Starting From Search

Know Thy Searcher

For the last week, I’ve been humbled by the flu. I’m honestly not sure what was worse, having the flu or subjecting myself to 5 days of cable TV while I lay on the couch. (I feel very close to Bob Villa now.)

While I sat on couch, cheering my white blood cells on, I did a search for "flu symptoms." I noticed a common search problem—a case of one advertiser knowing who they are talking to and others who are clearly not sure.

Search marketing like other forms of marketing, need to focus on "the who." Not the stellar British rock band of the 60s and 70s, but those who are searching. You must know who you are talking to in order for the brand message to break through the clutter. The keywords you bid on tell you "the who" and what their intent is.

This PPC ad is perfect.

It's to the point and addresses exactly what anyone searching for information on flu symptoms needs.

Tylenol, on the other hand, is wasting money (and a consumer’s time) because they don't know who they are talking to.

Simply, I don't have a "common cold," I have the flu. Based on my search—flu symptoms—what I want is pretty clear. Their PPC ad does not begin to address my intent for searching.

Next, I did a search for "flu treatments" and found the same issue. A few very good PPC ads that spoke to and leads to information about how to treat the flu. But again, Tylenol misses:

Once again, I'm not trying to treat a cold. I'm dealing with nausea, a flu symptom not a cold symptom. But, alas, Tylenol is not alone. Vicks also uses off-target copy.

PPC ads must address the intent of the searcher in order to convince them that your site has information they can use. That is why a consumer will click. For some keywords, this can be tricky to judge. Multiple ads can help you test your way into figuring out what ads speak to the consumer the best.

But in some cases, such as with flu symptoms and treatment, the intent is clear. And failing to address the consumer's need will send them clicking somewhere else.

The Right to Buy Branded Keywords

This week, 1-800-Contacts sued LensWorld for allegedly purchasing branded terms in order to show LensWorld PPC ads when users are searching 1-800-Contacts. (MediaPost reports.) The key here is one company buying the branded terms of another company.

This is not the first lawsuit of its type. The question is around if it is infringement of any sort. Currently, engines allow advertisers to buy competitive brand terms if the competitors name is not used in the actual ad copy. Complaints to engines over this are handled on a case-by-case basis.

The main problem I see with a competitor buying the branded terms of another competitor is that it drives up the cost for that brand name. Simply, you could end up paying a high pay-per-click rate for your own name if your competitor purchased your brand name as well. (Many people I know in the industry follow an unwritten rule not to buy competitor brand names, often for fear of retribution on their own brand name.)

This is a problem that is very hard to solve, and sadly, will probably have to be sorted out in the court room. Is it Google or Yahoo's job to protect intellectual property? I say no, but engines constantly find themselves in the middle of this issue.

Honestly, it's not much different than two advertisers appearing on the same page of a magazine. It is up the professionals that create the ad to distinguish it among the competitors.

Besides, every company should rank highly in organic listings for their own branded terms. If a company can not stand out on a search results page for their own branded terms, they have much larger issues than a competitors bid price.

A Keyword may be Cheap, but Damaging Your Brand is Expensive

A few days ago my friend sent me an IM asking me if I knew where he could buy a bag of salt for his driveway. Here in the mid-west, Old Man Winter isn't quite done with us yet. Being a search fanatic, I quickly consulted Google by typing in "Snow Salt."

I found these two pay-per-click ads:

What exactly, are they trying to sell me? It’s certainly not snow salt.

Whenever a pay-per-click ads messaging does not match consumer expectation, it creates a disconnect that can damage a brand's reputation. As a consumer, it starts to feel like a brand is trying to trick me into a click.

Maybe "snow salt" was a very cheap keyword to bid on. But damaging a brand's reputation is very expensive.

Links to Ponder

NYTimes has a take down of Google's plans to put ads, well, everywhere.
Struggle Over Dominance and Definition

Google’s chief executive, Eric E. Schmidt, has said the company plans eventually to have as many as 1,000 engineers and sales representatives working on the radio industry.

...

What’s at stake is pretty much everything in the $400 billion global advertising honey pot.

And speaking of ads being everywhere, in another article, Google's CEO Eric Schmidt suggests that placing ads on cell phones could lead to free cell phone service. Google CEO sees free cell phone service. GPhone, anyone?

SEO is the Click Fraud Killer

Click Fraud is a two-tiered problem. One is technological and the other public relations. One battlefield is the algorithms that ferret out invalid clicks and the other is dueling press releases and media outlets. Today’s news covers the later.

Independent click-fraud firms that sell click-fraud monitoring services are heightening the fear of click fraud. Or so Google says.

But while these firms may have a financial incentive to make the problem seem larger than it is, so to does Google have a financial incentive to make it seem smaller. Half the fight is over perception of the problem and not the problem itself.

I do agree with Google that the problem has been overstated in the media. It’s the hot topic of the moment which can be easily turned on its head, as I did in a previous post. [Post link: Doesn't It Mean Paid Search is 85% Effective?]

But what is most frustrating to me is that while there is much speculation regarding potential solutions for click fraud, I rarely see anyone talk about the most natural  solution—optimization!

SEO is the click fraud killer. A higher natural ranking means that an advertiser can spend less on pay-per-click and get the same results.

Yahoo! to Release Redesigned Advertising Interface in Q3

This morning Yahoo! announced that it will release the much anticipated redesign of their advertising console in Q3 of this year.

The changes will include a more intuitive control panel, with a user-tested navigation. It is also aimed at helping advertisers to easily understand campaign results.

Also expected is better targeting for local search, so pay-per-click ads can be focused on more specific areas.

Ads will be activated in 30 minutes or less, instead of the occasional 3-day long wait that some advertisers currently experience.

There will be better forecasting to help advertisers get a better idea of what their campaigns may really cost. This is a welcome change since I have seen estimates prove to be highly inaccurate. Yahoo did not say how they will make it more accurate, but I will be eager to see how this works in practice.

Goal-based campaign optimization will also be added as a feature. Click price can be automatically adjusted based on cost-per-acquisition.

Yahoo will also be implementing what they call the Visible Quality Index. With this, ads will be scored based on quality, bid price and other variables. This score will be visible to advertisers, and will eventually determine how pay-per-click ads are ranked. Advertisers will not be able to buy the top spot solely on bid price anymore.

All these changes are welcome additions to Yahoo’s search marketing tools. After seeing another Yahoo product -- the email beta -- they appear to have really figured out how to provide powerful, yet simple tools.

Would You Pay to Skip Ads?

I have been running Gmail and Yahoo Mail side-by-side for the last month. I have found them both to be great email solutions, each offering great benefits. I’m curious to see who steals the more innovative features from the other first.

Both services advertise as part of the offering, but Yahoo lets you buy your way out of seeing ads. For $20 a year, you get several enhanced mail features plus a completely ad-free environment.

I started to wonder if users would be willing to buy themselves out of ad networks in other areas – mainly on search.

Both companies make an enormous amount of money serving pay-per-click ads as part of their search results. But would users be willing to pay to not see them?

A majority of users click on an organic link, not a paid one. But the paid links are clearly useful to many people, based on the growing profits of Google and Yahoo.

Maybe the question can be taken to a larger realm. Advertisements are finding their way into nearly every channel – including video games.

Would you be willing to pay to not see them?

TV Ads Losing Ground to Search Marketing

A new poll by Forrester Research discovered that advertisers are planning on moving ad dollars toward the web and away from TV ads, citing a decline in their effectiveness. Sixty-eight percent of those polled singled out search as a place of growing interest to replace TV ad spending.

The collision between these two channels was bound to happen. Marketers will use the most effective means to spread their brand and products. With 56% of the web population using search at least once a day, search is king.

But there are other reasons why search marketing provides great results. Consider the following:

Search marketing is an active participant in the process.
With the possible exception of the Super Bowl, people do not watch TV because they want to see commercials. TV ads interrupt the action you were participating in – watching the latest episode of Lost, for example. Search marketing, on the other hand, participates in a user’s action. A user goes to a search engine to find information and products. If you can provide it to them at that moment, the user will see that as part of the process itself, not an interruption to it.

Searchers qualify themselves.
Advertisers buy TV spots based on statistics of the type of people likely to be watching a specific show or during particular time slots. Those statistics are usually based on age, sex, and income level. But those statistics do not indicate if that segment is actually interested in buying any particular product at any particular time. Searchers provide this information upfront based on what terms they use in queries. And based on those queries, one can determine where that customer is in the buying cycle. Having your information available at that moment is extremely effective.

Less guesswork for budgeting.
TV spots are paid for upfront, even if half of the audience is getting a snack or running to the restroom when that commercial is on. In terms of a pay-per-click campaign, you only pay when someone clicks on your banner – an indication that they are interested in you!

Search effectiveness is easy to track.
How many people actually watched your TV spot? How many of those that watched it then converted in some manner? One can only estimate that effectiveness. But with search marketing such rates are easy to track, from the number of ad impressions, to how many people clicked. From there, one can even determine how much profit a search campaign is generating to a company.

While TV spots and other forms of advertising will always have their place in marketing, search marketing is an extremely effective way to target customers. As such, any well-rounded marketing strategy should include an active search component.

Search Engine Use Increasing Exponentially. Are You Taking Advantage?

Last week Nielsen//NetRatings announced the search market has grown 55% in the last year.

The Kelsey Group is predicting local search will increase 30.5% over the next four years.

Today, Nielsen//NetRatings reported that Google and Yahoo sponsored link impressions have increased 16% in the last six months. In January alone, Google and Yahoo served almost 65 billion sponsored links!

Yet with all this rabid growth in the search channel, many companies are still not investing in this method of reaching customers, new or old. Likewise, there are also plenty of interactive agencies that fail to implement anything other than the simplest of search techniques for their clients.

The marketing "sweet spot" is reaching someone with your message when they want to buy products in your niche. That is exactly what search marketing does on a daily basis – presenting results (messages) to potential customers (searchers) right at the time they are looking for the information.

Search marketing has long past its tipping point. It is here and it is going to stay. It won’t be long before more people are going to experience your brand and products through a search engine results page than a TV commercial. Why not reach them at the moment they are looking for what you offer? If you are working with an interactive agency, ask them if they can deliver competent optimization as part of the project.

I will give a tip of the hat to the Ford Motor Company, though. They recently reported they have sold more than 250,000 vehicles through FordDirect internet referrals. The oldest car maker in the world is using a new channel of marketing to sell an old technology (cars) to an audience that is growing more reliant on search.

Pontiac, on the other hand, got it all wrong.

Pontiac Features Google in Ad; Comes Up Short

As I sat watching American Idol, a TV commercial for Pontiac aired expressing the features of their cars and ended by saying, "see for yourself, Google Pontiac."

At first, I thought, "Pontiac gets it!" Clearly, Pontiac is seizing power of the search engine. They must be aware that more and more people are relying on search. They must be aware how search engines are part of the buying funnel. Right??

So I did what the commercial suggested — I Google'd Pontiac. This is what I saw:

[Pop up image: 499 x 473 pixels]

At the top is a banner ad for Pontiac. Somewhat of a waste of money since the official Pontiac site ranks number one in the organic listings.

But I clicked on the banner ad anyway to see what page it would take me to. A page that mimics the message of the commercial? A further search tie-in??

The banner goes absolutely nowhere. Literally.

[Pop up image: 500 x 542 pixels]

Repeated tests of the banner ads continued to bring the same (lack of) response.

The third banner ad, directing users to the "Pontiac Shopping Site" does not work either. Since it is a GM banner ad, I assume it was placed in cooperation of the main banner ad.

When I did get to the home page (by clicking the first organic listing), I see that the messaging on the home page is similar to what they are trying to accomplish with the TV commercial. They are encouraging users to see what others are saying about them.

They are encouraging people to interact with the Pontiac brand through Word-of-Mouth marketing. But even the results page comes up short — no Pontiac fans extolling their love for the brand or the quality of the cars.

It makes me wonder, did Pontiac Google Pontiac? Did the ad agency that produced the commercial Google Pontiac?

So I wondered, what would happen if I Yahoo'd Pontiac?

[Pop Up Image: 501 x 506 pixels]

Same banner ad, same results.

[Pop Up Image: 497 x 506 pixels]

MSN?

[Pop Up Image: 500 x 481 pixels]

Results?

[Pop Up Image: 500 x 482 pixels]

And this took place during American Idol. Forty million eyeballs about to turn into deaf ears?

Pontiac almost got it. It’s just a shame they were undone by terrible SEM execution.

Pay-Per-Click vs Print Ads

Robert Cringely brought up some interesting issues in his most recent column over at PBS.org. (Article link: Stop the Presses! How Pay-Per-Click Is Killing the Traditional Publishing Industry.) Like most of Cringely’s articles, it's a valuable read.

But I would like to add in a few ancillary thoughts.

For journals and print magazines to qualify for Second Class Mail, they can have an ad-to-editorial ratio no larger than 75%–meaning no more than 75% can be used for advertising. As Cringley points out, Web sites normally don’t have the space to allow for that much advertising.

I think he misses the larger point–that while we will thumb through an industry journal that may be upwards of 75% advertising, we would never browse a site with that much advertising. People behave and respond differently based on the medium. TV spots have different calls-to-action than print ads, for example.

Likewise, pay-per-click banner ads are a different marketing channel from print ads. They need to be built with that in mind, with a different call-to-action.

That is an important aspect to remember before you raid your print budget to start up a pay-per-click campaign.

The Race is On

Just a few days ago, I assembled a quote for a client on pay-per-click banner ads. In the short time it took for it to be approved, the pricing on keywords had jumped. In a few cases, the price increased dramatically.

The race is on for holiday shoppers. Be sure you know your comfort (and profitability) level so you don't get caught up in a bidding war.

Every Day is a Good Day for Search

Recently ExactTarget released a report regarding which day was the best day to send an email blast. They ascertained that there is no best day.

Overall, email marketing is interruption marketing, much like television commercials. They interrupt what you are doing to capture your attention.

Search, on the other hand, is capture marketing. It captures customers at the moment when they are already looking for the product or service you offer. This is why a MarketingSherpa annual reader survey found that more marketers are happier with paid search advertising this year than last. It’s easier to convert a customer when they are already in the act of trying to find what you offer.

No other form of marketing can offer that, no matter what day of the week it is.

Searching for Good

Over the weekend I paid particular attention to how search engines were being used to help people find ways to donate to Katrina-related charities. As I conducted searches using various keywords in various engines, it was clear charity organizations were appropriately utilizing pay-per-click banners.

The American Red Cross web site won on two fronts. First, they purchased banners for several Katrina-related keywords, increasing their exposure to those looking to donate money. Second, RedCross.org makes good use of search optimization best practices. For nearly all Hurricane Katrina-related keywords in various search engines, they ranked in the top 5. Searchers prefer organic (natural) listings to paid (sponsor) listings by a margin of 10-to-1, which made the American Red Cross’s investment in optimization very valuable, timely and helpful.

(Large pop up: 833x463)

I give the American Red Cross a thumbs-up for their effective use of search marketing.

As impressed as I was with the Red Cross, the number of people that took advantage of pay-per-click for different reasons equally appalled me.

Early this morning I did a search on “Red Cross” in a few search engines. Here are some of the results:

(Large pop up: 834x791)

(Large pop up: 866x514)

As you can see on Google and AskJeeves there is a banner pitching life insurance, which seems to be a very inappropriate time to do so. In Google a purchased banner is being used to spread the word about a new song release. Both advertisers obviously understood that there would be a greater number of searches for the Red Cross since Hurricane Katrina and also in the coming weeks. The same insurance company also purchased a banner on Ask Jeeves.

Part of the pay-per-click strategy is to utilize keywords to the best advantage. Clearly there are many more people searching with the term “Red Cross,” but is this pay-per-click behavior appropriate? In this case I think basic humility lost out to naked capitalism.

It's Getting Crowded in Here

By 2007, the pay-per-click arena is going to be crowded.

In the last few weeks, several search properties have announced new or upcoming pay-per-click programs. Ask Jeeves announced a pay-per-click system to augment Google's pay-per-click method they use now. MSN Search has also announced more details on a PPC model that they call MSN Keywords, followed by Yahoo’s announcement of an ad network for smaller to mid-tier publishers.

Up till now, there were basically only two choices – Google's AdSense Program and Yahoo Sponsored Search (formerly Overture). With all the new choices, how do you get started with a pay-per-click campaign? Think about print ads.

I'm not suggesting you place print ads instead. I’m advising you think of the methods of placing print ads. Marketers place print ads based on where the target audience is.

With pay-per-click, marketers mostly factored in budgetary concerns. But as the arena gets more crowded, a search engine's demographic will be an important factor to make sure your ads are reaching the right eyes – and capturing the right clicks. A mouse click (just like a print ad impression) from someone outside your target audience is a lead that is less likely to convert, lowering the overall ROI.

For example, comScore data from June showed Yahoo, MSN, AOL and Ask Jeeves, skewed toward women, whereas Google has a higher percentage of male users. There are many ways, of course, to analyze demographic information. And it will be an increasing factor in the overall search strategy, especially to companies that have limited pay-per-click budgets or want to start of small to test the waters.

Holiday Cheer in August

As I have noted previously noted, now is the time to start thinking about the holiday season in regards to the search channel. Yes, it’s still sunny out and you may be thinking more about getting your kids back to school, or lamenting about Halloween being just around the corner, but it is indeed the time think about the winter holidays and your search rankings. Here’s why:

Organic Search
Higher listings take longer to build but are worth it. Significantly more searchers click on organic listings over paid listings – by a margin of upwards of 10-to-1. It can take weeks for keyword and other SEO changes on your site to resonate as higher rankings in engines. Start working on those organic rankings now to be sure you have a good foundation in November.

Pay-Per-Click
You have a bit more time with pay-per-click since banners can be added and removed fairly quickly. But measuring your ROI on your banner campaign and to get comfortable running an effective budget takes a bit more time. Starting now (or soon) gives you time to refine your pay-per-click campaign so that it is delivering the most effective results by the time all the holiday searchers come online.

With over 90% of the online population using search engines to get around the web, the amount of traffic search engines can bring to a site is a major factor in online holiday success.

Yahoo Ups the Ante

Announcing an ad-serving program called the Yahoo! Publisher Network, Yahoo is now directly competing with Google’s AdSense program. Up till this point, Google was the only engine offering an ad program of this kind.

Yahoo has been making big strides on challenging Google this year. And it’s perfect timing. In general the media has been focused on a Google vs Microsoft battle, which allows Yahoo to innovate quietly, off the radar. It’s almost as if everyone forgot that Yahoo is still the number 2 search engine.

By my estimation, the Yahoo! Publisher Program surpasses Google’s AdSense program. Google does not pay on an AdSense account until a site surpasses $100. With so many lesser-read blogs using AdSense that can be an unrealistically high watermark to meet. For many, it must feel like that check from Google will never come.

With the program aimed at small- and medium-sized web sites, I hope Yahoo sets their payment schedule lower, down around $20 or so. That would provide a real benefit to people using their ads.

The Yahoo! Publisher Network is open to invited sites only while they are still in beta. I wonder if Google can counter before the end of the year?

The Better Mouse Trap

Click fraud is becoming a hotter and hotter topic, especially with a recent lawsuit filed against Google. Click Defense claims Google is well aware of click fraud and they are not acting to stamp out this practice. Google says they routinely refund money to advertisers that are victims of click fraud.

Click fraud consists, basically, of companies or individuals that click on pay-per-click ads for the purpose of driving up (or rather, drying up) a marketing budget.

Even the FTC believes it's time to take action. Howard Beales, FTC’s Director of Consumer Protection Bureau, told a Senate subcommittee that click fraud causes "significant injury to consumers and harms public confidence in the Internet as an emerging marketplace."

Snap.com thinks it may have fixed the problem. Instead of charges being based on clicks, the charge would be based on actual conversions. Meaning, no fee is charged unless a click through leads to a purchase.

BlowSearch has offered a solution called Click Defender, still in beta. It is a real-time auditing tool designed to separate humans from click crazy bots. When a user clicks on a link, Click Defender authenticates 20 different points of information in combination that BlowSearch says cannot be faked.

These efforts by Snap.com and BlowSearch are not silver bullets, but it’s a great start. But the bigger issue, which I think the lawsuit is trying to force, is why have the major engines been so casual about trying to solve this problem?

It is time for the two leaders in pay-per-click, Google and Yahoo, to make customers feel more at ease before the lawsuits mount and marketers loose even more money.

The Race for Keywords

Merrill Lynch is estimating that paid search listings will increase by 47% in 2005, up reach $5.5 billion.

But what does this mean for you?
As in any market, increased competition means increased prices, and if the Merrill Lynch estimate proves to be accurate, expect much more competition. The more people that bid on any given keyword, the higher the price will be.

So what is a small or medium business, with a limited budget for buying keyword to do?
This issue is not just specific to small and medium businesses. Any company, regardless of size or budget needs to determine when a keyword is too expensive to purchase and what that upper-limit is.

Here is how you figure that out:
Let’s say your company sells widgets and you want the number 1 spot for the keyword “Cleaning Widget.”

In order to figure out the maximum price you can afford for that keyword, you have to figure out some other things first. One, how much profit do you make on each widget sale? For the sake of this example we’ll pick an easy, round number of $5.00.

Now you need to figure out what you overall conversion rate is. This is the number that needs to be watched the most. If every 100 click thoughts on that specific keyword leads to 5 sales (or a 5% conversion rate), then you know how much you can spend on that keyword.

For every 100 clicks, you are making $25. $25 divided by 100 (total click thoughts) is .25. That identifies your break even point, meaning you can pay up to 25 cents per click and still be at a break even point. Anything below that is profit.

But once you go over 25 cents, you begin to loose money on each sale that originates from a click through.

As the competition increases for keywords, it is very important to know where your break even point is in ensure your keyword campaigns remains profitable.