Search Marketing Sage

“Two is better than one.”

That seems to be the common logic these days. And it’s true…to an extent. If you’re the one simply enjoying the benefits of those two Somethings, then great! But what if you’re the person responsible for creating those two Somethings? Or what if having two of those Somethings causes some type of pain or stress?

“Why, yes, Pippen! I would love a second breakfast…as long as you make it for me, and it doesn’t give me indigestion.”

As a Search Marketing Agency, we have a lot of employees that are obsessed about squeezing every bit of performance possible out of our clients Pay Per Click Advertising.  Search Marketing User Interfaces give multiple metrics to help advertisers see how they are doing.  But as an agency that deals with millions of PPC clicks every month, we learn pretty quickly with the scale of the data we get to work with what metrics really make a difference in delivering conversion/lead/sales success and what metrics don’t.

If conversions are the goal of your advertising, then the first rule of managing your PPC account is “Not all clicks are created equal.”  PPC is a “meritocracy”.  The clicks that convert get all of the love, affection, increased max Cost Per Click bids and Budget.  The keywords that don’t convert get minimized with lower bids and eventually even paused.  There is no such thing as a “No keyword left behind” in a successful PPC account.  It’s possible to do a keyword “reclamation project” by improving the post click experience of keywords that historically not converted with custom landing pages, but you still have to rely on the data at your disposal on what you decide to do with your keywords.

In this session, Ron Jones, President and CEO of Symetri Internet Marketing, gave his insights into how to do successful keyword research. He started by stating that keyword research is strategic. By using keywords, we are setting or reinforcing the searcher’s expectations. And as marketers, we must deliver on those expectations. He then gave a formula for getting conversions.

Conversions= Right Keywords + Relevant Destination Content

Here’s how search queries tend to differ based on position in the buying cycle:

1. Initial Research: Broad search terms means users are at the beginning of the buying cycle.
2. Refine Search: Narrow search terms means they have done the research and are closer to converting.
3. Content Research: Reviewing website content.
4. Decision/Conversion
   

   

When in the process of creating an AdWords account from scratch the overarching goal is to optimize the account to best match your target audience.  In doing so you want to string together what you feel is the best mesh of account variables such as (for text ads on the search network) keywords, targeting, messaging and so on.   A popular method many have relied on when making these decisions has been the Google keyword tool’s estimated search traffic and competition level figures.

While the keyword tool is extremely effective for generating a long list of the most popular keywords, given the many differences in consumer preferences, it can be rather difficult to know which combination of targeting and messaging to apply to the long list of keywords that will best fit for your target audience.

Today Search Marketing Now hosted the webinar “Taking Over an Existing PPC Account: Best Practices”. The webinar was sponsored by Marin Software and presented by Josh Dreller of Fuor Digital. This webinar was wonderful as it was one of the first webinars I’ve watched that spoke directly to agencies!

After Dreller warned his attendees to not get stuck in the existing PPC account’s current way of thinking, he presented his “Best Tip…