My advice to anyone building a PPC campaign is simple: don’t be lazy.  Never leave a campaign at a point where “this is good enough for now” is an acceptable response.  It’s this type of attitude that frequently leaves campaigns in a perfect position to become dominated by competitors.

Furthermore, PPC testing provides a fascinating opportunity to test the exact words and phrases that create the strongest response from users.  These critical takeaways can extend beyond the PPC campaign and improve efficiency in organic search, print, banner, television, and radio.

Instead of delving into another Google Site Optimizer article, I’d rather discuss a few unheralded techniques that can be used to help convert users into buyers:

1. Try Video: video can be an exceptionally effective tool for more complex or visually oriented products or services.  Isn’t a video the best way to show a house online or explain essential concepts that are vital in communicating product need?  Furthermore, video is a fantastic opportunity to create a positive emotional response.  With the right music and imagery, your video can inspire emotional connectivity with your brand in a way that your competitors static site cannot

2. Experiment between long and short form: If your business pitch in person takes five minutes, how the heck will a 100 word landing page compel users to buy?   In any campaign, it might be a good idea to have at least one long-form landing page that offers multiple conversions (both “soft” and “hard”) and aims to educate visitors.  A client of mine works in the education field, and all of his competitors landing pages are glorified RFP forms.  Doesn’t the one site that offers valuable information peacock compared to its conversion driven competitors?

3. Offer a variety of conversions: frequently, marketers fail to realize that—depending on the keyword—users are often in drastically different stages of the buy cycle.   Depending on the expert, the stages of a buy cycle can vary significantly, but it boils down to these elements:

1. Information Seeking
2. Product Identification
3. Needs refinement
4. Purchase

A visitor in the information seeking phase has no real interest in making a purchase and will often use vague or ambiguous search queries.  The best way to connect with this user is to offer a landing page that offers depth and information. Additionally for the call-to-action, try multiple conversions that appeal to your users needs (white papers, product comparisons, calculator or free tool).  In this example, the focus shifts towards creating a relationship with the consumer and an understanding that the sales cycle is going to be a bit longer.

On the other end of the spectrum, try more aggressive CTA’s if the user is getting to your site through a branded search query.  This might be the time to push your business’s equivalent of “order now.”

4. Aggressively test copy: This includes headline, images, and copy.  Try multivariate testing in limited campaigns before applying key learnings to the rest.  Common industry practice is to allow for 300 conversions before drawing conclusions; however, you should be able to tell in a couple days if you’re page is a complete dud.  If this is the case, don’t hesitate to remove the Ad quickly.

Good luck and remember these key staples:

• Account for visitors’ short attention span by making the page something that can be scanned.  [Almost] Never have two consecutive paragraphs of text.  Break them up with images, bullets, and headers
• Use the keyword in the headline of the landing page.  Let the user know they’ve come to the right place
• Use design elements to accentuate the conversions pieces on the page.  Let them pop.

Follow John Lynch on Twitter @johnslynch

Moderator:
Mel Carson, Microsoft Advertising Community Manager, Microsoft Advertising Speakers:
Thomas Bindl, SES Advisory Board & Founder & CEO, Refined Labs GmbH
Adam Goldberg, Chief Innovation Officer, ClearSaleing
Richard Sim, VP of Product Management and Marketing, Anchor Intelligence
Craig Danuloff, Founder and President, ClickEquations Inc.

Thomas Bindl takes stage:

Is my PPC money spend best? -Get the numbers -Aggregate the numbers -Visualize the numbers -Document the numbers “You can see a very small percent is spent on actually performing work in Adwords.” How do we make it more efficient?

What you should expect:

-Smart bid management algorithm
-Intuitive and efficient user-interace
-Search Funnel analysis
-Integrated real search-query optimization
-Support for all match types -Integration of external data sources (ad parameters/tracking)
-Definition of own KPI’s as goals
-support of cancellations/returns
-reporting on most detailed level
-manual adjustments of bids
-strategic groups
-2-way synchronization

Adam Goldberg Takes the Stage

1. cross media profit tracking
2. Purchase Path Valuation
3. Marketing Portfolio Optimization Done with attributed values, not last click.

“Much more accurate view, not just last click.”

Profit tied to these keywords is an attributed value. We have this at the SEO level, too. When did an optimized keyword play a role in the sales path?”

Advertising with a purpose- Introduce, Influence, Close Example: 1. Display Ad 2. Social Media 3. Retargetting 4. Branded PPC All of these endeavours influence profit. Brand keywords are seen as incredibly valuable, but are they? Do they really get credit for the sale? In last click, they get way to much credit. Algorithmic Attribution- once you apply data, you can apply mathematical algorithms. Shows and example of head keywords that serve as introducers. In last click models, they show high cost/conversion rates.

But with attribution tracking, it’s now possible to demonstrate the value of head.

Richard Sim of Anchor Intelligence takes the stage -

-Belly and tail keywords can drive a ton of value for your business
-However, managing them is tough is especially tough because there are often not enough events to make a logical decision regarding the effectiveness of a keyword.

Valuable info that can be used to predict the value of a keyword
-time stamp
-cookie
-ip address
-user agent
-referrer
-keyword

You can you historical ad click data as a proxy when conversion data is not available. Anchor Intelligence predicts the value of each keyword by evaluating its traffic history. Introduces product which can help track and predict quality clicks.

Craig Danuloff, ClickEquations

For any tool, important to have:
-data
-reporting
-editing
-bulk & mass (done in excel)
-bidding
-automation

“ROAS is a joke at best. Need to be able to calculate ROI” “90-95% of the time attribution doesn’t matter. When it does matter, however, it’s a huge difference. Most critical for identifying the introducer keywords”

“Really important to re-organize your campaigns. Adwords Editor is phenomenal for it”

Li provided detailed coverage of David Meerman Scott’s SES New York’s Keynote while John Lynch covered the State of Search panel with notable staff from Bing and Yahoo.

Li and John will be providing more updates throughout the day.

You see the incredible opportunity that search engine optimization creates, but that doesn’t mean the key stakeholders share your vision.  You know, the people allocating quarterly market budgets?

This article is designed to empower non-seo professionals with a data driven arguments to help get budget for search marketing.

Argument #1: We are missing incredible opportunity to gain marketing share by not being optimized.

In order to present an engaging argument for search engine optimization, it’s first important to understand the relevant audience you are missing every month by not appearing in the top 3 results for critical keywords.

The Google Keyword tool is wonderful in that it provides reasonably accurate information as to how many searches are conducted each month for a critical keyword.Learning about average monthly volumes is a terrific way to explain the total amount of relevant web traffic your company might be losing on a monthly basis.

Let’s take a quick look at the insurance industry.  There are nearly 1.8 million searches conducted every month for the keyword insurance quotes.  The question becomes, can a company afford not to compete in this space?

Argument #2- Being on the first page isn’t good enough.

In my experience, people are frequently taken aback when they realize how steep the drop off is from #1 to position #2 in a search engine results page.

Based on leaked data from AOL in 2006, sites ranking in the top 4 in a search engine can expecting the following percentages of traffic*:

Position #1: 47%

Position # 2: 13%

Position #3:  9%

Position#4: 7%

There is an amazing drop between being #1 and #2 in Google.  Position #4 sees a tiny fraction of the traffic.

It gets even worse— sites at the bottom of page 1 (position 9-10) in a search engine can expect less than a 3% click-through rate.  Next time your boss says, “We’re on page 1,” be sure to explain the significance.

Argument #3- SEO Traffic Often Provides Higher ROI Traffic Long-Term

If you turn off your PPC campaigns tomorrow, the traffic loss will be instant.  By and large, the ad spend committed to PPC traffic will not produce little organic traffic.  Unlike PPC, search engine optimization efforts can produce robust traffic for years after initial investment.  Ranking highly creates more links and more links means higher ranking.

Why not reallocate some of the banner budget or old media ad spend and put it towards the users that are actively searching for you product?  Undoubtedly, introducing a product through brand awareness reach is important, but the low hanging fruit often lies in targeting consumers that are a bit further along in the buy cycle.

*measure through click-through rate  

Although the total online spend went down (not too surprising with the economy) the percentage of Online advertising spend vs other advertising spending grew. So marketers spent less, but trusted online channels more to get them the return they were looking for.

And as eMarketer predicts, advertisers will continue to push both dollars and trust toward online channels.

They also predict that online advertising spend will grow fairly steadily by 5 to 6% through 2011.  But Obama’s domination of online and social media in 2008 will surely encourage both candidates to bring out a strong online front, that coupled with the Summer Olympics in London, should make a banner year for online advertising in 2012.

EMarketer believes that the US recession is probably over since the third quarter of 2009 showed 3.5% positive GDP growth.  We haven’t had a positive GDP growth since the second quarter of ’08.  However unemployment hit 10.2% in October ’09 (a 26 year high) and it stayed above 10% for November ’09.

As the spending starts to increase again and competition thickens, it might make sense to pickup an in-house resource now.

With unemployment high in-house resources needn’t be expensive, even if they require training.  If you hire and train them now you’ll be expertly positioned with people committed to your success when the 2012 competition/spending bulge hits; you’ll be ready to thrive while other firms throw money at the problem.

Between now and December you can whet your appetite for our session by reading the session description from the SES Chicago agenda (also available below) or by reading our case study on the very same topic, bringing APUS’s PPC in-house.

Bringing PPC In-House
While a PPC campaign can be a more cost-effective operation if done in-house, the complexities of staffing and managing one can be a lot more challenging than it first appears. In this session, we’ll discuss how to get the right combination of people, tools and resources in place to empower the PPC function internally. Determining when it makes sense to in-source your PPC, developing an effective bid strategy, and selecting suitable ad tracking software are just some of the key factors to be discussed.

Moderator:
Paul Elliott, Partner – Search & Media / Analytics & Optimization, Rosetta

Speakers:
Nathan Linnell, Director of Analytics, Serengeti Communications
Hee So, Senior Internet Marketing Coordinator, American Public University System

What is your role at Calvert?

I lead the development and execution of marketing communications, production and advertising, and e-commerce strategies in support of Calvert’s communication, sales and asset retention objectives. In addition, my team is responsible for the management of compliance related materials, Calvert’s 529 Plan and shareholder communications.  By integrating the Firm’s communications and brand efforts, my group works to enhance Calvert’s competitive positioning.

How important is the digital channel in the marketing mix for financial services firm?  What role does it play for Calvert?

The digital channel is becoming increasingly important in marketing mix for financial services firms, especially for those firms that distribute their products through third party intermediaries.   The proliferation of information on the Internet has changed the nature of the relationship between a financial advisor and their clients.  Clients are using the information they find online to begin or engage in conversations with their Advisors rather than turn to the Advisor as the only source of information.

At Calvert, it is more important than ever that we provide timely information to Financial Advisors so they can provide relevant, timely information to their clients.  That is a clear role that the digital channel plays for us.   But the digital channel plays an increasingly important role in everything we do, from compliance and sales management, to advertising and promotion.  The digital channel is really pervasive in everything we do today.

Do you plan to shift more money from conventional to digital in the future?  Why or why not?

Absolutely, more money will shift to digital.  The simple answer is accountability.  Digital channels give you greater accountability of your promotional spend and improved tracking.  In addition, more and more of our clients are turning to digital channels for information.  Even FINRA is embracing digital capabilities with its recent “Summary Prospectus” regulation, which requires the ability for the summary prospectuses to electronically link to other relevant information pertaining to a mutual fund.

What are some of the issues and problems you have faced in measuring the results of digital marketing at Calvert?

The biggest challenge we face is figuring out what to measure and connecting that back to sales.  Since the majority of our sales go through a third party, we rely on correlated data to try and suggest causation.

What is the mix of outsourcing and in-house at Calvert?  (How much of your digital marketing do you outsource; how much do you handle in-house?)  Do you foresee increasing or decreasing reliance on outsourcing in the future?

It isn’t really a question of mix; it really is more a question of roles.  We outsource much of our promotional activities and manage all web site management in-house.  As we increase our budget for digital we will probably also out-source development of our tracking infrastructure so that we can manage it in-house once it is built.

Digital marketing is changing rapidly.  How do you keep your staff’s skills current?

We use the media that we manage.  My staff has full range to attend webinars and other training that increases their skills or knowledge.  I’ve found that conferences are less effective in building those skills because of the strategic focus of most conferences.

Where does Social Media fit into your mix now?  Do you see it playing a bigger role in 2010 and beyond?

We are just making in roads into Social Media and are using it to supplement our search engine optimization.  At this point, it is more about link building than actually engaging in the social media conversations.

What are some of the challenges of Social Media engagement that are specific to financial services firms?

The major challenge is compliance related, but probably just as challenging is finding the resources to monitor and engage in the conversations in a timely and meaningful way.  That isn’t an issue specific to financial services firms, but is one that impedes our ability to truly embrace the social media phenomena.

What are some of your best marketing successes at Calvert?

Our initial foray into search engine marketing and PPC had tremendous results.  We saw a significant increase in traffic and downloads of our Alternative Energy White Paper.  It was the first time that Calvert had actively pursued a PPC campaign and its success drove additional dollars and emphasis on the digital channel.

The other huge success was the launching of our user focused web site.  We used user testing to hone our web site navigation and the results of that testing were proven out by the surprisingly few issues we had at launch and with user acceptance.

What excites you about marketing in today’s world?

Our ability to increasingly measure results and optimize off of our findings.  We are getting closer and closer to one2one mass marketing and that is exciting.

How did you get into search?

I was the General Sales Manager at the Talk Station in Baltimore who’s lineup included Howard Stern, G. Gordon Liddy and Don & Mike.   I helped the station setup their first website, and we created a form for listeners to fill out.   It was 1999 and we were already garnering great listener information.  Don & Mike always used to ask their listeners “What celebrity do you most resemble?” So we added it to the survey and people actually filled it out.  It was amazing to me that the internet had so much power to cultivate data so I joined the company that built our website.  We were optimizing sites for the engines back then and even today those basics are still a major factor in search marketing.

In your days with Advertising.com and Local Roll Call, what are some of the greatest challenges you’ve faced?

I do have to say this economy is the toughest thing I have ever seen.  There are major clients in the industry that have cut their spend in half and some that are just holding tight until 2010.  I do see that the economy is starting to improve, but I just wish it was faster.    January – March were probably the worst for many businesses as the stock market collapsed, as the stock market continues to climb so will the confidence and the pocket strings will open up.  It’s a vicious cycle – clients want conversions and to hit a manageable CPA, consumers are clicking but not converting as they did two years ago so the CPA is higher, conversions cost more and the market is more competitive. The strong will survive and stay in business, Best Buy will be a stronger force coming out of this since Circuit City is gone.  The same goes for Bed Bath and Beyond now that Linens and Things has left them with a larger market share.

What’s been your greatest success/proudest moment in search?

I love seeing a site get to the first page of Google by utilizing white hat SEO tactics.   Sure hitting a client goal with Paid Search is definitely gratifying, but seeing all of the hard work and forethought you put into helping a client optimize their site to receive an influx of traffic for free: that’s what search is all about.  People finding the proper information and knowing that you can provide it against a client’s target audience is key.  Not to mention seeing the Google Analytics meter go off the chart when you help a small business gain that growth.  It can make their year, even if it’s just someone downloading a menu.

How do you keep current with search changes?

I attend various conferences across the country not only speaking but also writing articles for online publications.  By sitting in on the session I can pick up a tremendous amount of information to help keep me up to date on an industry that is ever expanding and rapidly changing.  Conferences I recommend are SMX, Search Engine Strategies, Affiliate Summit and Internet Retailer

As you’ve focused primarily working at an in-house level, what are some of the advantages as opposed to an agency?

The advantage of in-house is complete control and speed to change.  No campaign is ever perfect because there are so many fluctuations in the marketplace.  If a CPA skyrockets you need to determine the issue and in some cases it might take an agency a little longer to notice it.  It might also take them 24-48 hours to make a change in a campaign and as business fluctuates you need that extra speed in-house provides.   By having complete control the campaign falls on you. Agencies are totally beneficial some have great technology to better optimize campaigns, seasoned search copy writers and managers that can better A-B and build out landing pages.  Agencies are key if you are overwhelmed and you lose control of your campaign.

Do you have any agency horror stories?

I had a client I was working with that sold virus protection software and they were using an agency.  They asked me to take look at the campaign to see if there was anything I would do to improve it.  There were so many issues I didn’t know where to start.  The one glaring issue was that they had no negative keywords associated with the campaign.  In one month alone they would spend well in the lower five figures bidding on terms that had to do with human viruses – terms like Hepatitis, Ebola and Chickenpox.

Where do you see search heading?

Most people don’t know what they would do if they weren’t connected online.  We are a society that gathers data and makes a decision based on billions of results that are gathered are brought back to us in the form of a search result.  Smart phone usage is also on the rise and with that more laws will be passed to limit use while commuting.  This will prompt manufacturers to work with the major portals in developing voice recognition systems for use in our daily commute and interact with our GPS system.   Search queries are seeing a rise in length, 5 combined keywords is not unusual anymore, and the results are improving rapidly.  It won’t be long before we can ask our car where the best place local place for bagels is and it will give us a community answer on the data it finds.

What advice would you offer to a company looking to start their own in-house marketing effort?

I once spoke at SES about building an in-house marketing team.  You have to have a team that watches the campaign every minute of every day.  Depending on the spend levels one person cannot do it all.  You need a creative specialist that reviews the ads and the quality scores across ads, give them an incentive to hit a quality score of 10. You also need a numbers cruncher on the staff, someone who can run pivot table and populate tens of thousands of keywords with just a few excel formula’s.  Quality people make the difference if you can justify the expense to hire an experienced individual you should.  If you hire someone that has less experience and they get on the job training be prepared to pay more as their experience climbs.   A search marketing manager is a hot commodity and in high demand.  Beware, agencies and other competitors will want to pick them up if you aren’t taking care of them.