Performics Search Engine Marketing Blog

Search Happenings

Posted by JC Longbottom, Associate New Business Manager

From the Engines:

·         Bing displaying Twitter results in the SERP.

·         June search share: Bing gains a little share, Google loses a tiny bit.

Other Topics of Interest:

·         The race for real-time search.

·         comScore: number of clicks doesn’t tell the whole story.

·         Google sued again for AdWords trademark infringement.  Other trouble for Google this week. 

·         Rupert Murdoch outspoken about search engine aggregation of copyrighted news material.

·         Success of Facebook Connect.

·         Google expands, adds search functionality to real estate listings.

·         “Twitter” enters the dictionary.

Some Fun Stuff:

·         Chihuahua and Clydesdale best friends.

Facebook Launches “Fan Box” Widget

Posted by Megan Halscheid, Product Manager

 

Facebook unveiled a new “Fan Box” widget this week that allows advertisers to include content from their Facebook Fan Pages on their native Web sites.  The Fan Box keeps people on a brand’s external site aware of the brand’s Facebook activity.  The widget allows users to become a fan of a brand directly through the brand’s Fan Box.  Users can then read the latest admin wall posts and see other fans directly through the widget, without leaving the brand’s external site. 

 

Brands can use the widget to generate more fans for their Facebook Fan Page and improve a brand's Facebook Page natural search ranking.  Brands like Coca-Cola and Lance Armstrong have already added the Fan Box to their external Web sites.

 

 

In addition to the Fan Box, Facebook also recently launched the Live Stream Box, which allows Web site owners to add a Facebook chat box feed to their sites.

Using Spotlight Tag Bidding to Manage Multiple Products with Multiple Margin Goals

Posted by Joe Owens, Account Manager & Sachin Gadhvi, Account Director

Spotlight Tag Bidding is a great way for marketers that manage multiple products with multiple margin goals to take advantage of optimal ROI.  Through the use of Spotlight Tags, marketers can bid on mixes of products/goal thresholds instead of bidding on one generic goal.  Bidding on one generic goal can be limiting, if not damaging, to certain programs.

Spotlight Tag Bidding 101

Spotlight Tag Bidding has been an existing DART Search capability for some time, but is still not widely adapted by search marketers, despite its potential advantages.  Spotlight Tag Bidding works by taking inputs from several Spotlight Tags rather than just one.  It then factors those Spotlight Tags into a bidding decision for each keyword. 

Test Keyword Positions to Combat Bid Inflation

Posted by Chaffee Benson, Associate Account Manager

 

Decreasing your keyword bid to test your keyword position is a good strategy to uncover your optimal cost per click (CPC).  For example, a few weeks ago, we noticed a branded keyword’s media cost increase dramatically. Over a 4 day period, the media cost for this keyword doubled despite the fact that the keyword maintained the same average position and competition.  Due to budget constraints, we decided to target a lower position and incrementally reduce our bid.  As we reduced our bid, we were surprised to find we continued to maintain the top position.  We determined that our competitor, who was occupying position 2, did not want the top position, but instead wanted to overinflate our CPC to deplete our budget. This example speaks to the need to periodically test your high position keyword bids. You might find that your CPC has been inflated by your competitors.

In the situation where a keyword’s CPC is on the rise due to increased competition (not competitor inflation), here are a few other ways to preserve your budget:

·         Reassess your negative keyword list: Your product keywords could be matching to a new product, TV show, or hot blog topic.  Make sure to filter this traffic out using negatives if the traffic is unqualified.

 

·         Create additional match types: Create phrase and exact/standard match types with bids higher than the broad match version. This should help improve your traffic and also reduce your cost.

Best Practices for Paid Search Copy Testing

Posted by Paul Mason, Account Manager

Your goal in testing copy is to discover the ad text that is most effective in engaging and/or converting your target market.  Copy testing is one of the most important strategies in determining how to best speak to your potential customers on the SERP.  Here are a few tips to keep in mind when rolling out a copy testing strategy:

• Develop a detailed test plan- You’ll have to decide what copy to use as a control and what copy to test.  Perhaps you want to test keyword-driven copy against new promotional-driven copy.  For benchmarking purposes, test new copy against a control piece of copy that you know performs well.
• Set realistic expectations- As your copy becomes better refined through testing overtime, the lift you’ll see in performance may become smaller.
• Test to certainty- Whenever possible, keep testing until you’re statistically sure that you have the best performing copy.  Don’t pin yourself into a specific time period for testing.  In some situations, you’ll find the best performing copy quickly, while other tests may take longer.  Seasonality and other factors may affect the performance of your copy; consumers respond better to different messages at different times.  This speaks to the need to always be testing and refining your copy.

Search Happenings- Fourth of July Edition

Posted by JC Longbottom, Associate New Business Manager

From the Engines:

·         SEO tips for Bing.

·         Google Retail Blog: Expanding your brand internationally.

Other Topics of Interest:

·         Congress readying bill to require opt-in to third-party cookies?

·         How the search engines handled the massive traffic spike around Michael Jackson’s death.  Twitter handled 5,000 tweets per minute, AIM crashed.

·         Usability focus group: Bing vs. Google.

·         126 followers, Twitter average.  Twitter imposters annoying big companies.

·         DMNews releases 2009 Essential Guide to Search Marketing.

Some Fun Stuff:

·         Fourth of July biggest beer selling holiday of the year.

Point of View on Google’s Rule Change for Nofollow Attributes

Posted by Sam Battin, Senior Search Strategist & Paul Williams, Analyst, Natural Search

In early June 2009, Matt Cutts, a member of Google’s Search Quality Group, spoke about changes to how Google treats nofollow link attributes (this link goes to a 1:48 YouTube video of the original Matt Cutts quote).

Matt Cutts’ statements caused a ripple effect in the natural search optimization world, and soon this ripple turned into a tizzy and finally a full-blown commotion.  Everyone panicked – were nofollow attributes still okay?  How did Matt Cutts’ statement impact existing nofollow attributes on Web sites?  Should nofollow continue to be used in the future?

At Performics, we do not believe there is reason to fuss over the semantics of Google’s position on rel=“nofollow”.  This attribute does not help sites rank higher in Google’s search results; it should merely be used for its original intention, e.g. the elimination of comment spam.  By adding a “nofollow” attribute, webmasters could prevent spammers from passing link value to their site by posting site links on forums or article comment sections.

Here are Performics’ responses to common questions about Matt Cutts’ recent speech:

Include Price Points in Paid Search Copy to Boost Conversions

Posted by Jennifer Kaiser, Account Manager

Continuous paid search copy testing is one of the best ways to maximize click-through and conversion rates.  Through copy testing, Performics has learned that conversion rates can be significantly boosted by including product price points in the copy.  Copy that highlights a price point generally outperforms copy that does not. 

When including price points in your copy, you must make sure you’re highlighting a more aggressive offer than your competitors on a specific high volume product.  For instance, if your competitor is promoting a product with $29.95 paid search text and you’re promoting the same product for $35.95, you’re going to lose clicks and conversions to that competitor.  Therefore, you must continually monitor your competitors’ promotions on the SERP.  Carefully monitoring that competitor’s offer will alert you to lower your product price point in your copy so that you can compete.  If you can’t go with a price point lower than the competitor, you should pull the price point out of the copy in favor of a different call to action, perhaps one that stresses value, not price.

Searches for Discontinued Products can Still Drive Revenue for Retailers

Posted by Stacy Gross, Account Manager

Many retailers think that if a product has been discontinued, they should no longer bid on that product name, model number, or other keywords related to that product in paid search.  However, this is not always the case.  A lot of retailers are leaving money on the table by pulling paid search campaigns for discontinued products.

For example, one of Performics’ global technology clients recently discontinued 7 product models and rolled out 7 new replacement models.  There was still searcher demand for the old models because some searchers didn’t know that the new models existed yet.  Instead of putting the old model keywords on pause, we continued to bid on the old model terms, which consisted of 100+ keywords.  We changed the ad copy for the terms to let users know that the product they were searching for had been discontinued and that there was a new replacement model.  The “sunset” ad copy also included short descriptions of the new model, in addition to language encouraging consumers to upgrade from the discontinued model they searched for to the new one.  The ads were redirected to the new landing pages built for the replacement models. 

Custom Landing Pages Enhance Marketing Effectiveness

Posted by Julia Cardis, Senior Manager, Landing Page Optimization

Effective landing pages serve as an extension of your ad, in which they engage and invite consumers to further interact with your site.  Performics highly recommends the use of custom landing pages rather than a generic home/category page or deep-linked category/product pages; custom landing pages are tailored to your target audience.

Download our full Custom Landing Pages White Paper to read about benefits and strategies for developing custom landing pages.

A Few Good Tools for Keyword Mining

Posted by Emily Helander, Program Manager

As search continually evolves, so must your keyword list.  Below are a few tools that you can reference to help expand your keyword list to increase search performance.  These tools may work best in developing more long term keywords/low traffic keywords.  These types of keywords are important to develop as they’re likely to be keywords searchers use as they enter further into the conversion/purchase funnel.

Internal Search Data

 

If you’re tracking what users are searching for once they reach your site, this data can provide great insight into gaps in your paid search keyword list.  These terms may uncover opportunities for new campaigns.  They can also help make the case for developing custom landing pages for popular search terms.  Internal search data should be evaluated quarterly to provide an idea of seasonal changes in searcher behavior. 

Search Happenings

Posted by JC Longbottom, Associate New Business Manager

From the Engines:

·         New Google Flipper easy way to read Google News.  Google News now searchable by article author name.

·         Kayak calls Bing a copy-cat.

Other Topics of Interest:

·         MySpace layoffs.

·         New iPhone Spotlight Search.  What the new iPhone means to marketers.

·         New “save a dog” Facebook app.

·         Marketers closely watch House behavioral targeting hearings.

·         Google Suggest makes inappropriate suggestions, gets shut down in China.

·         Danny Sullivan: Twitter may be sending more traffic to your site than you think.  Twitter abuzz with celebrity deaths.

Some Fun Stuff:

·         Flamingos with severe identity issues.

 

A Squirrel Has More Followers than You on Twitter

Posted by Dan Malachowski, Product Marketing Manager

Unless you have over 5,700 followers on Twitter, Common Squirrel has more than you.  Being a squirrel, Common Squirrel doesn’t have much to tweet about, but people still love him.  In fact, Common Squirrel’s most insightful tweet is “dig dig dig dig dig.”  That’s it.  And Common Squirrel isn’t the only squirrel tweeting.  There’s Butters the Squirrel, who has 500+ followers, Unique Squirrel from Madison Square Park in NYC and Red Squirrel, who doesn’t like grey squirrels.  But Common Squirrel clearly has the squirrels on Twitter market cornered. 

So how do you gain a following as large as Common Squirrel’s?  Here are a few tips:

·         Give Something Away: Threadless gives away free tee-shirts on Thursdays by encouraging people to #threadless them with their favorite Threadless tee; they have almost 700,000 followers.  Maggianos gave away free food.  I love their fettuccine alfredo.

Webinar Tomorrow! 1 PM EDT: Online Holiday Retail 2009: Tips, Tactics and Timelines for Success

Speakers: Eli Goodman & Matt Miller

Is your business ready for the year-end holiday sales season?

Whether you're a multi-channel retailer or you're selling purely online, the holiday retail season can be critical. It's not too early to start thinking about it now.  This webcast will help you prepare by giving you planning tools and an understanding of what you need to do -- and when -- in order to succeed online during the 2009 holiday selling season.

Eli Goodman, Search Evangelist at comScore, will give an overview of the state of online retail and what the experts are predicting for the holiday season, highlighting several vertical markets in the process.

Matt Miller, Director, Vertical Solutions at Performics, will give specific tips and timelines that retailers can follow in the months building up to the holidays. He'll also go over opportunities in search marketing, and how to take advantage of them on a retail site.

In this webcast we’ll learn:

• Current forecasts for the 2009 holiday shopping season
• Which retail categories performed better than others
• Specific tips and tactics for retail success — from understanding customer needs to managing landing pages
• Planning for the holidays - timelines/milestones for the next six months

If your business includes any online sales during the holiday shopping season, don't miss this one -- you'll gain valuable hands-on advice on how to maximize your success.

Register now - it's free!

Think Dashboards to Keep Your Eye on the Big Picture

Posted by Tara Kryck, Group Account Director

 

Often times, marketers get lost in the weeds when it comes to analyzing performance reports.  This can cause them to lose sight of the bigger goals and data points critical to the bottom line.  To help prevent this, I recommend utilizing both a short-term and long-term performance tracking dashboard.  Both dashboards should include pre-determined KPIs– trends of actionable data that key stakeholders really care about.  Search marketing reporting tools must be highly advanced and allow for deep visibility into trends to uncover hidden opportunities from insights into searcher behavior.  At the same time, this data needs to be transformed into easily understandable, executive-friendly business dashboards.  Intuitive dashboard views of particular key metrics empower marketers to make well-informed optimization decisions quickly.  Dashboards also facilitate identifying and correcting performance trends before they become an issue. 

Dual Paid Search Strategy (ROI & Branding) is the Way to Go for Retailers

Posted by Lauren Woiteshek, Account Manager

Retailers should have a ROI-focused search strategy, but during important promotions and seasonal events, they should also invest in high funnel generic keywords to drive brand awareness.  This branding strategy can vary depending on the particular promotion and budget, but should be used to reach consumers who are in the research phase of the purchase cycle.  Branding via paid search is particularly important given the current state of the economy, as consumers are spending more time researching and looking for the best product or deal before they buy.  The effect of a branding strategy is that you’re targeting customers new to your brand, or even new products to existing customers.  This strategy should also be used when you’re launching a new brand or expanding into a new market.

A branding campaign should be managed differently than an ROI program.  The main focus of the strategy is volume.  Main success KPIs should be impressions, clicks and impression share.  Keywords should be managed by position; you should aim for the top of the page (positions 1-5).  You need to be seen on the first page of the SERP in order to achieve sufficient visibility for your brand.  Copy in a branding strategy needs to be creative and catchy.  Brand messaging and the value proposition must be highlighted.

Expanded Search Query Report Reveals Opportunities to Improve Campaign Performance

Posted by Jenna Sheeran, Account Director

Before

Historically, Google has always lumped low volume traffic terms into groups (“other unique queries”) in the Search Query Report.  Search marketers were not able to see each of these “other unique queries” broken out by how many clicks each term drove.  In some situations, these groups could account for a large percentage of traffic volume for the campaign.  Not having transparency into exactly how much traffic each of the “other unique queries” drove impaired optimization, thus negatively affecting the overall performance of the account. 

Search Happenings

Posted by JC Longbottom, Associate New Business Manager

From the Engines:

·         Hunch: a new decision engine.  Hunch told me to eat my Cheetos with chopsticks.

·         Engines race to deliver real-time search.

Other Topics of Interest:

·         Promote your social media presence.

·         Twitter’s tremendous growth levels off in May; Facebook keeps growing and finally outpaces MySpace in the US.  Users rush for Facebook vanity URLs.

·         Is Google scared of Bing? Google markets itself with new explore Google Search page to illustrate that Google’s always had Bing features that users like.  Early Bing share stats from comScore, compete and Hitwise.  Bing vs. Google eye tracking.

·         Google and DoubleClick ad platforms to combine.

·         Possible behavioral-ad targeting legislation to come down this fall.

·         A state department official emailed Twitter to request that they put off scheduled maintenance due to the crucial role Twitter was playing in the election in Iran.

Some Fun Stuff:

·         “We’re closing up.” “Thanks for letting me know, see you tomorrow.”

·         Two outlaw cows flee ranch and cross state lines.

Social.icio.us Thursday: Dell Earns $3M in Sales from Twitter Followers

Posted by Micheline Sabatté, Product Marketing Manager, Performance Media

Who says Twitter can’t make you money? The skeptics were put to silence (at least for a moment) when Reuters reported on June 12, 2009 that PC maker Dell raked in more than $3 million from its Twitter followers in two years, including $1 million in sales during the past 6 months alone.

As the article explains, Dell’s Twitter account @DellOutlet has a strong following of 600,000+ members, making it one of the Top 100 most-followed Twitter accounts. Over the past two years, Dell posted 6-10 tweets per week with each post containing a coupon or a link to an exclusive product deal. Using proprietary software, Dell was able to track sales generated by its Twitter followers who clicked through to the Dell Web site to make a purchase.

Creating an Integrated Marketing & Paid Search Campaign for a New Product Launch

Posted by Michael Stanczak, Account Manager

 

Paid search is a critical piece of a successful new product launch.  Here are the steps to ensure that your paid search campaign is aligned with your overall product launch marketing strategy:

 

Step 1- Keyword Research

 

When launching a new product line, it’s important to start planning your paid search campaign well before the launch.  The first step is keyword planning, which involves taking a comprehensive look at the market for the product, industry trends, competitive Web sites, terms potential competitors are bidding on, and how your target consumers are talking about similar products on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. 

 

Step 2- Define the Budget and Keyword List

The initial research will produce a list of potential keywords that then need to be broken up into brand keywords and product specific keywords.  Once campaign spend levels are planned out, possible CPCs for the new product terms must be calculated.  The keyword list must be consistent with how the retailer is marketing the new product in other channels.  Paid search spend levels and keywords should cross executive management’s desk to ensure consistency across channels.  It may take a few rounds of revisions to create a keyword list that optimizes both campaign budget and visibility for the new product. 

 

New Google Squared Makes Online Shopping & Research More Efficient

Posted by Andy Murray, Account Director

Have you ever spent hours researching a product that you’re interested in purchasing, like a car or digital camera?  If so, you’ve undoubtedly visited many sites of manufacturers, resellers, and aggregators.  You’ve used comparison shopping engines and stopped in many retailers/dealerships.  This time is well spent, as you end up with the exact product you want at the price you’re willing to pay.  But what if you could get to the same spot… only faster?  Google Squared is making this happen. 

Google Squared is a massive index of images, text and product (or informational) data.  Serving results in a spreadsheet format, searchers can add new columns of product attributes (price, color, warranty, manufacturer, etc.) or add more rows of items or products (as well as deleting items/products that are not of interest).  Try it for comparing digital cameras:

What Are We Doing Here? The Importance of Setting Goals in Performance Marketing

Posted by Brad Beiter, Account Director

So you find yourself at a nice little Fortune 500 company.  You’re charged with managing the organization's performance marketing initiatives.  But this isn't 2002. We can't just turn on Google Adwords, stuff the site full of keywords, buy 100,000 inbound links for $19.95, and manage bids with an Excel Macro that your cousin's college roommate created.

This is the real deal.  Performance Marketing now has a seat at the big kids’ table. You need to show you’re not a cost-center, that you’re not stealing sales from other channels.  You need to show that you are acquiring new customers, clients, and clicks - in a profitable way.

Forget new economy.  Forget Web 2.0.  This is the New-New Economy Web 3.0.  Old fashioned concepts are once again in vogue.  Metrics like return on investment (ROI), return on ad spend (ROAS), conversion rate, average order size (AOS), application funding ratio and effective revenue share (ERS) are what every advertiser is talking about again.  Advertisers need to leverage these metrics to set a target and create a well-developed plan on how to get there.

Consumers’ Summer Travel & Home Improvement Plans Feeling the Heat of the Down Economy

Posted by Andrew Caravella, Corporate Communications

 

Performics released the second month’s findings from our “2009 Online Buyer Economic Trend Study.”

 

Family vacations and home improvements - two popular summer pastimes – are feeling the heat as a result of the economic downturn. According to the survey results, nearly 50 percent of respondents say they plan on spending less money than they normally do on home improvements this spring or summer. Similarly, nearly one out of five respondents cancelled summer vacation plans due to the economy.

 

While some consumers may cut back on spending, many plan to maintain their past spending levels. For example, 43 percent of consumers plan to spend the same as they normally do on home improvements. The May study also asked about the recent Mother’s Day holiday; although 40 percent of respondents spent less money on mom in 2009 than they normally do, more than half said they spent the same this year as last year.

 

Read the full Performics press release.

 

For a review of the complete study and strategic recommendations, contact your Performics Account Team or Sales Representative.

 

You may also watch our May Webinar, which provided an overview of Performics’ April 2009 Online Buyer Economic Trend Study results. View the Performics webinar.

Search Happenings

Posted by JC Longbottom, Associate New Business Manager

From the Engines:

·         Google launches Google Translator Toolkit.

·         Google supports National Broadband Plan.

·         Get your vanity URL on Facebook.

Other Topics of Interest:

·         Initial traffic numbers for Bing.  Did it jump ahead of Yahoo?

·         comScore: Bing off to good start.

·         Possible advantages on Bing for search advertisers.

·         Twitter customer service best practices.

·         Is Google counting paid search ads as incoming links that boost natural search rankings?

·         Watch the Webby Awards on YouTube.

·         IAB: Internet advertising down 5% in Q1.

·         Marketing advantages of Google Wave.

Some Fun Stuff:

·         Like fishing with dynamite.

·         GO FETCH!

·         One sly mouse.

Claim Your Facebook Page Vanity URL! Tips for Customizing Your URL

Posted by Ryan Sullivan, Natural Search Specialist

 

Yesterday Facebook announced an upcoming change to the way it will display profile and page URLs.  Starting at 12:01 AM EDT Saturday, June 13^th, Facebook users and page administrators will be able to login to the Facebook username page and stake their claim on a more fitting URL than the current medley of numbers that identifies them now.  This change is aimed at making it easier for friends and family to identify a specific individual or company amongst the sea of people and businesses currently using Facebook, and will be especially helpful for those of us with more common names.

 Image taken from blog.facebook.com

 

This is also great news for marketers that want to increase their company’s presence on the search engine results pages (SERPs) for brand related searches.  Recently the search marketing world was abuzz with the sudden rise of Twitter pages in the search results for companies that chose their profile names and account usernames wisely.