cuts to beat the system just like Ember does. Unfortunately when this type of thing takes place true practitioners like myself and gold-teeth-gold-chain-wearin’ practitioners like Ember both lose. In trying to beat the system, in this case AdWords, the only winner is Google because they make more money by slackers like Ember jacking up the price of a click.
History proves that this type of half-assed short cut approach may provide high returns, but does not provide long term sustainability. Look at what happened to companies like Enron, Lehman Brothers, Chrysler and GM. I recently heard a GM executive explain that the reason they were closing 1,100 dealerships was to ‘promote the company’s sustainablity’. Really? I don’t think that’s really the right choice of words…
Although paid search is typically associated with quick wins and guaranteed conversions there is still an element of doing things right (the first time) from a long term sustainability approach that needs to be followed. Paid search design for sustainability takes time and patience. Otherwise, not only do all paid search programs suffer, but the industry as whole fails to move forward at the same pace. Google makes it painfully clear how to design and manage paid search programs to ensure that you are paying the lowest possible amount for a click. And I would say the 95% of Google’s advice and policies are valid. I’ve had bad experience with the double serving ads loophole and we all know that there is a missing piece of Quality Score that no one outside of Mountain View will even know. I know that Google and the other platforms are in this business to make money but I also know that Google and the other will reward you, over time, for doing the right things when it comes to well planned and designed paid search programs.
Paid Search Design for Sustainability
So how does one go about designing a paid search program for sustainability? First I want to clarify that for the purposes of this post, we are only discussing pre-click or before the click tactics of a paid search program. Obviously there are post-click analytics that influence pre-click actions. Also, from a systems thinking perspective, there is a broader scope of how a paid search program fits into the mix with other online marketing channels, etc. Both of those ideas and considerations as it relates to sustainability will be discussed in future posts. For now lets just focus on the task at hand - paid search design for sustainability.
1. Plan. And plan again. If starting from scratch, map out your campaign structure by using something as simple as your website navigation or site-map. For more advanced planning use mental model or affinity diagram methods. While mapping out your campaign structure think about what you have to offer and how it provides a solution for your customers.
2. Develop highly targeted keyword sets. Once you’ve thoroughly mapped out your campaign structure you should now have a foundation to bucket your keywords in a way that each ad group is unique unto itself. Beyond advanced match type tactics each ad group should contain keywords highly relevant to each other. The number of keywords in an ad group is irrelevant. At a certain point you will know when enough is enough.
3. Create relevant and persuasive ad ad creative text. Text within an ad creative should in some way reflect the keywords being targeted. When possible make sure that at least one keyword (phrase) in your ad group is in the ad creative title and in the body of the ad. Three to four ad creatives is recommended unless you are multivariate testing.
4. Landing page relevancy. So technically the landing page comes into play post-click, but it is a component of a paid search program that ties into Quality Score. Just as keywords and ad creatives are required to be relevant to each other, the landing page also is required to be relevant to the preceding components. Landing pages should be as relevant as possible to what the ad creative messaging is about.
Pretty easy huh? After planning, at a high level, there are only three things you need to do right in order to start down the path towards Quality Score nirvana. Beyond keywords, ad creatives and landing pages designed in a logical, well thought out campaign structure there are few additional design tips to consider.
5. Negative keywords. Use them and use them deliberately. At a minimum they should be used at the campaign level (AdWords) and when required they should be added at the ad group level.
6. Search Queries. This is really what it’s all about - matching your keywords to the search queries users are actually typing. If you are not analysing search queries for keyword expansion and negative keyword implementation you missing out on conversion and cost reduction opportunities.
7. Budgeting. Make sure you are not spreading yourself too thin. If you have a small budget make sure your campaign structure fits. For example, if you start off with 10 campaigns and you can only afford $100 a day in spend you are only allocating $10 per campaign (assuming the distribution is even). At that distribution chances are you’ll run out of daily spend early in the day, your impression share will be low and it will take a long time to gather statistically significant data.
8. Campaign naming. This is often over looked, but assuming you are running a paid search program in all three or more engines, you’ll want to name your campaigns and ad groups accordingly. This does not tie into anything Quality Score related, but it does help when managing and reporting on the program performance. For example, if you are running a paid search program in Google, Yahoo! and MSN and you have the same campaigns, with the same name, in each account, third party tools will roll-up all three campaigns into one view. Naming your campaigns and ad groups specific to the engine in which they live reduces the time wasted in guess work and work-arounds to solve the problem otherwise.
9. Duplicate keywords. Many times when I do paid search assessments I almost always come across the same keywords, with the same match types across multiple ad groups, targeting the same network. Personally I think this happens when mass production of campaigns and ad groups takes place. It’s easy to replicate ad groups with tools like Google’s desktop editor and ClickEquations Manager, but the ease of use should not replace the attention to detail.
10. Geo-targeting. If geo-targeting makes sense for your business do it. There are cost benefits for geo-targeting, but only if you do it right. Tradition geo-targeting includes using the campaign settings that enable you to target a specific city, region or state where your product or services are provided. Geo-modifying your keywords and targeting the entire country is not an effective, cost savings way to geo-target - it’s just lazy.
This is not an exhaustive list of paid search design for sustainability tactics, but it is a good starting point. Besides aligning your program with Quality Score requirements, following these steps has implications outside of the components of a paid search program. When you do this part right, you have more time to analyze the post-click data. You’ll also spend less time reorganizing mega lists of keywords from one ad group to multiple ad groups and spend more time ad creative testing. Following the Quality Score requirements also allows for more accurate bid testing. Overall, if you do things right and design for sustainability there is less time being spent on the things that do not add value and your program has much better chance of out lasting the competition while continuing to maximize its return.
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Comments
2 Comments so far
There will always be bad apples that ruin things for everyone. What ever happened to just doing things the right way and getting quality results?
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