January 20, 2010
Why pay for clicks when you can get them for free?
This question often comes up when facing relatively inexperienced advertisers deciding between PPC and SEO. While I cannot refute any argument based solely on this logic (organic clicks are free and paid clicks are not), I can make a case for PPC even when SEO is at its best – which certainly is not the case for the majority of sites out there.
There are three distinct advantages that paid listings have over organic listings, and as a result these are the three most compelling arguments for integration of SEM into any marketing scheme:
1. If you don’t use SEM, your competition will poach your traffic. Read the rest of this entry »
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SEM, Trends, paid search, search engine marketing | Tagged: marketing, online marketing, paid search, PPC, query, SEM, SEO, Trends | 
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Posted by esearchvision
December 11, 2009
Visit us at eTail West 2010! Call 415.814.1001 & mention this post for a conference pass discount when you register as a friend of eSV.
The conference takes place at the JW Marriot Desert Springs, in Palm Desert, CA from February 22nd – 25th. The theme of this year’s show is Take Advantage of the Next Phase in the Retail Cycle and the agenda is packed with sessions and panels to help you plan your retail strategy. On February 22nd, our own Marc Wendling will participate in the Search Summit interactive roundtable discussion covering every aspect of SEM. The day will also include keynote presentations with speakers from multi-channel to pure play and promises to leave you with actionable means to maximize your SEM dollars.
We hope to see you there!
Leave a Comment » | eSearchVision General, search engine marketing | Tagged: SEM | Permalink
Posted by esearchvision
November 6, 2009
Most SEM professionals will agree that a solid SEM program strategy is multi-faceted. The program should focus not just on bidding, but also on Quality Score, data gathering and reporting, and aggressive testing of all aspects of the program. That being said, the great promise of bid automation remains a viable, debatable, and important topic.
There is no doubt that autobid algorithms are important to a well-rounded SEM bidding strategy but they can also be detrimental. Success with autobid depends on a number of factors. Obviously, one crucial factor is how well constructed the algorithm is. Perhaps more important, though, is the level of customizability made available by the algorithm. Does it treat core and long-tail terms similarly, or is it specialized for success with a particular kind of keyword? Is it customizable in terms of defining quantity of data analyzed, statistical relevancy, convergence speed, and data tolerance leading to a bid change? Can you influence bid security, day parting, data aggregation? Find out more!
Leave a Comment » | SEM, eSearchVision General, paid search, search engine marketing | Tagged: algorithm, customizable, google algorithm changes, internet marketing, pay per click, PPC, SEM, technology | Permalink
Posted by esearchvision
October 22, 2009
If you’ve had a meeting in the last 3-6 months with a search engine account team, then you probably left the meeting frustrated. It appears that sometime in the last two quarters, the powers that be in the big 3 search engines have recognized advertiser’s dependency on them for strategy…so they’ve taken into their own hands to make the most of it. We’ve heard it all: “Holiday starts in October,” “Get ahead of the competition by ramping up spend,” “You’re missing 50% of available impressions…why not increase bids to get more market share [regardless of performance]?” Here’s my question: When did the search engines make the conscious decision to stop caring about customer satisfaction and begin to make recommendations with their own best interests at the forefront of the discussion? At least they used to pretend that advertiser performance was top of mind.
To be fair, this is not indicative of every team I have worked with. Some teams are more capable than others, and teams that handle more mature programs tend to deliver fewer of these pitches – instead focusing on new products beta tests. more from Benny…
1 Comment | SEM, paid search, search engine marketing | Tagged: account, bid management, impressions, marketing, online, paid search, search engine, search engine marketing, SEM | Permalink
Posted by esearchvision
October 2, 2009
by: Joshua Krafchin
The beauty of paid search marketing is that results are highly trackable. We can trace revenue back not only to the keyword and match type level, but also by the hour or even by the geography of the original search queries typed into any search engine. This extensive tracking provides us the opportunity to understand not only revenue and cost implications, but a whole host of other criteria from visitor interaction with our website to offline conversions and gross margin. With this surplus of data and choice though, many marketers run into the dilemma of how exactly to define success. Shifting general business priorities outside of search, whether or not they relate to search specifically, can directly impact how we manage a search program.
One of the big tug-of-wars is between ROI and volume. Because search is so measurable and trackable, companies have come to expect hitting and surpassing ROI numbers. In turn, this ability to consistently hit ROI makes paid search revenue highly desirable, and executives will push for more and more revenue volume from paid search. Read the rest of this entry »
2 Comments | SEM, Trends, eSearchVision General, paid search, search engine marketing | Tagged: business, client, goals, ROI, SEM | Permalink
Posted by esearchvision
September 17, 2009
Traditionally, search marketers base their search results on a “last click wins” basis. This means that the last click a consumer makes always gets attributed the sales revenue or conversion, regardless of how many other searches were made prior. The result is that brand terms often appear hugely profitable and costly generic terms appear to offer an extremely low ROI, if any at all. This makes it difficult to correctly classify “head” vs “tail” terms.
To combat this discrepancy, whenever we estimate performance for a keyword, we also calculate a confidence interval related to that prediction. When the confidence interval is too large, it means the prediction is useless (typical for keywords with very low traffic). We then need to aggregate in a relevant way (which is usually different from the way keywords are structured in ad groups) to get a critical mass of stats.
For this reason, we offer two different algorithms for automated bid management: Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | SEM, Trends, eSearchVision General, paid search, search engine marketing | Tagged: bid management, core, heads, long-tail, paid search, SEM, tails | Permalink
Posted by esearchvision
September 3, 2009
Many advertisers and agencies looking for an SEM Campaign Management technology are taking advantage of testing platforms before moving into a long-term contract. This makes a lot of sense.
The question though, is how to know if a test is successful.
Criteria for success fall into two categories: Usability and Performance.
Usability
Pros: You can get a sense very quickly of whether the platform fits your day-to-day management needs. Is the platform fast-loading, intuitive, and flexible? Does it cut down the number of hours typically spent doing routine work? Does it provide easy access to reports and the ability to manipulate large chunks of data with minimal struggle? Within a couple weeks of a test, you will naturally get a good sense of whether the technology is making your life easier or more stressful. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by esearchvision
August 20, 2009
“Best in class”, “We drive results”, “Industry leader”.
These are just a few of the things SEM agencies claim as their identity. Like everything else, advertisers are flooded with messaging demonstrating that each agency is better than the next but the question is, “why?” What makes Agency X the leader? What makes Agency Y the best? Agencies are great at calling themselves the All-star, but don’t always make it clear for advertisers just why they are deserving of these titles. As SEM is all about numbers, it is particularly important for advertisers to gain clear insight into the pros and cons of each agency and not just rely on a glamorous marketing pitch. Below are a few things to consider when researching SEM companies:
1. Technology. While agencies will usually provide information on their technological capabilities, it is a good idea to dig deeper than this. Find out if they developed their own technology or if they license it from another SEM company. If they license it out, what made them choose this specific technology? Do they plan to change anytime soon? Why or why not? read more…
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Posted by rnathan
August 13, 2009
Paid Search is a rapidly changing advertising medium and it is crucial to keep up if you want to be successful in this field. For example, advertisers have the ability to tailor messaging directly to searchers on-the-go if they take advantage of Mobile/Geo based targeting. This gives them the opportunity to use location-based messaging to offer in-store/onsite discounts and special offers specific to customers’ locale. Also, rich media ads in search allow for true branding efforts as they provide a merge of display and SEM. These are just a few of the many new Paid Search opportunities introduced every day.
With over five years of SEM experience, we are experts in innovation. We have developed several of our own unique features to ensure advertisers have access to the newest and best SEM techniques:
• Catalog management – the ability to optimize and report independent of search engine account structure. Makes highly-targeted, large accounts extremely manageable. get more tips…
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Posted by esearchvision
August 5, 2009
As the Search Engine Marketing industry continues its maturation, the old growing pains are making way for new ones. We are glad to see that search solution providers are becoming more transparent, particularly in encouraging advertisers to own their own search engine accounts or at least making the account data easily available. This is a significant improvement over the old days when agencies “owned” search engine accounts and it was nearly impossible for advertisers to get their own data, let alone logins to the account. However, a new issue, which is perhaps equally concerning, is the trend towards removing the human element from the search equation.
We see this in two ways:
1. Search vendors provide the technology and minimum training on the platform but do not teach the ins-and-outs and, in particular, do not provide search-relevant training to make a search engine management technology truly effective.
2. Search vendors suddenly concerned about cutting cost are putting huge swaths of search programs on automated strategies and not performing ongoing analyses to understand the ramifications and strategic optimizations.
As proprietary search technologies continue evolving to provide added functionality to the search engines, it is crucial that advertisers continue demanding not only transparency but also human expertise. Search Engine Marketing is not a “set it and forget it” operation, even with the most advanced platforms on the market. There are too many externalities to depend solely on automated strategies. In order to get the most out of a search solution, advertisers should expect to change their workload from execution to strategic analysis for greater search control and success.
Josh Krafchin
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Posted by rnathan
