By Min Poh, Senior Account Manager

As of June 2010 Facebook has over 400 million active users, the average user spending more than 55 minutes on the site per day. Having run many successful Facebook campaigns for our clients, we have provided some quick tips to tweak your campaigns and get your ads up and performing!

The Top 10 List

1.    Define Your Goals

As with all advertising campaigns, the first step is deciding what you want to achieve. It is also important to remember that not all goals can be met through this channel. For example, we found Facebook to be less effective for direct sales. The site is however very effective for branding & engagement, building product awareness, lead generation, promoting offers & sweepstakes, and building a community around your brand.

2.    Choose the Right Ad Format

In addition to the basic image and text ad format, other ad formats are available through Facebook.  For example, event ads with a RSVP button can be easily created through the ad self-serve ad interface. Video and polling ads are available to larger advertisers as well as for placement on the users’ home page.

3.    Leverage the Power of Your Network

Ads on Facebook are social. If someone likes an ad, it will show up on the pages of his or her friends. Facebook also uses this to gauge the effectiveness of the ads served. Get your company involved, have co-workers like your ads or become a fan on Facebook to help spread the word through their networks!

4.    Update Your Ads Frequently

Facebook ads are unlike search engine ads.  Depending on the size of your target audience, ads may be served fairly often to each individual. Keeping your ads fresh will help improve click through rates and provide you with another chance to remarket to the user with a different message. We recommend updating ads at least once every 2 weeks. Try a different image and refresh ad copy to see what works.

Figure 1: This chart shows click-through-rates over a 2 week period for a Facebook campaign. Click-through-rates are highest immediately following launch but plateau at the end of week 1. 

5.    Segment and Target Your Ads

The beauty of Facebook is the ability to target users based on their interests, location, age, gender, education level, workplace, relationship status and language.  Once you know the group you would like to target, segment your campaigns by age group, gender or interest to determine effectiveness. For example, does my product resonate better with males or females? One key point to remember is that ads should be custom to the audience you are reaching. By speaking to the interests of the target audience, we were able to increase click-through-rates by more than 200%.

Figure 2: Sample ads targeted at users with golfing or photography as an interest.

6.    Report & Analyze – Responder Profiles

Facebook provides the usual reports for ad campaigns (impressions, clicks etc.).  However, what really stands out with Facebook reporting is the responder profiles report. This report shows the top interests, books, movies and TV shows, of people who have clicked on your ads. Interesting information can be gleaned to help shape audience profiles and determine targeting for future campaigns. 

7.    Select The Right Landing Page

Landing pages can go to a Facebook product/company page or go off the site to your company’s home page. Select your landing page destination based on your goals. If you are trying to build a community and fan base on Facebook, keep your respondents on the site. Sending respondents to your home page works better if driving direct traffic is a goal.

8.    Get Creative with Branding! 

Facebook is an excellent platform for branding and generating product awareness. You can create quizzes, post videos, share images and product information on your company’s page. These features should be complimented with Facebook advertising.

9.    Work the Incentives

There is nothing like a contest or giveaway to generate product interest. Papa John’s added 125,000 fans in a day through a combination of Facebook ads and a free pizza offer.

10.  Build a Community

Finally, Facebook is also a great place to build a community. The barrier to entry is low since users already have a profile and do not have to register again to join.  You can start your Facebook community by growing your company’s fan base. This can be done through Facebook ads. Think of fans as an enhanced mailing list. Every time an update is made to your company’s status, fans will be notified.  Remember to also continually engage with fans as your community grows. Exchange comments, photos, links. Nobody likes a fan site with little activity!

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By Andrew Leinicke, Media Drector

Online display advertising, or internet banners, has not amounted to a growth industry during the last five years. Even though interactive marketing budgets have grown in the face of a global recession, banners stagnated in terms of spend back in 2007. Spend levels haven’t really picked up since. So why is there so much excitement about display advertising as we march into the second quarter of 2010?

 The answer lies in new technology. Google has made no secret of its intent to leverage its considerable engineering and user experience talents to enter the display marketplace with force. Recently, Susan Wojcicki, Google’s Vice President of Product Management, outlined an ambitious vision for Google display advertising on the Official Google Blog. Under this vision advertisers of any size would be able to:

 “buy ads across the web at scale, create engaging ad formats, measure the impact of ad campaigns in innovative and insightful ways, [and] deliver relevant ads to precisely the right audiences in real-time…”

 As it happens, many in the industry believe that the way display advertising is bought and sold may change in fundamental ways: it will become hyper-targeted and transparent. IAB chair David Moore predicted last month that online media planners will soon need to be “quant experts” and that demand platforms—the technologies that allow agencies and advertisers to hand pick ideal audiences—will become de rigueur. It is possible that as technologies and service expertise mature, advertisers will invest more in display advertising and use it to achieve greater potential. In fact, the Wall Street Journal recently cited a Google study that found advertisers were willing to pay up to 130% more for impressions they thought would be directed to more qualified audiences.

 This finding comes as no surprise to Red Bricks Media, where we typically present campaign success as a function of measured performance at multiple points in the sales funnel. Without the right tools and technology, though, it is difficult to know which impressions and clicks are really providing value. If the economics are right, advertisers will naturally be willing to pay more for high performance.

 Google has positioned itself well to provide this visibility. Our agency has already written about the sophistication, power and usability of Google Analytics. Meanwhile, Google has also been building and acquiring technologies that address other elements of Web advertising.

 For example, Google now offers ad distribution with the acquisition and re-tooling of the DoubleClick Ad Exchange. There is also the Google Content Network (GCN), which has been running “image” ads for the last six years. We have begun to notice new features appearing in GCN, and they are ambitious. Recent improvements such as view-through conversion reporting, interest-based advertising (behavioral targeting), and retargeting indicate Google’s growing capacity for sophisticated display advertising.

 The Ad Exchange, Google Analytics, and GCN position Google well for targeting and distributing ads on the internet.

 The one question I often need to answer for clients, however, is what the level of inventory quality of the GCN is. It is known as a place for publishers who invest far more in search results listings than in editorial integrity. As a result, it is necessary to take precautions against advertising with publishers who use parked domains and misleading SEO listings in order to take advantage of Google’s advertising marketplace.

 Although the display advertising market hasn’t grown in recent years, it represents a substantial opportunity for Google, which already dominates the search space. New advertising technology is a significant evolution from the more manual buying approach of hand-selecting publisher sites with attractive demo profiles and networks with private targeting technologies. This development is the key to the growth of spend levels in display advertising. Google is moving strategically to capitalize on these trends. We share some people’s worries about Google becoming an even more powerful and omnipresent vendor. Nonetheless, it is worthwhile paying attention to Google’s new offerings in the display advertising landscape.

 Andrew (Andy) Leinicke is our Media Director and manages all aspects of our Paid Search Practice. Andy is in charge of organizing, developing and overseeing every aspect of a campaign from message and testing strategy to media buying and segmentation. 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. Under his leadership, the team developed an advanced micro-segmentation strategy and industry-leading approach to keyword research.

Prior to joining Red Bricks Media, Andy spent many years in publishing, serving as Sales and Marketing Director for Alpinist Magazine, Marketing Manager at Saveur and Garden Design, and Marketing Assistant at Worth Magazine. Andy received an M.S. in Marketing Science from Northwestern University and a B.S. in Molecular Biology from Kalamazoo College.

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By Andrew Leinicke, Senior Director and Joe Van Remortel, Vice President

Chances are good that your search engine marketing program is an underachiever. The growing complexity of search engine marketing can often result in higher costs and lower conversions. If your paid search campaigns have not accounted for the 20-25 variables that influence results they are likely candidates for reassessment.

Deciphering the root causes of search engine marketing performance is not easy. In fact, many seasoned search engine marketers miss opportunities for campaign improvement because they stray away from core performance-enhancing principles and fail to migrate campaigns through the dynamics of efficiency and volume.

Performance Enhancing Principles

The upshot is that marketers can boost the performance of their search engine marketing and PPC campaigns by 30%-50% or more by acting on four fundamental tenets of PPC advertising.

1. Simplify the Inherent Complexity of Search Engine Marketing

Search engine algorithms, policies and functionality are in a continuous state of evolution. And with 20-25 variables (such as match type, messaging relevancy, bid strategy) influencing search campaign performance, your PPC program becomes a complex, dynamic system that requires insightful management. Success is earned through finding the unique set of performance variables that drive efficiency and volume.

2. Iterative Campaign Management Influences Performance

There is no magic wand to wave over a search campaign to generate immediate, breakthrough success. A common pitfall in search engine marketing is an over-reliance on technology and automation. Automation can create process efficiencies, but too often campaigns are auto-piloted right into mediocrity, as the value of insightful human intellect is discounted. Cultivating new opportunities are what sophisticated PPC strategists do. Keyword universe segmentation as well as testing and landing page optimization are never complete.

 3. Messaging Relavancy is a Critical Performance Factor

In the beginning, there was keyword research: a means to build a semantic foundation for your PPC campaign. Visitor quality and conversion rates are directly correlated to the consistency of the relationship among keywords, queries, ads and landing pages. Thus, “messaging relevancy” greatly influences conversions, ROI and quality score. Get control of your messaging relevancy and you will go a long way to improving performance. 

4. Focus on Relative Value to Optimize Yields

Don’t become mesmerized by the most obvious metrics. Develop a portfolio of high-yield campaigns based not on click-through rates, but on customer value generation. Measure and optimize the highest order campaign metrics—customer acquisition, revenue, cost savings to make true ROI optimization decisions. Investigate relative campaign performance at the adgroup level, and then apply a performance-tiering approach to restructure the campaign to give you more control over feeding the winners and starving the losers.

Efficiency-Volume Matrix

When working with existing campaigns, Red Bricks Media applies these methods through the looking glass of our Four Quadrant PPC Analysis™. This approach is designed to identify the core drivers of PPC success and develop strategies based on the advertiser’s industry and location on the Four Quadrant diagnostic grid. Our Four Quadrant methodology assesses PPC campaigns along two critical dimensions: efficiency (cost) and volume (conversions). All PPC campaigns strive to be in Quadrant 1 in the matrix below—a state of maximized volume and efficiency. Our diagnosis places each campaign in one of the four quadrants. Depending on its location in the matrix and campaign parameters, we prescribe a specific set of strategies and tactics aimed at migrating campaigns to Quadrant 1.  

For example, in the matrix above, a company in a highly competitive, mature sector—consumer banking, mobile phone services, or retail — is likely to have PPC campaigns constrained in Quadrant 4.  

As depicted, our approach uncovers the key performance drivers and inhibitors, and then conceives an improvement program built on moving the campaign to Quadrant 1, with expanded volume and improved efficiencies. One must first analyze past and current performance data in light of current inventory and CPC rates in order to properly locate a campaign on the grid. Experiential knowledge of PPC campaigns and rigorous testing and optimization scenarios expose the success drivers and inhibitors that power the migration to greater levels of success.

The benefits of this approach can be significant. In a recent case when Red Bricks Media adopted an existing search program for an entertainment client, we applied the methods described above. The program had been deemed optimized, but, in fact, was languishing in Quadrant 3. Within six months, the Red Bricks Media team reduced the cost-per-click from $1.24 to $0.19, while more than tripling campaign volume. In order to achieve such results under the old campaign regime, our client would have been required to invest an additional $2.8 million. That is found money.

Search engine marketing isn’t getting more simple, but rather more complex. The way to penetrate that complexity—and simplify campaign management—is to focus on the four principles described above. Structuring that analysis within the Four Quadrant model enables campaign strategists to identify a powerful set of performance-enhancing strategies and tactics that can turn the underachieving campaign into an overachieving success.

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by Andy Leinicke, Paid Search Media Director

Yesterday, Yahoo announced a new partnership with MSN that is designed to give both parties greater leverage in the competition for share of the global search market. The announcement came in the form of a blog post at Yodel Anecdotal, Yahoo’s colorful corporate blog. Get the full story from Yahoo’s point of view here. Also, here is a video of Carol Bartz’s personal description:

Carol Bartz on Yahoo/Microsoft Deal

The partnership is simply a deal, not a change in the corporate structure of either entity. But it is a big deal. The term of the agreement is ten years and there is significant revenue and resource share involved. TechCrunch described the gist of the arrangement well in its post:

Microsoft will now power Yahoo! search while Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers.

The deal does not affect either Yahoo or MSN display advertising businesses.

Our Yahoo representative assured me today that although this partnership has been finalized between Yahoo and MSN, the U.S. Government still needs to approve it. For advertisers, that means day-to-day operations won’t change at all for at least five months. Even when the deal is finalized, Yahoo estimates that an additional five to six months will be necessary to integrate technology and staffing in a way that will be material to Yahoo and Bing advertisers.

In our opinion, this deal could be a great combination of MSN’s engineering ability with Yahoo’s responsive and experienced client service and sales team. SEM management isn’t going to change in the short term but hopefully SERP advertising will improve through these networks in the coming years.

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by Craig Hordlow, Chief Strategist, and Ed Kim, CEO

The senior thought leaders at Red Bricks Media gathered in the beginning of the year to hold a round-table discussion about 2009 digital marketing and online trends.

There are some very common predictions made by search marketers for 2009, most notably advertising budgets taking a hit as a result of the economy.  Our list of predictions explores the nuances of some of the blanket statements made about 2009.

1.    Online ad spending gainers and losers: There has been a lot of talk about the impact of the economy on online ad budgets, the theme typically being that traditional marketing budgets will be cut if not re-appropriated to measurable online campaigns. We made the following predictions by channel, based on our observations of the industry and hands-on experience managing client campaigns:
a.    Paid search advertising spending will increase from $10B in 2008 to $12B in 2009.
b.    Display ad spending will barely increase: from $4.6B in 2008 to $5B in 2009.  As ad rates decrease, publishers will increasingly offer more performance based buys.
c.    Video will experience the most explosive growth, from $587M in 2008 to $850M in 2009.
d.    Classifieds will take a hit, from $3.1B in 2008 to $2.9B in 2009.
e.    Lead generation spending will be about the same ($1.6B)
f.    Sponsorships will decrease from $590M (2008) to $510M (2009)

2.    More attention to SEO: SEO will become more competitive as companies (finally!) begin adequately investing in organic search.  Previously perceived as a long-term investment, SEO will become necessary for companies facing slashed marketing budgets and the challenge of accountability.

3.    Data portability will become a movement: What is data portability?  Simply put, as users traverse the web, they often have numerous user accounts, passwords, and profiles.  According to Dave Morin, a senior platform manager at Facebook, “[data portability] is about giving users the ability to take their identity and friends with them around the Web, while being able to trust that their information is always up to date and always protected by their privacy settings.”  It’s also about being able to cross-leverage tools.  For example, a Skype user on Craigslist might be able to click a telephone number and have Skype begin dialing that number.  The possibilities are both seemingly endless and very realistic.

4.    Social networking will see several transformations:
a.    Facebook Connect – This is Facebook’s foray into data portability, which launched with partners Amiando, CBS.com, CNET, CollegeHumor, Disney-ABC Television Group, Evite, Flock, Hulu, Kongregate, Loopt, Plaxo, Radar, Red Bull, Seesmic, Socialthing!, StumbleUpon, The Insider, Twitter, Uber, Vimeo and Xobni.
b.    Enhanced self-service advertising platforms will be developed to increase revenue and lower overhead.

5.    Google will make significant enhancements to its tools:
a.    Google AdPlanner will offer display buyers more tools (whereas before, the tools catered mostly to PPC marketers)
b.    AdWords editor (currently at version 7.0) will have many more features developed (watch for geo-targeting enhancements)
c.    Google Analytics will continue to expand and minimize the differentiators between itself and its fee-based competitors

6.    Print will continue its Titanic sink into digital:

a.    In October 2008, the Christian Science Monitor became the first national newspaper to announce a move to a Web-only daily distribution strategy.   More publishers will go this route or reduce their publishing frequency.

b.    Amazon’s digital reader, the Kindle, sold out in December 2008 and is currently unavailable until late April 2009. It represents the first giant step forward in a migration towards digital reading. We predict that electronic readers will be one of the top selling items in the 2009 holiday season, consequently setting up 2010 as the “iPod” year for digital readers.

7.    Startups in survival mode: The lack of capital, as evidenced by Sequoia Capital’s alarming message to its investment strategists, will place an emphasis on survival strategies rather than startups with innovate ideas.  2009 will be a “lock down” year with far fewer startups introducing new ideas into the market.

8.    We will see a convergence between the internet and TV:
a.    The FCC has mandated that all TV signals must switch to digital by February 2009, a move which coincides with the increasing interplay between the television screen and the internet. Heavy TV users are also heavy internet users, often using both mediums at the same time. According to a recent Nielsen study, “early trends seem to indicate that online usage is complementing, not substituting for, traditional television viewing.”
b.    There is an opportunity for communication across these channels which before seemed so separate and siloed. Consumers are hooking their TVs up to their computers to enjoy a movie or TV show streamed from the internet. They are also going online to vote on TV shows that they are watching in real time. In the not-too-distant future, we may see shows like reality TV further harnessing the convergence between the two mediums by offering polls on a website that update in real time on TV, or vice versa. One device that is bridging the gap is the Roku, which allows users to download movies from Netflix to the Roku device and upload that content to the TV.
c.    The live video streams of Obama’s inauguration prove that audiences are turning to the internet for high-quality, up-to-the minute news. It also shows that video content providers have not yet figured out how to scale for a large volume of viewers; in 2009, they will need to find a solution.

9.    Video will continue on a path of explosive growth:
a.    As high-speed internet connections become the norm (broadband penetration is currently at 91.54 % in the U.S.), the demand for video content will grow. In 2008, the iPhone also paved the way for consumers to enjoy video content while on mobile phones. In 2009, consumers will continue enjoying video content both at home and on the go.
b.    We also predict that 2009 will be the year that video content distribution sites figure out a successful advertising and revenue model. Whether it’s a pre-roll, post-roll, or pop-up ads during the video, this is the year that video advertising will finally start to make sense.

10.    Agency consolidation will accelerate:
a.    With the recession, companies will move marketing dollars towards proven performance channels, demanding accountability on their marketing campaigns. Often, digital and performance-focused agencies provide the results that companies are looking for. Large holding companies and traditional advertising agencies will scramble to acquire digital shops to meet client demand and gain subject matter expertise.

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Every year, Marketing Sherpa compiles a “Wisdom Report” filled with advice from marketers worldwide. The report covers email, search, social media and more. Marketing Sherpa’s team reviewed hundreds of submissions to come up with the “best” test results and practical advice at big and small organizations alike.

You can download a copy of the 2009 Wisdom Report by following the link. Our VP of Business Development, Joe Van Remortel, contributed his thoughts to the Search section.

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Check us out on today’s episode of Girl In Your Shirt! We challenged Jenaé, the video blogger behind Girl in Your Shirt, to a friendly competition of Fluffy Bunny. The stakes: if we lost, we would buy another episode on her show and record our whole company singing “I’m A Little Teapot.” If we won, she would be the one singing.

Who was the ultimate winner? Watch the video below to find out!

Girl in your Shirt

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by Becca Vittetoe, Media Supervisor

Nielsen, Comscore, Alexa, Google? – Google has officially entered the world of online media planning providers, but what does this mean for planners?

Red Bricks Media’s interactive media department was invited to experiment with the beta version of Google’s new media planning tool, Google Ad Planner. Ad Planner provides data on sites by category/content and demographic. Details available for each site include: unique visitors, reach by country, page views, demographic data (gender, age, HHI, education), sites also visited by users and most frequently searched keywords. All of this data is certainly helpful and necessary to developing a strong plan, but is Google really providing anything new to planners?

Our answer is NO, but Ad Planner is still a useful media research tool.

By combining Google Ad Planner with other research tools, RBM planners can gather the available data, and compare and contrast to gain a better understanding of the online marketplace. Each research tool sources data differently; thus, they provide varied data points and a variety of answers to the same underlying question.

Google Ad Planner provides relatively limited insight for planners, but it can be combined with data points from other sources to create a strong plan. For example, Nielsen and Comscore provide intricately targeted data points. RBM leverages these resources to discover sites that appeal to males 25-34 who have used mobile phone GPS in the past month. In contrast, Ad Planner’s top-level information is also available for free using Alexa and Quantcast. Check out these services and you will find that their reports for MySpace.com, for example, each provide unique data points through which planners can accumulate site-specific data. When we include Google Ad Planner’s findings, we are able to add information to the puzzle and complete the picture. These findings are then leveraged alongside Nielsen and Comscore data to develop dynamic media plans that are sure to succeed in a competitive market.

Some media professionals have begun to question Google’s motivation for launching Ad Planner.  Is their real goal to compete with Alexa and Quantcast? Or is the Ad Planner just a tool to generate ad revenue on Google’s existing network? Google is not shy about using their new media tool to increase sales. Every site search yields data about Google’s Contextual Network; whether or not the site is available for purchase thru Google’s network, and regardless of what ad formats are available, and how many impressions Google serves per site daily.

Is Ad Planner a sales vehicle or an important media research tool? Only time will tell as the Ad Planner program is enhanced. For now, Red Bricks Media will continue to leverage Nielsen data to source key information on target markets, set opportunity sizes, and develop strong site recommendations. Google Ad Planner will be rolled-up among other long-tail research tools (Alexa, Quantcast, Compete, etc.); each providing similar data, all reporting slightly different results.

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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.

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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.

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