Archive of Search Engine Advertising Posts

For those of you interested in calculating Pay Per Click (PPC) projections, I have created a basic PPC calculator that is available for download (click on the “PPC Calculator” link to download the Excel file).

There are two worksheets in the file - one for B2B Lead Generation and one for E-Commerce.

Each calculator requires a series of inputs from you in order to calculate the primary metric - Target Cost Per Acquisition (in each case, B2B & B2C).

You can use the calculators to focus on an entire program, a specific campaign, a specific ad group, or specific keyword.

This past week our agency representatives at Google AdWords sent out their weekly update and highlighted a tool that I am very excited about.  (This is not completley new, the Google AdWords blog made mention of this on March 6, 2008 & David Szetela wrote a nice piece on this as well in a March 17th article on SearchEngineWatch.com). 

Advertisers can now exclude parked domains and exclude error page ads from the Content Network.

What does this mean?

Yesterday Google released it’s Automatic Matching Beta.

Automatic Matching is an opt-in feature that allows your ads to be shown on additional search queries that Google finds are both relevant and that are not covered by your keyword list.

We’ll get more into that in a moment, but first I wanted to point out some of the good things Automatic Matching has going for it.

Pros for Automatic Matching:

Cost Controlled
It will only provide additional traffic if you are spending less than your maximum daily budget in a given campaign.

We have been running a Google AdWords campaign for some time promoting KoMarketing Associates’ focus on B2B SEO.

I thought it would be interesting to share a small portion of the data we have collected.

The table below highlights search impressions for some of the keywords we have been advertising (but not all of course!).  The data was gathered from May 2007 through February 2008.  The data set is by no means complete. 

Andy and I are excited to be a part of SEMPO’s hybrid training concept, which blends the material from their online course “Insider’s Guide to Search Marketing” with a one day class at Bentley College’s Center for Marketing Technology in Waltham, MA.

Our goal is to provide a complementary experience to the material found in the SEMPO course through the use of real world examples, applications and an overview of core concepts. In addition, hands-on exercises have been created to give beginners practical recommendations for applying ideas found in the course into their own search marketing campaigns.

I’ve found that its common for advertisers to overstate the value of having a high Click Through Rate (CTR).

The fact of the matter is, that in and of itself, click through rate is useful is measuring how successful you are at engaging a particular audience with a specific ad message, but beyond that it does not necessarily translate to business results.

Lets First Take a Look at Some of the Benefits of Having a High CTR:
Click Through Rate is one of the most important (if not the most important) factor in Google’s Ad Rank formula. This means that CTR is very important in determining your Quality Score. This in turn affects several things:

Brad Kenney, from IndustryWeek, just published an article today titled How Strong is Your Brand Online?

Brad interviewed me for the article and he generously provided readers with some of my thoughts on how manufacturers can benefit from search marketing (both SEO and PPC).

The three main sections of the article are:

• Use SEO (or Lose SEO)
• Content is King
• Pay-Per-Click Pays Off
   

The premise of the article is that “manufacturing companies have a growing opportunity to leverage their Web sites to generate more business, build customer loyalty, create brand awareness and gather market intelligence.”
 

The most prevalent difference between B2B and B2C paid search management is seen in what activity each type of client views as a conversion.

Evaluating Business to Consumer (B2C) Conversions

When a paid search campaign is pulling consumers to a landing page, the conversion action almost always results in traceable revenue. This data can be used to evaluate the return on investment generated by the paid search campaign, all the way down to the keyword level.

In this case it is very simple to set benchmarks & goals. We want to create as many sales as possible at the highest rate of return per sale.

I recently commented on an article written in Media Post’s Search Insider blog titled “What Does A Recession Mean For Your Search Program?”

My commentary took the perspective that search marketing is somewhat recession-proof (obviously I have a vested interest in this).  My plan was to write a blog post adding to that perspective. 

But, as I sat here thinking about what to write, I posed the question to myself - What are some factors that would PREVENT a company from using search marketing (as a tool) in a recession?

4 Reasons To Cut Back Your Search Marketing Budget

A big “thank you!” to Jill Whalen at High Rankings for allowing me to guest-author an article for her newsletter (published yesterday).  You can visit the HighRankings.com site to read the 5 Keyword Strategies for B2B PPC article.

I remember attending a session at SES Boston where Jill was speaking many moons ago (for those of you who follow the SES show circuit, you know Boston was ages ago - would be great if they’d come back).  I learned a ton in that session about SEO copywriting, and it was one of the early educational highlights for me in my SEO career.