People Love to Search on their Smartphones and Tablets

By Matt Lawson March 30th, 2012

We love our mobile devices, and according to our recent study of mobile paid search, we love searching on them. In looking across our client base the trend was unanimous, mobile search is up, way up.

In the U.S., we saw ad clicks from mobile devices increase 132% during 2011, and by the end of this year mobile will comprise 25% of all paid search clicks. Similarly, in the UK mobile ended the year with 15% of all clicks in the UK. And, even though it’s not as significant a percentage, mobile clicks in the Eurozone more than doubled in 2011.

Things get even more interesting for marketers when looking at the differences between smartphones, tablets, and desktops. Generally (UK was the sole exception), smartphones carry higher CTRs and lower CPCs, but the lowest conversion rates. Tablets beat desktops in CTR and CPC, come close to trumping desktops in conversion rate, and edge all devices out in cost per conversion.

So, what’s this all mean?

Mobile devices are not only changing the way consumers search and shop, but how marketers advertise. The immediate response by advertisers is to devote more budget to mobile search (we project ad budgets will fall just a bit short of click volume in 2012). However, down the road as savvy marketers adapt to mobile search scenarios, click to call, location-based promos, and integration with social will all become common place. Furthermore, attribution becomes a much larger issue, particularly in a scenario where a mobile search directly leads to an in-store sale. Who gets the credit?

How do you foresee search marketing changing with the increased adoption and use of smartphones and tablets?

Stop Paying for Unwanted Clicks with Our Negative Keyword Strategies

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).

Car Companies Win Super Bowl

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.

This Year, Holiday Advertisers Got a Deal on Black Friday and Cyber Monday

By Matt Lawson November 30th, 2011

In the wake of another historical early holiday shopping weekend, we thought it interesting to take a look at how search marketers faired from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday. Here’s what we found compared to 2010:

• 30% increase in paid search impressions
• 118% increase in paid search clicks
• 44% increase in paid search spend
• 68% increase in click-through rate (CTR)
• 34% decrease in cost-per-click (CPC)

So what’s it all mean?  The dramatic increase in clicks and click-through rate compared to the more moderate increases in impressions suggest a significant change in consumer behavior.  Either advertisers have managed to make their ads more relevant and appealing, or the search engines have come a long way in improving their matching algorithms.  Most likely, it’s a little bit of both.

In our Q3 benchmarking report, we detailed a trend of rising click-through rates for large-scale advertisers over the past couple of quarters.  This shift has occurred in large part as advertisers expand their use of phrase and exact match keywords – improving relevance and click-through.  This shift in match types would also explain why click volumes rose faster than spend, resulting in lower costs-per-click for search marketers.  If that trend continues throughout the remainder of the season, it will be a happy holiday indeed for advertisers and shoppers alike!