Marketing Leadership - Achieve returns on your search investment



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The fight at the top of search engine listing is very close combat, particularly search engine marketing (SEM) is arguably cheaper than traditional advertising.

More and more companies are discovering the benefits of search engine marketing as they learn that, if managed effectively, it can be cheaper than traditional advertising techniques or direct mail. As a result the market is becoming much more competitive, with companies fighting to be at the top of the search listings. Ed Stevenson advises companies how to ensure maximum return on investment.

With the increased use of search engines to research and buy goods and services online, businesses of all shapes and sizes must have a presence on the web or risk missing out on potential sales. Whatever your requirements or budget, SEM can ensure that you are visible in all the right places on all relevant search engines.

Highlights of Search Engine Marketing campaign

• Increased sales by 25 per cent in first 6 months
• Reduced cost per acquisition by 17 per cent
• Pay per click campaigns have seen a 20 per cent better return

CartridgeMonkey.com provides a comprehensive range of low-cost, high quality inkjet cartridges. Formed in 2003, the company has grown to become a leading online retailer of printer consumables to businesses and individuals across the UK. To ensure it remains one step ahead of the competition, CartridgeMonkey.com decided to review current advertising and marketing efforts in a bid to maximise its exposure online

Gary Flynn, Director, CartridgeMonkey.com says:

“Our marketing strategy had previously been ad-hoc and as such it was difficult to measure the return we were getting. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) formed a large proportion of our marketing effort and seemed to be resulting in a steady flow of visitors to the site, but as our product range and orders increased we had less and less time to monitor and analyse our use of Google Adwords, for example, meaning our budget was not always being spent in the most effective way.”

Successful SEM

CartridgeMonkey.com had only scratched the surface of a search engine marketing strategy but did not have the resource or expertise needed internally to analyse the returns and ensure it was getting the most out of its budget. The company started its quest to find an external organisation, which could advise on the best strategy to meet its requirements.

“The nature of our business means we run seasonal product campaigns with frequently changing prices and offers. We needed to make sure this was reflected in our search campaigns to ensure we were bidding on the best keywords during a particular promotion, for example, to drive visitors to the site. We also needed to have the ability to drill down as little or as much as possible into each order received, to assess where it resulted from so we could analyse the success of each campaign,” said Gary.

The techniques

Paid inclusion campaigns across Yahoo! and price comparison sites are now being managed by Decide DNA which automates the sending of feeds to the engine to guarantee CartridgeMonkey.com a place among the top rankings for a particular search term. Not only does this take the effort away from CartridgeMonkey.com but the tool also makes sure any price changes or new product lines are automatically updated in the feeds to ensure SEM campaigns are as up to date as possible.

Bid management campaigns are also being run across Google Adwords, Yahoo! and Miva, with whom 24/7 Search has excellent relationships. Decide DNA can reduce time spent manually monitoring and updating campaigns by managing keyword spend and ensuring budget is not exceeded or money wasted bidding on terms which are producing a low return. This ensures that the return on ad spend (ROAS) is optimised. The system’s intuitive nature means it can adjust bids and make changes to the campaign configuration in real-time based on the revenue generated.

Campaign results

Through better management of each campaign, CartridgeMonkey.com has been able to greatly maximise its revenue and reduce its cost per acquisition by 17 per cent. Sales on the site have also risen by 24 per cent since working with 24/7 Search. Pay Per Click campaigns have seen a 20 per cent better return.

Plans for the future

With the help of 24/7 Search, the next step for CartridgeMonkey.com is to optimise its site to ensure it maximises its position in natural search results listings, by making the website more visible to ‘spidering’ technologies. This is done by ensuring that the site content matches the most popular search terms, so that the spiders find the site without the need for bid management or paid inclusion.

Top tips to increase your return on advertising spend

• Know your objectives and success metrics

Before embarking upon a SEM campaign, understand what it is you are looking to achieve and why. Do you have any targets that you are looking to meet, such as increasing sales by a certain percentage or increasing hits to the website? With clear goals and metrics in mind, your SEM provider will be able to advise which strategy is right for you and manage your budgets more effectively to get the required results.

• Use the engines that work for you

Not all search engines will produce the same level of success or desired results. The last 12 months has seen more people using vertical specific search engines such as price comparison sites including Kelkoo and Shopping.com. Traffic on these sites can produce more meaningful data and higher conversion rates as shoppers tend to be looking for a specific product and more often than not are likely to buy rather than just browse.

• Go broad on keywords and phrases

The highest rankings are not always worthwhile for certain customers and being lower down in the rankings could produce enough traffic to meet your objectives. Don’t go for the number one spot and spend lots of money if it’s not right for you. Bidding on less competitive, low volume keywords such as ‘loans for students’, can be just as effective and might produce higher conversion rates as the term is more specific.

• Put tracking in place

Tracking SEM campaigns is vital in understanding which search terms are producing the best and worst conversion rates. But the success of a campaign can’t be measured or based simply on keywords. There are three other metrics which should be taken into consideration - keyword groups (broader themes relating to the keyword), creative (page design/advert) and the website landing page. Assessing all four factors will give marketers a much better overview of the success of a campaign and allow for more informed analysis and decision making.

• Spend time writing titles and descriptions appropriately

Each search engine produces different templates for descriptions and titles – it’s not a one-size fits all approach. If someone if looking for a holiday in Spain for example, they will be presented with hundreds of holidays per page, many of which won’t actually meet their requirements. To increase the likelihood of a conversion, descriptions and titles generated must be relevant and meet industry standards and best practice.

• Automate the bid management process

Automating the process takes away the headache of manually bidding on thousands of keywords. Applying rules-based optimisation will ensure that perimeters are set to meet objectives such as reducing cost per acquisition (CPA), increasing ROI or maintaining a certain ranking. Automated tools can also manage budgets through the ability to set limits on different keywords.

• Monitor campaigns on a daily basis

In order to understand why clicks have increased or decreased or which keywords are under-performing, daily monitoring of campaigns is very important. This needn’t be as daunting or time consuming as it sounds, with automated tools available to produce reports specific to each keyword for easier analysis.

By Ed Stevenson,

Director, 24/7 Search

Tel: +44 (0)20 7563 3800
Email: estevenson@realmedia.com
Web: http://www.247searchuk.com/

Ed Stevenson

Tel: +44 (0)20 7563 3800

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May 2006

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