Red Bricks Media’s News Blog

by Ryan Hailey, Campaign Operations Manager

The Comparison Shopping network, like any other media channel, certainly has some costs, barriers to entry, and common pitfalls and errors that would make an otherwise seemingly profitable marketing channel…well…not so profitable. In order for a CSE campaign to be successful, it is necessary for a company to analyze all its facets and weigh the costs and potential benefits of self-managing versus delegating CSE management. We’d like to share some insights gained by researching this rapidly growing market.

An Emerging Market:

Comparison Shopping Engines are becoming the largest online business-to-consumer medium. They allow consumers to quickly compare prices, access product information and reviews, and make purchases within a few clicks of a mouse. New studies have shown that 60% of online consumers use a CSE prior to making a purchase. CSEs are also responsible for over one third of all e-commerce sales ($54.3 billion in 2007) and have more market share than auction sites and shopping portals combined.

The top four independent CSEs: Bizrate, Shopping.com, Shopzilla and NexTag now own over 61% of the shopping search market, according Hitwise. Google Product Search, Yahoo Shopping, and MSN Shopping combined own less than 15% of the market. These independent comparison engines obviously have differentiated themselves offer a better user experience.

The CSE Landscape:

There are dozens of comparison shopping engines, each trying to differentiate themselves from the rest. Some tout themselves as delivering the lowest priced product matches, while others find a niche that deliver only certain kinds of products, whether it is electronics, baby gifts, or healthcare goods.

Many advertisers who lack the necessary time and resources to examine the entire CSE market tend to opt into only the largest ones, such as Shopping.com, Shopzilla, NexTag, and Bizrate. While these well-known engines do represent a big chunk (roughly 60%) of the comparison shopping market, advertisers who choose only the major CSEs are missing out on a sizeable portion of the market. This is a common faux pas that advertisers make when they manage their CSE efforts in-house as opposed to outsourcing management to online marketing professionals.

In order to maximize potential revenue and product/brand visibility in the CSE market, advertisers must survey the entire CSE landscape. Once this is done, the advertiser can exclude comparison sites that don’t suit their campaign’s motive and choose those sites that do.

CSE Pricing:

When surveying the CSE landscape, pricing models should play a very important role in the decision of which CSEs to opt into. There are three pricing models that shopping engines use: Cost per Click (CPC); Cost per Order or Cost per Acquisition (CPO/CPA), and free, and it is also worth noting that many of the larger CSEs require a minimum investment or deposit that varies between sites.

Cost per Click is the most common pricing model, where advertisers pay for every time an ad is clicked, and is also the most similar to typical Pay-Per-Click campaigns. Some CSEs that follow the PPC model charge a fixed cost-per-click rate for each product type depending on the margin, whereas others allow competitive bidding, which gives the advertiser the opportunity to build out a CPC optimization strategy.

The CPO/CPA pricing model, used by Shop.com and Jellyfish, is also very attractive since it is basically a risk-free investment; you are only charged when the consumer purchases the product.

The last and most popular pricing model is the “free” model. Only a few CSEs use this model, including Google Product Search and TheFind.com. Their profits are derived from selling ad space on their results pages. A common strategy for advertisers that are just entering the CSE market is to start by launching campaigns only on the free portals. This will allow the advertiser to gauge the competition and see how aggressive to be. In the end, however, opting into as many CSEs that suit and help achieve campaign goals is typically the best practice.

Campaign Development and Product Categorization:

Shopping engine placements are contextually pertinent because they’re delivered, along with other related products, on a keyword basis. Product ranking in the search results will be determined by how well a merchant’s keyword search term matches the keywords related to a product’s title, description, and other relevant information provided in the product data feed.

Choosing the right keywords in the product titles and descriptions definitely helps with achieving higher placement. For advertisers that are already managing PPC or SEO campaigns, a CSE campaign can simply be an extension of that, since you already have a developed keyword universe.

However, a new level of complexity is added when bidding at the product level rather than at an ad group or keyword level. A common pitfall in managing CSE campaigns involves product categorization. If an advertiser mis-categorizes its products (i.e. toys, electronics, clothing, etc), they can drastically harm the campaign by either paying too high a CPC or risk not having their product listed. To ensure products are listed and are in the best position possible, advertisers need to optimize their data feed.

Data Feed Management and Optimization:

The largest challenge in CSE management lies with uploading relevant information to different comparison engines. Only a few CSEs, known as “crawlers,” will actively search retailers’ websites and gather information to upload on their comparison site. All others require the advertiser to format and manually upload relevant information via XML.

Relevant information is generally consists of developing and maintaining variable fields, such as keyword-driven product titles and descriptions, file headers, display and destination URLs, product categories, price, model number, UPC, manufacturer name. This must be done for each separate comparison engine and every time product information changes, so it becomes an incredibly tedious task when managing multiple CSE campaigns.

The solution is using a third party Data Feed vendor such as MerchantAdvantage, Quigo, or SingleFeed. Each Data Feed vendor’s offering varies slightly, depending on the size, depth, and dynamics of the product catalog. Pricing schemes and CSE compatibility also vary between the vendors. We use Data Feed tools to centralize data feed management across multiple engine upload formats, meaning the advertiser only needs to enter all information once.

The Data Feed tool formats the information and uploads it to all CSEs. Data Feeds require frequent modification and many companies do not have the resources to invest. But, if an advertiser ultimately decides to have a full-scale CSE campaign, finding the right Data Feed tool is essential for success.

Many sellers make the mistake of relegating Data Feed management to the in-house IT Department since they deem it a technical process. The problem is that the information that goes into the feed is marketing material. Some very useful blogs and websites that contain valuable information about Data Feed Management and Optimization are: www.loveyourfeed.com, www.csestrategies.com, http://wordpress.com/tag/comparison-shopping-engines/.

Campaign Management and Testing:

In starting out a CSE campaign, advertisers should be able to get their feet wet without huge costs or time constraints. They can manage a CSE campaign manner similar to most PPC campaigns.

A majority of CSEs follow the CPC model, allowing the opportunity to bid on a product of keyword level. Users can remove underperforming products just as they would pause keywords in a PPC campaign. Advertisers need to frequently evaluate their campaign in order to understand consumer behavior in search as well as industry trends. This is in part why sellers turn to advertising and industry professionals for CSE management.

Advertisers should also take an active role in landing page development and testing. Each landing page serves as a sort of home page, making not only the case of why to buy the product, but why they should buy the product from you. Advertisers can also test by changing product descriptions, discounts, and special offers. Most of all, advertisers need to be constantly evaluating their campaigns to maximize CSE potential.

The Price Factor – Barriers to Entry:

While price can be a large factor in your CSE ad placement, each engine uses its own particular algorithm for ranking and displaying search results. Each also has different criteria and charges for participating merchants. Most of the major search engines use product price as a common sorting focus, followed by store rating and reviews, popularity, relevancy, and placement bids. In fact, about 70% of click-thrus on comparison sites are not on the seller with the lowest price.

It would be prudent to say that upscale sellers may have a more difficult time seeing positive results in their CSE endeavors. However, they still have the opportunity to advertise any niche products they may have and look for areas that aren’t covered by their competitors.

Sources:
http://searchengineland.com/070504-105037.php
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3628428
http://www.comparisonengines.com/
http://www.csestrategies.com/
http://www.loveyourfeed.com/
http://www.rimmkaufman.com/rkgblog/2007/07/24/feed-optimization/
http://www.ecommerceoptimization.com/comparison-shopping-listing-guide/
http://multichannelmerchant.com/webchannel/affiliate/marketing_shopping_around_0101/
http://www.seobrien.com/2006/10/comparison-shopping/small-businesses-rejoice/
http://www.revenuetoday.com/readarticle.php?name=Comparison+Shopping+Engines+Drive+Sales
http://www.channeladvisor.com/comparison_shopping/summary.html
http://www.hitwise.com/

by Beth Morgan, VP of Operations

During the Web 1.0 boom it was all about the eyeballs. Content was king, and publishers scrambled to fill the Web with information and amusement that would lure people in. Now that we’re seeing the second rise of the Web, content is still king. But it turns out that, as has been common all throughout history, people are less interested in what someone else tells them than in what they and their friends are thinking and doing. Giving people the power to produce their own content and customize their own experiences, essentially democratizing the Web, has brought over 100 million new users to the Internet in the U.S. alone.

Which brings us to the most uniquely people-powered advertising vehicle the world has ever seen: paid search.

Pay-per-click is different from every other mode of advertising out there because the publisher only makes money if someone finds the ad relevant and interesting and clicks on it. The amount that the advertiser bids for each click does figure in to how often an ad runs and where it is placed, but an even bigger factor is how tempting and clickable an ad is. The people are in control! If you as an advertiser fail to interest your target market, they will not click on your ad—and even if you’re willing to pay a small ransom on every click, the engines might choose to not run it all.

So what does this mean for advertisers? Essentially it means that you must re-adjust the way you strategically think about your paid search campaigns, because things you’ve learned about how marketing works might not be true for search. Some examples:

1) Your ad might not appear when you look for it.  With traditional pay-per-eyeball advertising—TV, print, banner ads, etc—you agree to pay a set amount to advertise at pre-determined times and places for a set length of time. If you pick up a magazine or look at a website during that time frame, you will see your ad.

With paid search, though, the engines are unlikely to run your ad with every search, especially when you first launch a campaign. They are constantly running their mix of advertisers through a massive algorithm to determine, essentially, who earns them the most money. Proven advertisers are going to be given more credit than new ones.

They’ll mix your terms in slowly, and then more and more if your ads are successful.

2) You might not WANT your ad to show up every time you look for it. Think about it: are you running ads because you want people to see your neat-o copy, or because you want to sell stuff in a cost-efficient manner? Paid search gives you great real-time data about how your ads are performing, which allows you to get rid of keywords that just aren’t working for you. You may think a certain keyword is absolutely vital to your business, but if those Empowered People don’t agree and don’t click on your ad, the price that Google charges you to keep your keyword in a high position may be more than it’s worth.

3) Decide ahead of time what you’re willing to pay.  Budgeting for traditional marketing is easy: you get X dollars to spend, you buy X dollars worth of placements, and then you look at the stats to see if it was cost-effective. Costs in paid search, though, are both variable and hard to estimate ahead of time. You could have $100,000 set aside for search, but if no one searches your terms or clicks your ads, you might end up spending only $2,000. Google can project approximate cost per clicks before you actually launch your campaign. Use this figure with your average conversion rate to project a cost per action (CPA). Does this number comply with your marginal profit and loss expectations? Realize throughout this process that projections in a market-based environment are imprecise.

4) Write the best ad for each of your market spaces.  If people are clicking on your ad, you’re hitting the right market. Because pay-per-eyeball advertising is so expensive, it is vital to examine where and when ads are running to find the places and the times that yield the best results. Day-parting is a savvy way to make sure your ads are hitting your target when they are present and paying attention.

With paid search, though, people declare themselves as potential customers not by visiting a website or listening to a radio program, but by actively searching for a term relating to your product. If they’re really interested they’ll click on your ad and visit your site. This means that unless you have conversion data that shows visitors convert differently at different times of the day (which might very well be true), day parting isn’t a vital part of search strategy. You think your customers don’t wake up before 9am? Then they won’t be searching and clicking before 9am. Once again, the people decide when your ads run.

5) Rigorous and regular ad copy testing MUST be a part of your program.  When I was traveling through Europe in college, my group would frequently be met at train stations by hordes of people from competing hostels, waving brochures and pictures to try to lure us back to their establishments. Paid search is pretty much just like that.  At the very moment a searcher declares their interest in something, they are met with dozens of contenders clamoring to satisfy that need. Since Google and Yahoo both give better placement (and often a lower price) to ads that get more clicks, it behooves every advertiser to experiment to find out what will work best. Headline, call to action, benefits statement, even display URL—the smallest things can have a big effect. You also want to track results right through to conversion—ads that produce big clicks don’t always convert the best, and that’s the ultimate goal.

So as you can see, with paid search your potential customer is in a unique position to determine when and where your ad runs and even how much it costs. It’s a dynamic and powerful system, but also far less predictable than other forms of advertising. Figure out how to please your customer better than the competitors, and you will be rewarded with a brilliantly cost-effective marketing channel.

Like winning your first Oscar, winning your first Gold Addy award is an experience you’ll never forget. There’s nothing like a shiny trophy to boost anyone’s spirits, and we here at Red Bricks Media are celebrating our newly acquired Gold and Silver Addy Awards for our creative work with clients Wells Fargo and THQ.

Our Gold Addy winner, a Wells Fargo Advantage Funds creative piece, was a print media kit. This client commissioned us to design an identity theft kit for its financial advisors that would encourage consumers to “Unlock the Facts about Identity Theft.” It features an innovative lockbox envelope design, filled with pamphlets and brochures that warn consumers about the dangers of identity theft.

Our bold creative for the hub of THQ’s integrated buzz marketing campaign also won a Silver Addy. THQ wanted to spread brand awareness for its latest first-person shooter, Frontlines: Fuel of War. Red Bricks Media’s team dreamed up an interactive online game that immersed users in the world of Frontlines. Account Manager Ben Kou, Copywriter Peter Vaughan, and Interactive Designer BorFang Su led a team of designers, campaign managers, and strategists on the project.

After winning in our local Addy Awards division, our work went to the district level competition, where both campaigns won Silver Addys. We’ve sent these campaigns on to the national level and are keeping our fingers crossed for another RBM victory!

By Scott Tieman, Senior Marketing Strategist

Not long ago, seemingly every company rushed into the blogosphere with its home grown corporate blog. The thinking was the company could use this platform as a marketing megaphone to amplify the buzz around its latest products, events, and more. Companies soon realized that the excitement of hosting a blog soon died off and their blogs floundered, never to be touched again. At Red Bricks Media, we often encourage our clients to make the plunge, but not before a serious gut check. Many articles focus on the philosophy of blogging; we’re going to discuss the practicality and logistics of blog ownership, an oft overlooked topic.

Corporate blogs that fail are either conceived from the top down or bottom up, but not both at the same time. They need support from both ends to flourish.

Let’s examine top down first.

Corporate blogs can be excellent marketing tools when they’re aligned with the strategic marketing objectives of the company. Translation: what do I hope to accomplish with my corporate blog? Typically, the response is less than satisfying, something like “engender loyalty” or “proactively offset negative marketplace sentiment” or “inform our customers of new product releases or enhanced feature sets.” These are diffuse goals that are difficult to measure. How will you know if your campaign is succeeding without actionable measurement?

Next, companies need to make an important commitment to the employees who contribute to their corporate blogs. First, contributors shouldn’t feel like blogging is a side gig to be done when all other tasks are complete. On the contrary, you should write this activity into your employees’ job description. This will ensure that the contributors don’t feel like they need to always cut into their free time to write. Also, you should consider offering an attainable performance bonus for consistent, high quality contributions to the corporate blog. This will ensure a high level of contribution even during the times when the hours are demanding at the company.

Finally, a company should embrace the idea that their corporate bloggers are a precious, scarce resource. They will be the company champions and the company’s face to the rest of the world. As such, you should commit to not only promoting the corporate blog to increase audience size, but also recognition for the contributors. Making someone an anonymous contributor will most likely decrease that person’s sense of responsibility to the task.

Now let’s examine bottom up.

Corporate blogs require consistently active, passionate authors. When identifying employees to take on this new role, you should always start with hand-raisers. These are the employees most likely to embrace this new role as contributor. However, they shouldn’t stop there. We all know people that have great intentions when starting a new project, but quickly grow bored over the monotonous routine of completing the project. Corporate blogs have indefinite timelines, so it’s important to make this selection carefully. We typically recommend identifying multiple contributors for the same blog. That way, you can ensure that there will be some coverage when the initial excitement wanes and people get inevitably swamped with work.

Also, look for people that have something fresh to say. There are millions of blogs out there and probably more than you know that cover your own company. You should read some of them first and figure out what will differentiate what the company has to say from what has already been said. If the corporate blog is same old, same old, someone else will probably say it better than your company.

Finally, nothing saps the passion out of contributors more than muting their voice with unnecessary corporate blogging “guidelines.” Blogs are social media. The best blogs enable an authentic dialog between authors and their audience. Marketers LOVE control, but this is the wrong place for too much of it. Two thoughts come to mind. First, make sure to enable comments on blogs. Dialogs are inherently two-way communication. If you want a monologue, post another press release. Second, limit the number of bureaucratic filtering layers. Let the true voice of the author ring through. Anecdotally, I worked at Yahoo! two years ago. Before any article got posted to their corporate blog, two managers and the legal team needed to give their stamp of approval. The result was that all articles sounded the same, corporate, and boring. The author’s true voice had been stripped out. Don’t let this happen to you.

Corporate blogs fail for a host of reasons. Before starting a corporate blog, perform a serious gut check. If not, you’ll sign the death warrant on your own corporate blog before it’s ever launched.

This article is cross-posted from Scott’s blog.

By Lauren Quan, Associate Marketing Manager

Facebook reached me via word-of-mouth, far before I had even heard of word-of-mouth and buzz marketing. I was a college sophomore, perusing my friend’s AIM profile, which included a link to the site.

Back in that day there were no applications, games, or even photos to overwhelm me. The sleek blue and white interface was a welcome change from the brief fling I had with Friendster. It was clean, uncluttered, and blissfully ad-free.

When I started working in the digital space, I was surprised by marketers’ growing obsession with Facebook and inability to understand it. What was there to understand? Growing up in an atmosphere where everyone was always online and everyone constantly updated their AIM away messages to show their whereabouts when not online, Facebook made sense as a way to keep track of friends while multi-tasking, AIMing, doing homework, and so on. Because the sign-up process required a valid college/.edu email address, people tended to use their real first and last names. There was a level of transparency and honesty lacking from the dead Friendster and perv-producing MySpace.

At its heart, Facebook was pretty much a virtual, interactive yearbook that helped people stay in touch with college friends. I still check it once a day and prefer it to the vastly overcluttered MySpace or the glorified address book Linked In.

I’m not the only one who checks these social networks daily. According to a recent Forrester report, 80% of young adults and 30% of adults are using social networking sites. These numbers keep growing, as the site averages more than 20 million unique viewers per month.

These large figures have not gone unknown to advertisers. Facebook’s high volume of targeted, engaged web users is a marketer’s dream, and it’s no longer an ad-free zone. Advertisers have enjoyed success with Facebook advertising by creating branded groups and allowing users to become fans. Maybelline, for example, has created a group to promote its cosmetics. BMW is also in the Facebook loop.

Is all hope lost if brands are not entertainment or retail-focused? Not at all. Companies like Ernst and Young have created recruiting Facebook groups, with people assigned to actively respond to questions and give feedback to potential job-seekers. Obviously, such a page would draw fresh college grads in search of a first job. This network has more than 20,000 users.

Overall, companies just need to be aware of the target audience and dream up campaigns that really add value for the users and allow them to engage with the brand. For example, in a recent campaign we ran for THQ, our buzz team crafted an alternate reality game to promote the company’s new first-person shooter, Frontlines: Fuel of War. After signing up at an interactive microsite, users were plunged into a scavenger hunt that had them reading blogs, discovering secret YouTube channels, befriending characters on Facebook, and more, in their quest to uncover the secrets of the world of Frontlines: Fuel of War.

Another way to engage the audience is with widgets. Good widgets should be fun, interactive and useful to the audience. For samples of successful widgets, one need look no further than this online dating widget or the popular Scrabulous widget. People who may not have ever touched the vintage board game edition of Scrabble are flocking in droves to play it online against complete strangers.

Regardless of whether marketers choose to go the widget/application route, the group route, or take a different route altogether, they need to follow the rules of good social media advertising. They need to understand the audience, engage with the community, be completely open and transparent, and above all, remain active and constantly engaged. It’s important to encourage open conversation and feedback, both positive and negative. One need look no further than the failure of flogs to see that trying to trick your audience just won’t work.

Facebook will never again be the ad-free, adult-free, and exclusive social networking platform it was when I first joined. However, I still want to use it to keep in touch with my friends and engage in lighthearted virtual interactions with them. With constant new innovations, (such as the news feed and open application platform, to name a few), Facebook keeps me engaged as other social networks scramble to keep up. If Facebook and advertisers continue to innovate and evolve while not bombarding users with ad spam (a la MySpace) then even legacy users such as myself will continue to visit for years to come.

by Jacob Morgan, Search Strategist

First off, let me give credit where credit is due. I came across this information from reading one of Brian Solis’s post about “Discovering and Listening to Conversations on Twitter.” In the post, Brian refers to Jeff Nolan, who discusses Twitter analytics. Thanks to both of you!

First I’m going to briefly touch on the tools that Jeff addresses, and then show you how they work.

TweetVolume: Type in a few keywords or phrases and you will be shown a graph that compares their volume. As Jeff Nolan pointed out, this is great for monitoring a particular brand, trend, buzzword, etc.

TweetStats: This tool lets you analyze your own twitter traffic. Also great if you work for a known brand and are twittering for your company.

TweetScan: This is really an interesting tool that lets you see real time twitter search information. Think of it as a search engine. You type in your query and then are presented with all the Tweets that include your search.

Now let’s pick an industry and see how we can use these tools. I chose the automotive industry.

Let’s look at the twitter volume for Ford, Honda, GM, Nissan, and Toyota (note: you get slightly different results based on capitalization, but not much)

Start off with TweetVolume. Below we can see that Ford is clearly dominating the Twitter space, Nissan has virtually no Twitter presence. We have to be careful here because terms can have multiple meanings. For example, Ford can refer to the car or to Gerald Ford. (This is where hashtags can come in; see Brian’s post for info on this).

Now let’s take a look at the actual conversations that are taking place using TweetScan. I typed in Honda as a search query and these were a few of the results that I saw. You can also get a bit more specific with your searches and type in Honda Civic, etc.

Finally, we can take a look our Twitter usage using TweetStats. Jeff Nolan was kind enough to post his stats so that is what I am including here.

Finally, you can begin to draw correlations. For example, if I am Honda and I just announced that I am giving away 100 free Hondas (via twitter, etc.) I would expect more people to talk about “Honda” (if I’m doing a good job marketing the promotion on Twitter).

Do not get too caught up with analytics and statistics. Social media marketing is not as cut and dry as web analytics is. It is not that easy to attribute revenue or traffic to a particular tweet, etc. The quality of the conversations is more important than the quantity. However, this is a topic for another post.

Thanks again to Brian Solis and Jeff Nolan.

This article is cross-posted from Jacob’s blog.

Although the weather may be rainy, our New York office still has plenty of reasons to celebrate spring. In honor of our speaking engagements at Search Engine Strategies NYC and our move to a brand-new space, we recently hosted an elegant Spring Soiree. Guests were treated to wine and light refreshments, and invited to participate in an advertising pop quiz. Thanks to everyone who came out to our event! We appreciate your support and look forward to continuing to work with you.

We recently promoted four superstar Bricksters – Kelly Olson, Beth Morgan, Andrew Leinicke and Rebecca Vittetoe – to new positions on our management team.

Kelly Olson was promoted from VP of Finance to CFO. Kelly manages the financial arm of Red Bricks Media to ensure that every process is efficiently directed at maximizing our clients’ ROI. Coming from a background in HR and finance, Kelly has been integral in developing standard methodologies for reporting, keyword research and time tracking – his innovative mind led to the development of CARMA, Red Brick Media’s proprietary campaign operations tool. Before joining Red Bricks Media in 2005, Kelly spent seven years working as a consultant for the Global HR Solutions division of PricewaterhouseCoopers, and he also spent one year as a controller for the Malcolm Group, a consortium of privately held entities that designs and wholesales women’s clothing. Kelly graduated with a degree in Accounting from Azusa Pacific University.

Beth Morgan was promoted to VP of Operations. Previously, she was the Media Director. Coming from a background in direct marketing, Beth is the strategic brains behind our SEM success. Beth is the VP of Operations and is responsible for organizing, developing and overseeing every aspect of our online advertising campaigns, from message and testing strategy to media buying and segmentation. Prior to joining Red Bricks Media, Beth successfully directed Digital Impact’s Custom Web Development group to the highest revenue growth and profit margin of any division. She holds an MBA from Stanford University and a Bachelor’s Degree in Business from Georgetown University. Her deepest, darkest secret: Beth plays with fire on a regular basis and has performed in San Francisco’s Union Square.

After one year as a Paid Search Marketing Strategist for Red Bricks Media, Andrew Leinicke was promoted to his current position as Media Director. Andrew (aka Andy) is literally a man with a plan. His love of microsegmentation, thorough testing, and up-to-the-second tracking and optimization, makes him the best in the business when it comes to decreasing CPA and increasing ROI. He is responsible for overseeing the strategic planning arm of the Paid Search Team. Before joining Red Bricks Media, Andy served as Marketing Manager and Director for Alpinist Magazine, Saveur Magazine, and Garden Design Magazine. He has an MS in Marketing Science from Northwestern University.

Just a few months after taking on the role of Media Supervisor, Rebecca Vittetoe grew Red Bricks Media’s Media Planning service by a whopping 2,000%. Her responsibilities include designing integrated campaign strategies for both traditional and interactive media buys, plus tracking, reporting and optimization of creative messaging. With a degree in Advertising from The University of Texas at Austin, and a stint at Dallas’ prestigious Point Group serving clients like Accuro Health, Texas Health Resources, and Chainlinks Retail Advisors, Rebecca is a testament to the fact that you don’t mess with Texas.

by Scott Tieman, Marketing Strategist

I suspect that many marketers sweat the “Launch” phase more than any other. They’ve seen other marketing efforts tank after tons of planning and want to get it just right. The bad news is that like with a book, the opening chapter of a paid search campaign sets the stage for what’s to come. Mess it up and the rest isn’t worth the bother. The good news is that it’s harder to mess up than most marketers expect. This post (and subsequent ones) will help you get your campaign on the right track from the start. Today, I’ll focus on marketing objectives.

As with any performance driven marketing campaign (and, regardless of media, I hope ALL of your marketing campaigns are performance driven), the first question to ask is “What are my marketing objectives?”. They come in all shapes and sizes, but I’ll generalize them as awareness, lead generation, and sales. Awareness is primarily the realm of brand marketers vying for more mind share, lead generation the realm of acquisition marketing, and sales the realm of acquisition and retention marketing.

Whenever we accept a new paid search client, I always hear the same thing. The client wants to focus on sales & leads. Period. The biggest misconception about paid search marketing is that it is ONLY a demand capture tool. This couldn’t be further from reality; it also functions just fine for awareness and demand generation.

Take awareness as an example. Marketers, depending on category, could pay upwards of $30-100 CPM for banner ads. True, banner ads are rich media and that’s got to count for something compared with bland, short form text ads. But, HOW MUCH MORE? For simplicity, say you pay $1 per click on your text ad. Also assume your click through rate (CTR) ranges from 0.5-5% for a given keyword. Finally say your ad shows 1,000 times over the course of a month. After some fairly simple math, you are roughly paying $5-$50 CPM. Already, this is significantly lower than the range I’ve spelled out above. Don’t forget that a lower CPC would drive even more cost savings.

Let’s take it one step further. The example above (assuming the CTR I spelled out) drove 5-50 people to your site. Each new qualified person is an opportunity for further brand education, lead generation, or sales. With paid search awareness campaigns, you will rely on your website more for the heavy lifting. That’s what you want. By comparison, typical banner ads generate clicks at a rate of 0.1%. Thus, you’ve spent significantly more money to drive only 1 person to your site. With paid search campaigns, you’re getting awareness AND traffic. Now doesn’t it seem like a better investment to put your awareness budget into paid search marketing rather than banner ads? Wouldn’t you prefer that your site do the marketing rather than a skyscraper ad?

In my next post, I’ll further explore this topic of marketing objectives. There’s lots more to say. Stay tuned.

by Scott Tieman, Marketing Strategist

Most paid search campaigns evolve with time, information, and experience. Don’t expect to get the campaign absolutely right from the start. You can’t! You don’t have enough information! Paid search campaigns need to embrace trial and error to blossom. You may have all the experience in the world running paid search campaigns, but that alone will only take you so far in this business.

Generally, you can think about this evolution in terms of three distinct phases: launch, optimize, and sustain. Each phase should have its own goals, expectations, and challenges. Below, I’ve given a taste of how each phase will play out. In my upcoming posts, I will dig deeper into some specifics of each phase.

Launch Phase:

Calling the initial phase the “launch” phase is partly a misnomer. It generally includes all of the activities required to get a campaign up and running including the initial planning before the launch, the launch itself, and the campaign stabilization after the launch. Expect to spend about 1-4 months in this phase.

Optimize Phase:

You’ve gotten the campaign out the door, but now must meticulously care for it. During the “optimize” phase, you will see the greatest efficiency gains. These gains will come at the expense of trial and error. Try not to worry too much about the media budget spent on these tests. It’s not wasted at all. It’s the best money you’ve spent in the campaign so far. Expect to spend about 6-12 months in this phase.

Sustain Phase:

Congratulations! You’ve wrung out the last drop of insight; the campaign is seemingly on cruise control. Give yourself a pat on the back for a job well done then GET BACK TO WORK. The “sustain” phase is all about maintenance. Although the pace of intervention has slowed, you still need to keep your campaign fresh to maintain your performance results in the long run. In general, expect to spend the rest of the life of the campaign in this phase.

On final thought. Given the rapid change in the search landscape, your hard fought insights may become less relevant with time. Your audience may become more sophisticated or a competitor may outmaneuver you for clicks. Maybe the product landscape will change as well. Google may introduce some revolutionary new products that allows you to advertise on digital billboards, blimps, or the moon. When this happens, you may need to revisit parts of this process again. Don’t be stubborn about it. Just jump right in like you always do.

Note: This post pertains t0 the vast majority of paid search campaigns run today. There are some exceptions, most notably “blast” campaigns. These short-lived campaigns typically revolve around products with quick expiration dates like events and media. Given the daunting time constraints facing the marketer, the campaign will likely spend the most time in the “launch” phase and very little time in the “optimize” and “sustain” phases.

This article is cross-posted from Scott’s blog.