Performics Performance Marketing Blog: SEM, SEO, Social & Display

Overcoming Common SEO Problems for Retail Sites

Posted by Chris Keating, Manager (Natural Search)

Most retail Web sites are built with an emphasis on e-commerce functionality and aesthetics in a dynamic product environment.  Combined with a good aesthetic experience, this approach usually does a good job of fulfilling the needs of the user community.  However, a separate audience is often lost in this: search engines.  Many retailer marketers understand the need to serve this other audience to get their sites indexed and ranked in natural search results.  However, they often lack the internal IT resources needed to implement SEO recommendations generated by in-house staff or an agency. Common SEO problems for retailers include:

• Indexation: Retail Web site URLs often consist of multiple parameters and session IDs.  If each new visit to a page is associated with a unique session ID, a search engine spider may interpret that URL as a new page and risk becoming trapped in a loop indexing the same page.  According to Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, “not every search engine spider crawls dynamic pages as well as static pages.  It helps to keep the parameters short and the number of them few.”

Recognizing and Combating Bid Jamming (Cost per Click Inflation)

Posted by Isiah Drake, Manager, Bid Strategy Team

Bid jamming, also known as cost per click inflation, is the technique of bidding one cent below another advertiser’s max bid for a certain keyword.  This causes the advertiser to pay their max bid price every time the “jammed” ad is clicked on, draining their budget and exceeding their daily spend limit.  Bid jamming can backfire if the advertiser realizes that they are being jammed.  The advertiser can then lower their bid one cent below the bid jammer’s price, thus jamming the competitor that jammed them in the first place. This could go back and forth indefinitely.

Bid jamming is caused by bidding up keywords in the marketplace where an advertiser should not.  Here are some signs that an advertiser may be jammed:

1.       The campaign is capping out, despite the use of a position strategy

2.       There are no other competitors for this keyword in the auction

3.       The keyword’s average cost per click is higher than recent holiday cost per click

4.       Broad match keyword bids are higher than the exact match keyword bid

Performance-based bidding technology is the most scalable way to combat bid jamming. If a competitor tries to inflate your CPCs, a PBB technology could calculate the ROI, decide if costs outweigh the revenue returned and decide what the right bid should be.

The Effectiveness of Content Network Distribution

Posted by Andy Murray, Program Manager (Paid Search)

Search can be very expensive for certain general keywords.  That’s why it’s important to always be on the lookout for opportunities to cost-effectively gain incremental click volume.  One way to do this for general search terms is to utilize content network distribution.  The average cost per click on the content network is much less than that of search.  Cost per thousand impressions is also less expensive, providing additional branding value for advertisers looking to target in-market shoppers who are not set on a particular brand.

One of Performics' major automaker accounts illustrates how effective content network distribution can be.  In Q1 2008, the client’s average cost per click for content network distribution was roughly half as much as search network distribution for general auto keywords.  The number of impressions on the content network was 40 times as much as search, providing substantial brand awareness at an inexpensive CPM.  On the content network, conversion rates were comparable to search.  Overall, the content network provided roughly 65% of clicks at roughly 45% of cost for the automaker.  This suggests that content network distribution for general keywords should be considered as part of an advertiser’s overall search engine marketing strategy.

Searching for Solutions in a Challenging Economy

Posted by Michael Kahn, VP Account Management and Marketing

Over the last quarter the macroeconomic news has not been good. Fewer housing starts. Lower home values. Declining auto sales. Stalled retail sales. Rising gasoline costs. Are consumers optimistic? Not so much.

Whether defined as an “official” recession or not, we can all agree that the economy has slowed.

But, as marketers, we still have numbers to make and year on year growth to achieve. For the clients we serve and prospects we pitch, we need to outpace the general malaise.  In this economy, every action and every dollar counts so we need to make sure we are focusing on the most important strategies and tactics. The ones that drive business profitably.

A prioritization method we follow is called Return on Energy and we have used it to successfully pinpoint what we should be working on. Using a numerical plotting system, we review all possible marketing activities and plot them on a matrix with Return on one axis and Effort on the other.  Through this critical exercise, we end up with digital marketing activities bucketed in four quadrants:

When Should an Advertiser Increase the ERS Goal for a Program?

Posted by Isiah Drake, Manager, Bid Strategy Team

There are two instances where an advertiser should increase the ERS goal for their paid search program:

1.       When marketing pushes out a new initiative or product that does not yet have much brand awareness

2.       When goals become unrealistic to the program

When an advertiser pushes their paid search program because they dropped a new catalog or marketing initiative, this sometimes does not translate into good ROI.  Consider an advertiser who wants to promote a new product or launch a new brand name.  In the beginning, the brand terms for that new product will be over the ERS goal due to searchers’ unfamiliarity with the product or brand.  Some verticals are extremely brand-centric, the majority of conversions happening on brand terms. To effectively promote the product, an increased ERS is necessary to gain brand awareness on all terms.

How Tiger Woods Would Manage an SEO Campaign

Posted by Dan Malachowski, Product Marketing Manager (Natural Search)

Last week, Tiger Woods staged a tremendous victory in 5 rounds at the US Open.  Because of his knee, Tiger had his back to the wall a few times, but delivered in clutch fashion every time he needed to.  This got me thinking about how Tiger would manage a natural search optimization campaign:

·         If Tiger wanted to rank #1 for a keyword, everybody else better watch out.  Tiger is not only the #1 golfer in the world, but he is so far ahead of #2 Phil Mickelson that it is ridiculous.  Tiger is like a OneBox result, Phil ranks on page 8, and nobody else ranks in between.  People searching for keywords contained in Tiger’s campaign would basically have no other choice but to click on his result, unless they want to scroll to page 8.

·         Tiger can build incoming links like nobody’s business by creating unbelievably compelling content.  Even if you’re not a Tiger fan, it was impossible not to watch him try to force a Playoff on the last hole Sunday afternoon.  How many people just knew he was going to make that putt and were texting their friends to turn on their TVs immediately?  Tiger just has that innate ability to get people linking to his content.

2008 DMNews Essential Guide to Search Engine Marketing

Posted by Dan Malachowski, Product Marketing Manager (Natural Search)

DMNews’ Essential Guide to Search came out this week and features a wealth of insight into paid search, organic search, and “Search 2.0” from a variety of search marketing experts.  The Guide offers actionable advice to marketing executives to help them better understand the search landscape, as well as strategies and tactics to optimize their campaigns.  Eric Papczun, Director of Natural Search at Performics, contributes a piece to the Guide on performing ongoing SEO maintenance in order to ensure that an SEO investment continues to produce dividends over time.
 
Download the full 2008 DMNews Essential Guide to Search.

Online Video News Study Offers Actionable Insight to Publishers and Advertisers

Posted by Melissa Severin, Corporate Communications Manager

Performics, in partnership with ROI Research, recently conducted a survey of 500 consumers who currently watch news video on the Web.  The intent of the survey was to gain insight into how these consumers use search in the process of finding online video news.  The survey reveals how consumers interact with online video news, including how they search for it, where they view it, and how often they effectively find the news video that they intended to watch.  The survey findings present actionable insights for publishers and advertisers who want to optimize their video assets for the major search engines, thus maximizing their chance of being indexed and getting their content in front of searchers. Download the Performics Online Video News white paper for more information.

The Effectiveness of Yahoo! SSP Paid Inclusion

Posted by Jen Hyla, Program Manager (Natural Search)

Yahoo! SSP Paid Inclusion guarantees inclusion into Yahoo!’s natural search results, but does not ensure first page rankings.  However, the ability to quickly track, test and refresh search engine page title and description text allows SSP feeds to be optimized on a weekly (or even daily) basis.  If you’re not using SSP, you’ll have to wait for the Yahoo! natural search spider to come and crawl your site once you make on-site changes meant to boost your search rankings.  If you use SSP, the Yahoo! natural search spiders bypass the pages that you’ve submitted in your SSP feed.  Your SSP feeds are refreshed on the Yahoo! search results page within 72 hours of submission.

Title and description text testing and optimization can result in large increases in click-through from the Yahoo! natural search results page.  Promotions, along with seasonal language, can be highlighted in order to get more visitors to your site.  SSP Quick Links (directional links under the search engine page description text) are another great way to drive additional click-through.  Quick Links help searchers efficiently find which part of the company’s Web site they are looking for. 

The Value of a Promotional Calendar for a Paid Search Campaign

Posted by Isiah Drake, Manager, Bid Strategy Team

A promotional calendar is very valuable in guiding bidding decisions during a paid search campaign.  It can be used to pull back on non-promotional keywords, push on current sales, and predict when a rise in conversions may happen.  A calendar also allows an advertiser to make better decisions regarding pulling back on product keywords if the program is over goal. 

Paid search managers create keywords designed to help drive sales around a promotion date.  These new keywords generally do not have any historical performance data. They need to launch optimally and push aggressively on these product keywords so that they have a better opportunity at converting in higher positions. Without pushing, it leaves these keywords/ad groups too low to acquire significant data.  An advertiser should understand that pushing may lead to a lower ROI overall, but will be balanced by insight gained into these new products.

The promotional calendar also provides better visibility into potential changes in conversion rate. If paid search managers can predict/anticipate a day when conversion will rise/drop, that bid strategist can bid accordingly. Knowing when future promotions are going to occur also gives an advertiser’s bid strategist the ability to make better decisions on allocation of the program’s budget .