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.
