By Matt Lawson February 22nd, 2012
Whether you’re just starting out in paid search or have fully built out search campaigns, in order to be successful, you’ll want to know how to implement negative-keywords within your campaigns. Why? Actively managing negatives is possibly the single most impactful tool marketers have to increase revenues and lower costs. The virtuous circle of lowering costs while simultaneously increasing quality and position results in a win-win for the advertiser: increased revenue and ROI. Given the benefits, negative keywords should always be a top consideration for advertisers looking to optimize paid search.
In a recent white paper, Marin Software reviews the benefits of successful negatives strategies and presents a variety of best practices for deploying and managing negatives. Some of these best practices include:
- Strategies for Identifying Negatives: Where does one start when identifying negative keywords? Learn 5 tactics for sourcing negatives, as well as tips and tricks for implementing these methods efficiently.
- Using Negatives to Shape Traffic: One of the most common methods for shaping traffic with negatives is by creating match-type silos. Discover how match-type silos force search engines to trigger the correct keyword-match-type combination for each query and how to implement them in your campaigns.
- Negative-Keyword Strategies for Yahoo! & Bing: Marketers should not assume that negatives in adCenter act the same way as negatives in AdWords. Find out the important differences in the treatment of negatives between the two search engines.
Gain a complete understanding of how to leverage negatives to maximize revenue and performance for online advertising programs. More importantly, become equipped with the techniques necessary to make a strategic implementation of negatives a reality.
Download the free white paper here.
And, join our free webcast on Thursday, March 15 at 10am PST (1pm EST).
By Matt Lawson February 7th, 2012
The Giants may have won this year’s Vince Lombardi Trophy, but auto advertisers won the online advertising wars on Super Bowl Sunday.
The list of car companies vying for consumer attention was a who’s who of the industry, and included such household names as Acura, Cadillac, Toyota, GM and Volkswagen. Ads were priced at $3.5 Million for 30 seconds and averaged around a minute.
So was the $7 Million worth it?
To try and answer this question, we looked at click volumes and paid-search spend for the auto sector on Super Bowl Sunday and compared it to the rest of our US clients. Here’s what we saw:
Compared to Sunday the previous week, automotive advertisers saw a 28% jump in clicks, a 34% increase in impressions, and a staggering 122% increase in spend on Super Bowl Sunday. As advertisers competed for the same users, the auto segment’s cost-per-click (CPC) increased 73% on Super Bowl Sunday. In comparison, we saw a modest 6% increase in paid-search spend across our overall US clients, coupled with a 9% increase in CPC.
By getting the largest increase in click volume this Super Bowl, car companies clearly won the battle for the digital consumer’s mindshare. And in the process, they showed us how TV advertising and Search advertising can be used in concert to drive brand lift and deliver performance.
By Jana Fung January 30th, 2012
Marin just released its next generation of visualization tools, allowing marketers to quickly spot outliers and trends in data, adding snazzy visuals to PDF reports or for inclusion in performance dashboards. With different chart types to choose from, here are some ways to use each new charting option: Scatter, Bubble, and Pie charts.
Scatter charts help you identify a relationship between two metrics and visualize correlations. Have you found a correlation between average position and click-through rate? We have seen that ads shown directly above organic search results have significantly higher click-through rates than ads that show up on the right side of search results. By identifying these relationships, you can bid to position more strategically, using Marin’s Bid Override to Position.
Bubble charts are similar to scatter charts, but also allow you to plot a third metric (bubble size) to highlight the prominence of that data point. One popular way to use bubble charts is to visualize creative by click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate and clicks, shown below. This bubble chart helps online marketers identify ad creative that have high CTR and low conversion rate, exposing good opportunities for creative testing. In the example below, the largest bubble in the upper-left quadrant represents an enormous opportunity for testing, as shown by the size of the bubble (clicks).
Pie charts allow you to compare the magnitude of one metric across a few items. You may want to compare cost, conversions, profit, or return on investment across all publishers. These types of pie charts are extremely handy when identifying the publisher that is most profitable and where to allocate your ad spend.
By Gagan Kanwar January 20th, 2012
Yesterday, Google released its earnings for the fourth quarter of 2011. On the whole, it was a strong quarter for the digital advertising giant. But Wall Street reacted in a way that seems counterintuitive. Since the earnings’ call, $18 billion has evaporated from Google’s market cap as share prices fell ~8%. So, what’s happening here? Is there really cause for concern? Or are Wall Street’s concerns overblown?
To get a more complete picture, let’s look at the relevant pieces of Google’s business and performance.
The Big Picture
Google’s revenue for the fourth quarter was $10.6 billion, representing a year-over-year (y/y) top line growth of 25%, and marking their first $10 billion plus quarter. Though I usually don’t wax poetic over corporate financials, there is something strongly significant and symbolic about having hit the rarefied $10 billion quarter club. Way to go, Googlers!
Google’s Core Search Business
Click Volume – Paid clicks were up 34% annually (y/y), implying more users are more engaged with Google.
CPC – Cost per Click declined 8% on a y/y basis, implying customers are getting more volume (clicks) for their advertising spend. This dynamic is important to keep in mind as cheaper clicks are better for advertisers, and assuming click quality doesn’t decline, will lead to increased investment in Google.
Wall Street’s Reaction
There’s probably more to dissect in these earnings, but this is probably a good place to pause and examine Wall Street’s reaction.
To put it plainly, Wall Street didn’t like any of the above. Shares plummeted ~8%. The big issue for Wall Street (based on the nature and frequency of analyst questions) was around the decline in Google’s average cost per click.
But this shouldn’t really be a factor because the marginal cost of a click (for Google) is zero. And assuming that click volumes are rising faster than changes in the cost per click, which they are in this case, Google’s top line revenue shouldn’t really see an impact.Net net, if cheaper clicks brings more advertisers on-board, than Google will more than make up on volume.
To be fair, I’m not looking at the slowdown in Europe or issues around currency (F/X) hedging in this blog post. (I’m also not looking at the positive impacts of mobile, social and display) But, those issues are a) extrinsic and b) volatile, and in retrospect, Wall Street may have over-reacted to Google’s numbers.
By Curt Weaver January 17th, 2012
Implementing a mobile marketing strategy for paid search may pay large dividends to your web business. This article outlines the basic steps from evaluating the opportunity to building and optimizing a mobile-targeted search campaign.
The number of smartphone subscribers using the mobile Internet has grown 45% since 2010, and the majority of 25-34 and 18-24 year olds now own smartphones (64% and 53% respectively)[1]. 79% of smartphone consumers use their phones to help with shopping, from comparing prices, to finding more information on a product or service, to locating a retailer[2]. Also, mobile and tablet usage has proven to be complimentary to desktop computer usage[3]. The time for Mobile paid search marketing is now, and the following ideas will help your business capitalize on the opportunity.
Measure Overall Mobile Demand
The first step in defining a mobile marketing strategy is to estimate the number of monthly search queries your current keywords generate from mobile devices. This can be accomplished by using the Google Keyword Tool’s “Advanced Options and Filters” feature. If demand is significant, it is critical to develop a comprehensive mobile strategy.
Brand Penetration
Next, investigate what percent of your current traffic comes from mobile devices. This can be tested by opting select campaigns into both mobile and desktop targeting for a limited period of time. After the test period, use the “Segment” button in Adwords to view campaign data segmented by device type. Mobile is estimated to represent 15-17% of all SEM traffic for the Finance, Automotive, Tech, Travel and Entertainment industries. What percent of your brand’s search volume comes from mobile?
Evaluate Current Assets
If there is significant mobile search volume and brand penetration, evaluate your current assets. Does your brand have mobile-optimized web content or SEM-specific landing pages? If not, plan to invest budget here. Also, be sure your current tracking solution is compatible with mobile in order to attribute conversions and revenue back to the keyword that generated the sale.
Account Structure
One paid search best practice is to create separate campaigns targeting only mobile devices (not desktop). The benefits of doing so are budget control, bid control (see “Bidding” section below), ad copy optimization and mobile-specific landing page targeting. If you already have campaigns targeting desktop, either copy the entire campaign or simply migrate your head terms and other high-traffic keywords.
Building Search Objects
The mobile customer is unique. When building a mobile keyword set, remember, mobile screens are small. Therefore, mobile search queries tend to be shorter than desktop queries, typically one to three words. Mobile search queries also contain more local information, such as zip codes and city names. In your ad copy, be sure to include a relevant call-to-action, such as “Receive a Quote on Your Phone”. Also, consider using advanced ad features such as click-to-call and click-to-download if you have the means to track conversions from these sources.
Bid Optimization
There is limited real estate on mobile search engine results pages, five on Google, only two of which are positioned above organic search results. Consider bidding important keywords to position two or better, and leverage your SEM management tool to build an alert to notify you if mobile keywords drop below your target average position. For keywords targeted to ROI or CPL goals, consider targeting separate performance goals based on historical conversion rate and value per conversion, as mobile traffic converts differently than desktop.
If your keywords generate a significant amount of searches from mobile phones, implementing a mobile marketing strategy for paid search should be a priority. After growing by 45% since 2010, mobile internet usage is not expected to slow, so act now.
By Samantha Lee January 12th, 2012
Last night, our very own Matt Lawson was interviewed on the CBS5 (SF) evening news about the surge of tech jobs in San Francisco. Check out the video below!
Marin plans to hire 120 employees worldwide in 2012. Visit our careers page here.
By Jana Fung January 11th, 2012
We just released our Q4 online advertising report, identifying important trends year over year in online advertising. We sampled the Marin Global Online Advertising Index, which includes over 1,000 advertisers and agencies that invest over $2.7 billion annually in online advertising.
Overall, our advertisers saw an increase in click-through-rate (CTR) and a decrease in cost-per-click (CPC). But more importantly, we found significant changes in clicks and impressions compared to the fourth quarter of 2010. Key findings include:
- 56% increase in click volume
- 23% jump in click through rates
- Smartphones and tablets now account for 10% of all paid-clicks
So, what does all this mean? The big jump in clicks and click through rates in the last year suggests that advertisers are continuing to increase investment in paid-search and consumers are even more engaged with paid search results.
Device targeting is also showing promise as smart phone and tablets become increasingly popular around the world. Based on the growing click share of smart phones and tablets, it seems evident that more and more people are conducting searches on these newer devices. And, these new devices are actually delivering solid performance for search marketers! The chart below compares CTR across devices in Q4 of 2011.
As this trend is growing rapidly, keep device targeting top of mind when planning your 2012 campaigns.
Want to see other Q4 industry trends from 2011 with our recommendations? Download the full report here.
(Note: You will be asked to fill out a short registration form to gain access to the full report.)
By Irv Brechner January 5th, 2012
As a very tech-savvy customer acquisition agency, we learned a long time ago the extraordinary value of having extremely close relationships with technology providers. Being a user of Marin Enterprise Edition for years, the resources and time we’ve put into this relationship has paid off in spades, giving us the capability to get the greatest value from Marin and therefore be the most effective for our clients.
For very basic tools that have limited functionality, mastering them is easy, but there’s very little you can do with them and you get minimal benefits. For extremely sophisticated and function-laden tools like Marin, taking advantage of their breadth and depth of training, onboarding options, contextual help and other services was something we eagerly embraced in a big way. Doing so has paid off: we’ve seen a quantum leap in terms of results.
That’s the tip of the iceberg, as there are many other reasons that we chose to have a very close working relationship with Marin. Because acquirgy has a wide variety of direct response clients, with different business models, different metrics and different ROI goals, Marin’s desire to listen to our recommendations has led to numerous enhancements that we can confidently say has improved our ability to serve our clients. For example, using Marin’s Ad Testing feature, we were able to see dramatic differences between creative in a manner that was prudent and statistically significant.
It’s a win-win for Marin and acquirgy: Marin gets valuable feedback, leading to new features that benefits all their users; acquirgy gets new features that were developed based on our knowledge of our clients’ businesses.
Another example of the benefits of working closely with Marin is their close ties with Google. As clients we are among the first to learn about upcoming releases. This helps us plan for them so that we can take full advantage of them upon release. Marin’s ability to customize reporting and be a sounding board are two more reasons why our agency is proud to have developed such a close relationship with Marin.
Want to learn how we chose Marin from among all their competitors? Drop me a line (irv@acquirgy.com).
By Michael Poynter January 4th, 2012
Facebook sponsored stories typically provide a significant boost to click through rates and conversion rates. The reason behind this is that the ads introduce social context within them. The social context makes the ads more relevant, yielding more favorable metrics. But how can an advertiser take advantage of sponsored stories? There are several different types of sponsored stories and they may not all fit with an advertiser’s business model. Below is a snapshot of a few of the most popular sponsored stories and some guidance on which sponsored stories would be the most helpful for the various business models.
Domain Story:
To set up domain sponsored stories, the advertiser needs to place a small piece of HTML on their website which appears as the Facebook “like” button. When a user comes to their page, while logged into Facebook, and clicks “like” a story is created stating John Doe likes MarinSoftware.com. A click on this ad would send the user to MarinSoftware.com.
Domain sponsored stories require the most work to set up, but they are a valuable targeting asset for lead generation advertisers that would like to drive users to their domain instead of a Facebook page. This is the only sponsored story that will allow the user to be driven away from a Facebook URL. In the end, it’s Social Context plus the ability to drive the user offsite. This is a huge win for lead generation and retail advertisers.
Page Like Story:
Page like stories are created when a user clicks “like” on a business’s Facebook Page. After clicking “like” a sponsored story can be created stating “John Doe” likes Marin Software. A click on this ad would send the user to the Marin Software Facebook Page.
This is great for brand advertisers that want to increase their Facebook page likes. The key advantage here is that the advertiser can target users who have friends that like their Facebook fan page. In this sense, the targeting is more valuable than the “friends of connections” product because the ad is targeting friends of the user that clicked like AND they are showing an advertisement with social context. If my friend, John Doe, likes Marin Software I might like it too.
Page Post Story:
Page Post stories are created when a user navigates to a Facebook advertiser page and posts a comment on the wall. This creates a story that shows the post on the advertiser’s Facebook wall. For example, if I post “I love the new shirts” on the Macy’s Facebook page that comment could then be used within an ad.
For a little while, this was a dangerous feature to use because a user could potentially post negative feedback on the advertiser’s Facebook page. Using sponsored stories in this case would then broadcast that negative feedback. Recently, Facebook has changed this functionality so that the user can identify which story they want to broadcast for the advertisement. Social context is no longer required to run a page post ad. Essentially, this ad is able to take the business’ most favorable feedback and broadcast it. This could work for both branding or to sell an individual product through the FB platform.
Check-in Story:
Check-in stories are created when a user checks-in at a store that you have claimed as yours. For example, if I were shopping at Macy’s in Union Square and I decide to check-in, Macy’s would be able to use that check in for a sponsored ad. The sponsored ad would state “Michael Poynter checked in at Macy’s - Union Square”. Clicking on this ad would take the user to the Macy’s Union Square Place Page.
This is the type of ad that goes full circle to the point of offline sale. These are much more difficult to track and the volume will likely be low, but the ads can be an effective sales tool for large businesses.
By Mickey Nguyen December 7th, 2011
It is widely known that in Bing, the three separate match types are in fact the same entity, forcing advertisers to use the {matchtype} parameter to properly track. What causes confusion is the fact that Bing recommends something called ‘cascade bidding’ which allows users to analyze performance more easily and prevents the wrongful inheriting of bids across match types.
In Bing, match types can inherit the less specific match type bid. It is not uncommon for a user to set a bid for broad match, failing to set an explicit bid for the phrase and exact, thus causing all match types to have the same exact bid. For example, if an advertiser is bidding on the keyword “shoe” with a $1 bid on broad match and a bid isn’t specified for phrase and exact match types, they will both inherit the broad match bid. This results in Bing serving phrase and exact match queries as if they had been bid at $1 as well.
How do we get around this?
Bing recommends setting an implicit bid on all match types. The chart below will provide an example of AdCenter’s recommendation for dealing with this Bing intricacy. You’ll see that in the broad group, the other two match types are set to the group level minimum bid. The phrase will have exact bid set to $0.5 and so on.
Since AdCenter does not allow advertisers to pause just one instance of the keyword in a group, advertisers will need to implement this solution. If all keywords resided in the same ad group, pausing one match type will cause the others to follow suit. Due to this behavior, Bing recommends the above: cascade bidding.
Cascade bidding is particularly useful for advertisers who do not have the luxury of tracking dynamic parameters like {matchtype} mentioned above. Even without tracking the dynamic parameter, advertisers can now report more accurately on keyword performance.
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