Advanced PPC

Speakers:
Joanna Lord, SEOmoz
Dan Sundgren, Intelius

Today’s major search networks are constantly introducing new relevancy requirements and technical features, which means that you have to stay ahead of the curve. This advanced session features insight into the latest PPC strategies for Google Adwords, Microsoft AdCenter, and others.

Joanna Lord: Google… You So Silly
+ Disclaimer – skipping the basics
+ Things have changed, so many new features and tests rolling out and being added to AdWords platform
+ What is Google investing time into? Ad formats, display network, remarketing/audiences, opportunities tab, automated bidding

Ad Formats
+ Now have longer headlines – make into format of a sentence to expand. This drops the barrier between paid and organic as these appear more like organic listings.
+ Enhancements to sitelinks – taking best performing sitelinks and showing more often
+ Display URL changes – to all lower case
+ Product ads (listing and product extensions). Google is testing ways to increase CTR for us by giving us more options to utilize.

Display Network
+ Simplifying (bye bye default bids)
+ New contextual targeting tool (amazing) – first time Google actually saying it’s thematic. Beneficial for SEO as well.
+ Display campaign optimizer (limited) – relatively hands off
+ Updated display ad builder
+ Updated display resources

Remarketing
+ Target people that have visited your site and show them related ads other sites on Google Display Network (GDN)
+ Strengthen brand recognition, increase conversions by keeping your brand/services in mind

Opportunities Tab
+ First page CPC notifications
+ Advertiser goals (increase spend? decrease costs?)
+ Ideas and increased export options – most of your competitors aren’t using this yet and take advantage
+ Analyze competition – be aware of categorization
+ Purpose? Stop management paralysis, keep expanding without help of 3rd party tools, data dumps for research purposes

Automated Bidding
+ Change budgets, increase/decrease bids, create rules for ad groups, ads, etc automatically
+ When to use: transitioning managers, during holidays, for promos, optimize for performance, when you get sick of starting at PPC, when your client doesn’t have time

Bonus Round
+ Local PPC – local extensions, local extensions with multiple locations, promoted places/Google Boost. WATCH FOR: Google Voucher/Offers (Groupon anyone? Users can download coupons)
+ Mobile – mobile ads forever ago, set ads to just serve to mobile, manage AdWords campaigns on your mobile, preview what your ads look like on mobile, click to call phone extensions (location and phone), keyword tool enhancements just for mobile.

General Things We Are Seeing and What it Means:
+ Customization, campaign set up tools (set your campaigns up right from the start), Improved targeting, more customer support (auditing, consultation, etc)

When we say advertising on AdWords in 2011 we mean:
Contextual targeting, beyond the initial search intention, lower barrier to entry, automated management, more pressure on us (attribute everything). This will change format options, pricing models and our metrics. Social search advertising? Expect it. AdWords right now has about 70% share on spend, it will go down as Facebook ads, LinkedIn ads and others gain more traction.

Questions for Joanna:
+ Attributing conversions through remarketing? SEOmoz uses Retargeter and they do a great job at that. In terms of remarketing messages be sure to hit them with different types of messaging.
+ Thoughts on modified broad match? Seen great success with companies that weren’t taking of exact and phrase in the past. For those that were, helpful for refinement.
+ Have you noticed any trends in mobile search? Numbers in ad text seem to catch eyes, not adjectives. Higher engagement and CTR but less conversions at this point.

Dan Sundgren – Are You Missing the Golden Ticket?
+ NOTE: Mary O’Brien was supposed to be speaking however she got snowed in and could not make it. Dan is presenting Mary’s material. This presentation is focused on adCenter opportunities.

Why You Should be Using Bing
+ 2nd largest share of search market
+ Growing market share, great value and returns are phenomenal (take advantage in early stages)
+ CPAs are lower with the alliance, however volume is lower (many seeing a 20-30% decline due to heavy filter on algorithms for quality vs. quantity)
+ Why is CPA better? Less competition. Geotargeting. Demographic targeting.

How to get results
Upload Google campaigns, stay out of content and some of the noisier places in the beginning, test networks in separate campaigns.

Demographic Targeting
+ Bid more for age groups or day part / geo target

Network Bidding
+ Monitor bids by network, set up campaigns correctly, utilize negative keywords

Match Types
+ Match types are slightly different in Google vs. Bing and constantly retooling. Dynamic keyword insertion (DKI)

Tools You Can Use: adCenter Desktop (like AdWords Editor), Microsoft Advertising Intelligence Excel plugin, Ad preview tool, import campaigns from AdWords, shopping feed

Key Findings: Bing is gaining ground, most advertisers are seeing higher conversion rates and lower CPCs but volume isn’t there yet. ROAS better for Bing, CPC higher on Google, Reporting better on Google, Editorial tools and UI better on Google.

Tactical Tips
+ Match types on adCenter – if you pause phrase match you are also pausing broad and exact.
+ Budgets in adCenter – two settings: divide across the month or spend until depleted – recommended spend until depleted if performing well.
+ Do Google GAP analysis to see where you are missing opportunities in adCenter
+ Separate campaigns
+ Device targeting – look at these and decide what battle you want to pick
+ Track conversions with simple code snippet
+ Site exclusions – can exclude only about 500 domains but it’s a good start.
+ Get API access if you can – not yet available to public, no fee
+ SearchAlliance.com – info on merger

Questions for Dan:
+ What kind of volume drop have you seen? From maybe 100 clicks to 70 clicks for same keyword after merger.
+ Are they planning to make the desktop tool on a mac? Who knows. Assuming at some point. Consider a 3rd party management tool like Clickable.
+ Best practice to delete keywords with many impressions and no clicks – consider these as “dead weight” and can certainly impact quality score