Paid Search

We have just received a missive from Google which states that from 14th September, “in an effort to provide more relevant results” [sic] the GOOG will be adjusting their trademark policy in the UK, Ireland and Canada to allow some ads to use trademarks in the ad text. In case you are unaware, in the UK currently, competitive advertisers may bid on terms which are subject to trademark protection, but are not allowed to include the trademark in the ad copy.

This decision is an extension of Google’s current trademark policy in the United States, where brand terms are already allowed in the ad-texts.

Ostensibly, advertisers will have to meet one of several criteria in order to be eligible to display trademark terms in the ad copy:

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Writing good content for your site is not a new concept. Content is king after all. However with Googles recent shift in gear, (cranking up its indexing to Caffeine level) to cope with the sheer weight of content being produced online, there is an ever more compelling need to be sure the content you produce is quality and visible amongst the endless quagmire of mediocrity and spam.

Caffeine is “a robust foundation that makes it possible for us to build an even faster and comprehensive search engine that scales with the growth of information online”. What does this mean at this stage? Well exactly what it says on the tin: Caffeine is in it’s infancy but has been built with the future of ever increasing content creation in mind.

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Recently we performed some analysis for a high street retailer around what happened when you stopped bidding on your brand terms. Would the lost Paid Search visits be ‘soaked up’ in Natural Search (commonly referred to as the cannibalisation effect) or would they just be lost? We found the results quite interesting so we thought we’d share them.

Methodology

In order to perform this analysis a two week benchmark period and a test period were set up. The periods were selected to be as similar as possible, both Monday – Sunday periods, however some seasonal variation was inevitable, therefore we analysed the traffic for non brand terms for the two periods to see if there was any change. The results showed a 5.1% uplift in the second period over the first, therefore a 5.1% uplift was added to the first period to normalise the results.

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Recently, I have been working in both the PPC and SEO teams at iCrossing. Batting for both sides in this way has highlighted the traditionally very different ways in which these disciplines are generally analysed and reported on.

It feels like we are getting closer and closer to the point where we will be able to use the same metrics across search as a whole, and the points here are where I think that Paid Search methods can now be applied to Natural Search campaigns.

…..and I want to go beyond simply reporting the ROI or CPA of Natural Search campaign because, although it generally makes you look very good compared to Paid Search, I don’t need to explain how to do that (hopefully).

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Last week Google rolled out SSL encryption to its search product.

What it is: The option of establishing a secure https connection when searching google.com

How to use it: Visit https://www.google.com (Attention to the extra “s”) and search as usual.

What it is SSL: SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is a protocol that provides secure communications on the Internet for things liike web browsing, e-mail, instant messaging & other data transfers.

Advantage: Added security for your users. It helps protect your search terms and your search results pages from being intercepted by a third party on your network.

Effect: Potentially a slightly slower service due to the additional time to set up the encryption between your browser and the remote web server.

Other: Not all products are available with a SSL so there will not be the usual links to other products like Maps & Images.

When to use it: When not on a non-secure Internet connection, such as a public wireless or non-encrypted network.

Paid Site Links?

In November last year, Google, introduced paid site links to their ever-growing list of ad formats.

This format produces some definite PPC benefits; you take up more SERP real estate increasing CTR, the links can allow expensive terms to be shown against cheap brand traffic, you can deep link which increases usability and conversion rates.

The Impact on Paid Search

Since implementing these site links for a large travel brand recently the CTR on brand terms rose by 14 points.  Not only did this drive a huge amount of additional traffic, the resultant improvement in quality score decreased the CPC by 17%.  Truly a paid search dream, more traffic at a lower CPC.

How is SEO Affected?

As the paid ads now took up more space and were receiving more clicks from the brand related queries, it is unsurprising that brand clicks on SEO decreased significantly.  In fact it was approximately halved.  On high value terms the negative impact of this would appear huge if considered in isolation to paid search.

Analysis in Synergy

The key questions around this type of activity are not simply around the impact on visits, but also on revenue.  Overall between the 2 channels the clicks increased by 12%.  The increase in revenue was even more pronounced at 20%.

Look at the Whole Picture

These results highlight the important of SEO and Paid search being run in synergy.  Without access to the paid search data some SEOs would have been screaming for the site links to be taken down.  Similarly without understanding the decline in natural traffic SEMs could have been losing cash overall yet been totally blinded by their own perceived gains.  By looking at the whole picture we were able to deliver true value to the client.

It’s been a while since my last taste of snowy alpine goodness and even longer since my last post on Connect and so thought I would get myself back in the swing of things with a post combining two of my favourite endeavours; snowboarding and paid search.

Now, I appreciate that to some people the connection might not be immediately apparent, and others may even think it tenuous, but bear with me and all will become clear.  And if, like me, you very much like paid search and snowboarding, then you’re in for a treat!

Now, without further ado…5 ways in which you can use snowboarding best practice to improve your PPC ROI:

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Coming from a PPC background, it was quite interesting to see what was happening on the other side of the digital spectrum, at SES on Wednesday. While most of the SEO technical aspects were quite new to me, I did come away with an interesting thought, which I think applies equally to SEO and PPC (and perhaps all other forms of digital marketing); evolution, change and adaptability. And before anyone thinks that I stumbled into a Darwin Expo, here’s what Maile Ohye, Senior Developer Programs Engineer from Google had to say.

Google is evolving. Ever since Google has started unleashing new products (involving search) like One Box results, local business listings, universal search across all verticals; image results, real-time results, news results, video and many others, organic results are slipping to a lower position on the first page of search results. However, Maile was keen to mention that Google looks at SEO as a partnership.

Universal Search for a highly commercial keyword 'flowers'

A key part of SEO is to evolve with Google. This could include optimising local results on Google maps, including images and videos on the website or having a social media strategy, amongst others. Infact a very important blog post written way back in 2007 by Kevin Newcomb, Search Engine Watch, highlights this integrated aspect of SEO.

All this might seem like a lot to do, but Julian Sambles, Head of Audience Development, Telegraph, is of the opinion that it is easier to wait and see how the audience (users) react to the new landscape on SERPs before implementing new strategies. It is afterall the users who have to evolve and adapt to the huge amount of information being made available to them in such varied and rapidly changing forms.

Each search result is likely to be relevant to the user query, thus improving user experience and it is important for agencies to measure impacts of the new landscape on CTR of PPC ads and organic results. Afterall, paid search has also come a long way from static ads to ‘The Rise of Universal Paid Search’.

My main point is this; It’s important to accept that the search engines we’re all so reliant upon will change and evolve at a rapid rate (look at the amount of major changes in search alone over the last decade). Google in particular has released a whole host of new features recently, in a bid to safeguard its market share from competition.  Some of these developments impact certain digital channels more than others. Ultimately, clients and their agencies need to have an integrated strategy so that the impact of search engine evolution is limited. Don’t place all your eggs (traffic) in one basket!

On Tuesday, I ventured to Angel for the SES London conference and caught an inspiring debate amongst the top SEOs and SEMs in the industry. These included Rand Fishkin, Dave Naylor and Ralph Tegtmeier fighting for SEO and Paul Mead and Andrew Goodman for PPC. It was great to hear their take on the industry and where it is heading as well as a debate over the strengths and weaknesses of both PPC and SEO.

The session was kicked off by looking at the top line statistics comparing PPC and SEO, PPC wins out right!:) PPC had a slightly higher conversion rate, average order value, value per visit and average time on site. Please note though these stats do not take into account if SEO was involved within the users click journey.

Image Credit: CC Flickr User kudumomo

Both methods have the negative points that each team brought up:
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Sam Fenton Elstone wrote an interesting post on site links a couple a months ago.

To recap; Google’s been offering the choice for advertisers to have 4 additional site links to their Paid Search ads. One of the major positive aspects of site links is to shorten the users navigation to conversion as well promoting seasonal services or products.

However, another great benefit of the site links is… gaining visibility on highly competitive keywords.

I’ve been running site links for one of our clients. One of the site links is based on the keyword ”Theatre tickets”. As you can imagine this terms is one of the most competitive and expensive keywords found in its particular sector.

Nothing exciting?

For the period between 23rd December 09 and 21st January 2010, the “theatre tickets” generic campaign had fairly decent results in terms of conversation rate. But the ‘theatre tickets’ site link performed even better, with a conversation rate 216% higher for 92.5% cheaper!

This really shows how beneficial site links can be to a paid search campaign, particularly when concerned with highly competitive generic terms.

It also seems that generic keywords placed in site links have a positive effect on brand CTRs too.

Advertisers on your Site links blocks. Ready? Get set? Go!