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Macro-Trends in Search Engine Marketing: Meet the Search Engines

Presented jointly by: Chris Zaharias; Vice President, Search Marketing Sales, Omniture Douglas Raymond; Product Manager, AdWords, Google Mike Vargas; Advertising Professional Services, Yahoo! Kelly Thomas; Group Product Manager, Product Marketing, Microsoft Danny Sullivan; Editor-in-Chief, Search Engine Land; Partner, Chief Content Officer, Third Door Media

Macro-Trends in Search Engine Marketing: Meet the Search Engines

INTRO

Curious what cutting edge marketing developments the big search engines now offer? Looking for improved demographic advertising capabilities? Particularly in todays economy, process efficiency and ad performance are paramount. Every dollar must count, and every ad needs to be targeted and trackable. In this guide, we present what Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft have on the market for 2009. Learn how you can leverage their newest advances within your business, to maximize ad spend and speak more directly to your preferred online audience.

Macro-Trends in Search Engine Marketing: Meet the Search Engines

DOING MORE WITH LESS: GOOGLE ADWORDS UPDATE

Thats Googles motto for the year, and they certainly found a way to achieve it.

If you have been around search engine marketing for any period of time, you have probably seen a tail diagram, where you focus on your most trafficked or head terms. Google believes there is still significant return on investment (ROI) left in the long tail; furthermore, they want to help you leverage that opportunity.

Using Googles Search-based Keyword Tool (sbKT), you can access that long tail of queries and find relevant keywords. For instance, you may spend significant time trying to determine which terms perform better and what matches to use. The sbKT tells you which terms your content is highly relevant to, but you are not advertising on. Simply go to google.com/sktool and enter the URL of your business.

Macro-Trends in Search Engine Marketing: Meet the Search Engines

The additional terms the sbKT provides, on average, convert twice as well as existing terms in your campaign. Also, the new terms have equivalent click-through rates (CTRs) as the old terms but are 30 percent less expensive in cost-per-click (CPC). More to Match than Meets the Eye There has been some controversy over Google match type over the years, as they continually try to innovate and refine the way they broad match keyword terms.

In this example, the share of clicks generated by expanded and broad match terms is over 30 percent. Looking at the conversions, they maintain that same share. Tip: For those marketers not using many broad match terms, try it out. For those who are skeptical of the broad match terms being matched on, take another look and dig into Googles search query report to determine how those terms are actually converting for you. Critics may tell you that if you search for tennis shoes, Google will deliver basketball shoes as a result. Googles response is, look deeper to see how that term converts, on a query-by-query basis. Google may have determined that people begin by clicking on basketball shoes and subsequently decide to buy a product from your business; therefore, the term remains a relevant broad match and will continue being presented.

Macro-Trends in Search Engine Marketing: Meet the Search Engines

Conversion Optimizer You tag your conversion page to see how many conversions you are receiving. If you opt a campaign into Googles Conversion Optimizer, it determines the CPC that is bid at the time of query, for the specific match type, and uses that to maximize the number of conversions you obtain with your campaign.

In this example, companies that opted campaigns into Conversion Optimizer over the Christmas season saw their average CPC go way up because it is a more competitive time to bid; yet, the cost per acquisition (CPA) went way down. From an advertisers perspective: This is a very efficient way of advertising, since it is difficult to accurately guess how to set your CPCs in order to capture the highest number of possible conversions at a set price. In addition, as the conversion rate drops after the holidays are over, the CPCs are lowered automatically, and the CPA migrates back. An additional advantage of using Google, instead of a third-party provider, is that they are doing this at the individual query level, based on match typea much more granular way of optimizing a specific bid for each specific matched query.

Macro-Trends in Search Engine Marketing: Meet the Search Engines

Interested in learning more about the changes Google is rolling out in 2009? Visit the google.com/domorewithless micro site to read tips for accessing more conversions and traffic with Googles tools for planning, targeting and measurement.
YAHOO! ENHANCED TARGETING CAPABILITIES

Reach more of the audience you want. This is an exciting time for Yahoo! because they are conducting one of the biggest updates to their Panama search marketing platform, since its release a couple of years ago. Some of their search goals include the following:
Effectively leverage Yahoo!s unique capabilities to reach RIGHT users across the Web Improve ROI by focusing on high-value audiences Reach audiences and become more competitive for specific users, who are most valuable for your business and may result in better return for your marketing dollars

It is all about targeting and providing the mechanisms for advertisers to really hit those key markets that they are looking for, thereby increasing ROI and return on ad spend (ROAS).

Macro-Trends in Search Engine Marketing: Meet the Search Engines

Here is a brief overview of the targeting enhancements Yahoo! is releasing:

They are introducing ad scheduling (aka day parting) for the first time and rolling out demographic targeting on age and gender. In addition, bid adjustments are different than filtering, where you are simply showing ads to a specific market; you actually premium bid on the markets you want to hit. All of these enhancements are built into improved forecasting; so as you target better, you see how that is going to impact the audience you can reach and the anticipated clicks you will receive. Note: These new targeting capabilities apply to both Sponsored Search and Content Match products. Enhanced Geographic Targeting Some notable improvements were released in October 2008 to add ZIP Code and country targeting.

Macro-Trends in Search Engine Marketing: Meet the Search Engines

Yet, more value is on the way:

Flexibility to target at either the campaign or ad group level Bid adjustment option allows advertisers to be more competitive for preferred geo locations (or sub geographies), without filtering out audiences New ability to geo-target at multiple levels within the same campaign or ad group

You have the flexibility to choose specific cities, states or unique combinations.

In this example, the ad group bid is $1, with the target being the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, and premium bids for very specific markets (e.g, Wall Street ZIP Code at 20 percent). Note: The examples are shown in percentage but can also be bid in dollar amounts. Premium bid adjustments are also additive. So, if you want an even more targeted demographic, such as women, and want to do a 10 percent premium for that, each bid would go up by 10 percent more. Ad Scheduling or Day Parting This improvement goes beyond setting an online alarm clock for ads; it enables you to do the following:
Choose the hours of day and the days of the week during which your ads should run Use bid adjustments to become more competitive during high value times Target by audience or account time zone, providing flexibility to reach prospects in their respective time zones

Macro-Trends in Search Engine Marketing: Meet the Search Engines

Example: If your audience surfs over their lunch hour, you can set up ads to run only from 12 to 1 p.m. in their time zone. Likewise, if you have a business where individuals work the phones from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., you can set ads to run only in your account time zone. Demographic Preferences Yahoo! has a wealth of anonymous data on its users, from who they are to where they are located, that you can leverage for behavioral or regional targeting. Age preferences:
Traditional age-range prospect segmentation in standard five-year increments Bid adjustments help you to be more competitive for one age group over another Underage filtering enables you to filter out participants under 18-years-old

Gender preferences:

Traditional gender-based prospect segmentation Bid adjustments enable you to be more competitive for one gender over another Able to gear marketing messages to preferred audiences

If Yahoo! knows who is looking at the ad via a profilethen the applicable premium will apply. Since these are bid adjustments, it does not strictly filter gender or a particular variable only, with the exception of allowing you to restrict the ad from being seen by a known underage viewer. Note: After implementation, these preferences will not change in your Yahoo! account until you go in and activate them. Yahoo! encourages you to experiment to gain better ROAS; simply do so carefully. For instance, they do not recommend sudden hyper-targeting by ZIP Code, which will dramatically shrink your audience.
MICROSOFT ADCENTER UPDATE

While Live Search may be the smallest engine of the three, adCenter has the MSN network, quality partners and a growing audience of 110 million unique users to deliver great ROI for current advertisers. Microsoft heard feedback that it is difficult to work with them. So, the adCenter fall upgrade offers many convenient, time-saving improvements, as well as enhanced Microsoft Advertising design elements that lend a welcome new look to the adCenter user interface (UI).

Macro-Trends in Search Engine Marketing: Meet the Search Engines

Pause and Resume Ads and Keywords You can now pause individual ads and keywords at any time, then resume them whenever you want.

For example, you could do the following:

1. Pause time-sensitive ads for a holiday or weekend, and resume delivery when you want 2. Create ads and keywords for a future promotion, then pause them until you are ready 3. Perform manual A/B comparison testing

You are no longer limited to campaigns and ad groups; you have greater control over advertising efforts.

Macro-Trends in Search Engine Marketing: Meet the Search Engines

Faster Editorial Reviews Rather than receiving rejections without reasons behind them, there is an improved workflow process:
Additional servers and a clearer, more efficient editorial experience to help your approved ads and keywords go live faster If your ad or keyword is disapproved, it is easier to learn why, with more details in Help, as well as a link to the adCenter page where you can update and resubmit the ad or keyword If you use dynamic text to customize ads, adCenter now displays a keyword Error status if your {keyword}, {param2} or {param3} variables cause your ad title or text to exceed character limits

Tip: Rest your pointer on the Error status to see the reason and preview the ad that contains the error. With this understanding, it is easier to update your dynamic text appropriately. Performance Estimates and Bid Suggestions for Content Ads U.S. marketers can learn about content ad performance by using features that were previously available only for search ads. Now, on your Keywords page, you can help boost ROI by viewing performance estimates for your content ads and updating keyword bids for a top position on content pages.

Macro-Trends in Search Engine Marketing: Meet the Search Engines

To automatically replace each current keyword bid with a bid that is estimated to help boost your ad to the best position, click Update all bids for position 1 on the Keywords page To manually update your content keyword bids (maximum CPC), click Update performance estimates to see how your keywords are likely to perform with the new bid price

More control and flexibility as you manage your campaigns. Remember, you can still set an incremental bid (in 10 percent increments above your keyword bid) to increase the chance that customers in your targeted location see your ad. Easier to Use Improvements Microsoft knows a lot about their user network, thanks to Windows Live ID information. They, too, have geographic and age demographic targeting capabilities. Now adCenter makes it easier to target ad groups to customers. In select locations, you can zero in on countries/regions, states/provinces, metro areas, or cities and towns. Here are some of the advances:
1. A tree view makes it easy for you to find the specific location that you want to target 2. An available locations search saves time by displaying a list of targeting options as you type 3. An embedded Virtual Earth map helps you visualize your targeted locations

Macro-Trends in Search Engine Marketing: Meet the Search Engines

Now you can quickly see ad performance by viewing the totals for search, content (U.S. only) and all of your ads on the Ads tablewithout running a performance report. In addition, Microsoft updated the Ads table with a new Ad ID column that displays the identification number of the ad you are reviewing. Microsoft Advertising Products
adCenterCreate search-based adsadvertising.microsoft.com/search-advertising adCenter PublisherPost ads on your Web site (see Participate in Betas below) Content AdsBe seen on Facebook, Wall Street Journal, CNBC, Fox Sports, MSN, etc. advertising.microsoft.com/search-advertising/content-advertising Mobile Search, Cashback, Display ads, etc.

Tools

adCenter Add-InUnderstand keywordsadvertising.microsoft.com/search-advertising/adcenter_addin adCenter AnalyticsKnow your trafficadvertising.microsoft.com/search-advertising/adcenter-analytics adCenter DesktopManage your campaigns offline (see Participate in Betas below)

Resources

adCenter Community Blogwww.adcentercommunity.com Participate in Betasadvertising.microsoft.com/adcenter-beta-pilot-home

Macro-Trends in Search Engine Marketing: Meet the Search Engines

You can follow updates at Twitter.com/adCenterBlog. In addition, Microsoft launched a page on page Facebook. This continues their commitment to bring you closer to the people behind Microsoft Advertising, keep you informed on happenings and provide you another way to share feedback.
CLOSING THOUGHTS

When done well, search engine marketing is a way to impact a diverse audience, while effectively positioning your brand to have a personal sales conversation. Try these tools for yourself to see which one fits your search engine marketing strategy and is most poised to reshape the effectiveness of your campaigns. *** If you would like to learn more about search engine marketing, contact your Omniture Account Manager or call (866) 923-7309. For internationally-located businesses, visit Omniture.com for the office information nearest you.

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