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Keyword Metrics Tracking Strategy

19 Jun 2005

Some of my clients are experimenting with Pay-Per-Click advertisement campaigns. Here’s a little help on the metrics. First explained are the success metrics you’ll need to define. Next there’s the strategy to follow.

In addition to standard site monitoring, you will need to monitor:

  • Total sponsored search traffic to your site – broken down by keyword, source and campaign
  • Sponsored search conversions (number and dollar value) on your site – broken down by products/services, keyword, source and campaign
  • Sponsored search cost – broken down by products/services, keyword, source and campaign
  • Sponsored search profitability broken down by products/services, keyword, source and campaign
  • Length of time sponsored search visitors spend on your site
  • Where sponsored search visitors go on your site after leaving the landing page
  • Effectiveness of sponsored search destination pages
  • Sponsored search visitor form/purchase drop-out behavior and rates
  • Other sponsored search visitor actions that are important to your main goal and that can be monitored

It may not be possible for you to track a sponsored search visitor beyond their initial visit. You will need to account for this in your analysis.

Once you have determined the Success Metrics that you wish to track, you will need to establish baseline metrics that will be used to judge your performance. Document the values of your metrics at the time you begin your campaign to allow for effective comparisons.

[Read more] About defining metrics.

Keeping in mind your campaign goal and the success metrics you ‘ve just identified it is time to dig a bit deeper into some of the other sponsored search visitor actions that are important to your main goal and that can be monitored. Both Yahoo! MS (Overture) and Google AdWords provide excellent metrics to their users.

Some of the PPC measurements you will want to be tracking (in addition to the Success Metrics you identified for your PPC campaign goal) include:

  • Impressions (how many times your ad was shown
  • Clicks (how many times your ads were clicked on)
  • CTR (click through rate — clicks divided by impressions)
  • Cost (cost of keyword)
  • Average Cost per Click (cost divided by clicks)

If you do not have a third party tracking tool for visitor conversions, both Yahoo! MS and Google AdWords provide conversion tracking metrics that you can use.

[Read more] About the keyword metrics strategy.

Above snippets are taken from the Enquiro Marketing Monitor newsletter.

 
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Advantages Of Interactive Marketing

05 Jun 2005

Why should an organisation choose for direct or interactive marketing? When to advise a DM approach? Some of the advantages have been already analysed in the previous post, but here’s the complete list.

* SAVES YOU MONEY

By eliminating the retailstores and other suppliers in the product chain, remarkable savings can be done in the field of housing and storage. The best example is e-commerce, where you can buy things without an intermediate handling the order or the goods.

* INDIVIDUAL TARGETING

Over the last few years we’re noticing a continuous fragmentation of the market. Target groups are being divided in subs, and the subgroubs are being divided in other subsubsegments. Traditional advertising is no longer able to reach out with a personalized message.

The best way to target the subgroups is with a personal and direct approach, for example based on sent in coupons, answer cards or requests by e-mail. Telephonic reactions can be added in the personal file of each consumer too, that way you always have a clear view of the history of every customer, allowing you to target your customers based on the use of your product, or their history with your company.

* ATTENTION & KEEP IN TOUCH

Compared to other media, IM can trigger more interaction because of the very direct and personal approach. Because of the consumer’s awareness of the brand, and the fact he can re-read the message times and again, you have his undivided and unforced attention, which is the best possible position to have to begin your marketing of the product itself.

Direct, or interactive marketing is the ideal way to stay in touch with your clients on a long term basis. It allows you to transfer your message in a calm and well-prepared form, permitting your consumer to take the time needed to fully comprehend what you try to say.

* ACCOUNTABILITY

The economical atmosphere requires marketers to justify every cent they’ve spent. Management had the right to know what you are doing, and they want results of your actions. In fact, they probably needed the results yesterday. Company Execs need to know if ‘their’ communication is accurate. We, as marketeers, are the ones that are in the line of fire.

We need results. This is where interactive communication shows his biggest advantages compared to the classic media channels. The result of every DM-action can be precisely determined and measured, and entered in some processing software or database, making it instantly available to the other authorized staffmembers for verification.

* LESS COMMON PRODUCTS

There are some products that require a consumer to overcome an emotional or psychological threshold. E.g. when buying sexual oriented goods or convience goods related to some sort of disease. For this type of customers, a DM relation might be the answer to their problems, because they no longer need to leave their house and expose theirselves to ‘third-person’ interaction. (shopkeepers, cashiers, …)

 
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Guidelines For Direct Marketing Through RSS

22 May 2005

Based on the ground rules of the netiquette and common sense, I think it’s about time to lay down some guidelines for the use of marketing techniques and advertising through RSS. Here goes.

RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE PUBLISHER :

After being contacted by an agency and agreeing to publish, it must be verified where the ads are leading to, what content the surfer gets served. The advertising companies should notify the publisher when changes will occur, with what interval, so the publisher can stay closely related to the extra content that is being added to his feed.

To prevent extreme situations in which a feed has become a generated catalog, it’s advised to publishers to not allow more than three ads per day, if your daily post count is between 10 and 20. I suggest different terms and conditions for syndicated feeds with higher numbers of posts.
Let’s say a maximum of one ad per 12 posts. That should keep both the readers and the advertizers happy.

As a publisher, you should put out a survey first to see how your audience will react to the appearance of ads in between their usual slices of information. Referring to the easyness by which users can unsubscribe, it would be wise to consider their syndication to your feed with respect and first poll the attitude towards your intended changes. Perhaps you could publish a test page that shows a preview, the way Google did with its sample of the Google Personal Homepage.

Because the readers of a feed feel the publisher alone is entirely responsible fot the content, you might consider negotiating with the ad-company itself about possible previews of the ads-to-appear, to verify their relevance. The publisher should have the right to decline publication of certain ads, if he feels they are violating the rules or values of the content they will relate to. Of course, the ad-provider should make sure the ad itself is relevant, because having to turn down too many ads will damage the relation between publisher and advertiser.

RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE ADVERTISER :

As already mentioned, you must make sure your content is at all times as much relevant as possible. Mistargeting your audience is a crucial error to make.

Feeds are short. So should your ads be. Do not include larger parts of descriptive sweettalks, stay to the core of the message.

Make sure the ad is cleary different from the offered content to make sure you do not mislead the readers, for this will only cause them to feel betrayed and this will result in massive unsibsribtions. You must at no point try to ’stealth’ the reader. Since your ad is to the point already, just come clean, it’ll be very much appreciated.

TIPS FOR BOTH :

Take the time to set up an agreement you both feel comfortable with so there needs to be no re-negotiation when it comes to content filling or payments.

Make sure there is a reliable system that can track the Click-Through rate very specifically and base the payments either on the CT-system, or on a commissioned fee per effective order.

Make sure you are clear about ‘when a purchase has been made’ and ‘when the payment will be done’. Sometimes it takes weeks for cheques to arrive, so try to limit the ‘grey areas’ in the agreement.

 
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Targeted Direct Mailing To Increase Sales

15 May 2005

What’s the measure of success for direct mail? Many marketers look at the number of effective realized sales made compared to the number of items mailed. Many direct mail experts tell clients to expect between .05 percent and one percent response or sales rate. So, a one percent sales rate on 1,000 direct mail pieces equals 10 responses or sales. If your cost to prepare and mail 1,000 pieces exceeds the profits you’d realize from 10 sales, go to another plan. If not, here’s some more information.

Focus on your customers’ benefits and do it right away in the lead. The first sentence (the lead) in a direct mail letter should be about the benefits. So, if your prospect only reads enough of the ‘offer’ to determine whether to keep reading or to delete it, he or she should already be offered the benefits of your product or service.

Keep the offer simple, easy to understand and persuasive. You need to formulate an attractive message that totally targets your average consumer. You have 1.4 seconds to convince your readers, because that is about the time they spend on an advertisment averagely.

Include a clear ‘call to action’ and invite people to respond ‘today’. If you’re using postal services, it is strongly suggested to include a postage-paid reply card to motivate consumers to react to your offer.

Create different direct mail pieces to address different audiences even when you’re offering the same product. Your product or service may have a different benefit for the 35-year-old mother of two small children than it does to a single man of 25. So, create multiple forms of the same offer for those  different audiences.

Make the offer for a limited time only to encourage prospects to act ‘now’. Make it easy to respond or place an order. Include order forms if appropriate for your product. When possible, try to include a toll-free phone number (24-hour ordering if possible), accessibility is a very important value to your target prospects. You don’t know when they’re reading the message, so it’s hard to predict when they will reply to it. You must try to be available for sales applies at any time.

Also include a fax number, an email contact address and the payment options you provide. Try to arrange a deal with the major credit card companies such as VISA, MasterCard, AmEx and others. Consider the cost you have for set-up fees and compare them to your revenue. No need to offer three credit cards if it doesn’t pay off. (Symbolic, isn’t it?)

There are many advantages for Direct Marketing.
Listed below are Seven Advantages written for the Automotive Advertising Directory by Scott Joseph (April 2001).

1. MEASURABLE – Direct Mail is measurable. Compared with TV , Newspaper, Radio, and Billboard, only Direct Mail is truly measurable.

2. INEXPENSIVE - Direct Mail is inexpensive. Running a Direct Mail campaign is perhaps the most cost-effective use of your advertising dollar, for two reasons:

a. You are paying only to get your message to those who are genuinely interested, not just to anyone who will listen. It simply costs less to do a laser-precise targeting than a scattershot campaign.

b. Every Direct Mail Campaign should be more successful than your last. Using your responsive analysis data, you should be able to analyze each promotion and make your next campaign even more effective.

3. TARGETABLE – Direct Mail is targetable. Rather than sending a generic message out to the general population, direct mail allows you to specifically target an audience who is interested in exactly what you have to offer.

4. PLANNED – Direct Mail is planned. Think of direct mail as a surgical strike – with every detail of the promotion mapped out ahead of time. The audience is carefully chosen, the message crafted exclusively for that specific audience, and the details are thought through, down to the day of the week that the piece arrives in their home.

5. SECRET – Direct Mail is secret. Your competitor down the road keeps and eye on what you offer, just like you keep an eye on their business. With direct mail, it is a private communication between you and your prospect.

6. CREATIVE – Direct Mail is creative. If you try something creative in most advertising, and it doesn’t work – it can be a really expensive error. With direct mail, the simple fact that is is an inexpensive way to advertise allows for more creative freedom.

7. PARTICIPATORY – Direct Mail is participatory. With the exception of the Internet, every other advertising is passive. The audience can listen to radio or TV ads, or glance over your newspaper ad or billboard, but direct mail is the only truly interactive advertising medium available that you can control. That captive audience will read your mailer/offer when they are actively ready to hear what you have to say.

Read more about this at : OnlineWBC.gov

Read more about DM Advantages on the OCT Group website

 
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Tips & Tricks For Corporate Blogging

11 May 2005

Neville Hobson has posted a very interesting list of points on WebProNews about some excellent additional content in Business Week’s online edition that’s not in the print edition, and he highlights specific key points. These tips and tricks are intended for company owners, CEO’s and staff members.

1. Train Your Bloggers
Key point: Who’s on your communications team? It used to be a small group, but now everyone who blogs at the company is spreading the message. And it’s important that these people be trained. [...] If bloggers become part of a company’s communications effort, what does the old PR department do? Increasingly, it’ll train and coordinate the bloggers.

2. Be Careful with Fake Blogs
Key Point: Pseudo-blogs are risky because many of the most passionate bloggers view them as an affront to their community, and each one stands out like a billboard in Yosemite. When the blogosphere gets hold of a fake, it can turn it into a public roasting of the company. [...] The upshot: Your choice on fakes, but the risks are high. [This is also to do with so-called character blogs on which I've clearly stated my views (against), in this post as well as in recent editions of The Hobson & Holtz Report podcast.]

3. Track Blogs
Key point: This is the easiest and most important step. First, poke around online and find the most influential bloggers following your company. Read them every day. Then do automated tracking of discussions. Companies ranging from startup PubSub to tech giant IBM can help, since they offer services that comb through this mountain of data, turning it into market research for customers. [And see the bonus tip above.]

4. PR Truly Means Public Relations
Key point: Blogs knock down the barriers between a company and its customers. Businesses need to take that into account and adapt. [...] Netflix figured this lesson out after a rocky start. A fan named Mike Kaltschnee started a blog called Hacking Netflix that was full of news about online movie-rental company’s services. Kaltschnee asked for a closer relationship with Netflix, including access to executives and briefings on news releases. Netflix didn’t pay attention to him – until he wrote about his frustrations on his blog last June. The posting was picked up and spread madly through the blogosphere. Talk about bad PR.

5. Be Transparent
Key point: No hard and fast rules for navigating the worlds of blogging and marketing exist. Still, a few principles are emerging, including the importance of full disclosure. Being open about the kind of marketing you’re doing is critical. [...] In November, Marqui began paying some 20 bloggers $2,400 each to write about the company once a week for three months. Everything about Marqui’s blog program is up on its site, including the contract, a list of the bloggers working for Marqui, and background material Marqui sends to bloggers. The bloggers have total control over what they write. They can criticize the software or write at length about it. The only requirement was they have to mention Marqui once a week. [...] Marqui benefited from the buzz about the novelty of what it was attempting. The number of people who visited Marqui’s site rose from 2,000 in November to 150,000 in December. And the company decided to continue the program after the first three-month period ended. [What Marqui did could change the face of marketing and PR.]

6. Rethink Your Corporate Secrets
Key point: What’s the value of a locked up secret? In the world of blogs, you may find more value in sharing what you used to think of as secrets. Blogs are certain to make you rethink what should be squirreled away, because companies are increasingly sharing such information to win new partners and harvest fresh ideas. This doesn’t mean they don’t keep secrets or that you shouldn’t – only that you should reevaluate whether you can get more out of sharing information or keeping a lock on it.

WebProNews > Insider Reports > Marketing Insider > Article

Neville Hobson’s Blog – comment and opinion on business communication and technology.

Neville Hobson is a British business communicator based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

 
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Tips For A Better Pay-Per-Click Campaign

10 May 2005

Although it is strongly recommended that you talk through your Search Engine Marketing (SEM) needs with a professional agency, some people want to find out about keyword-buying theirselves. To help out those who pursue the direct approach, here a some tips to optimize your Pay-Per-Click (PPC) program.

  • Do not neglect the strategic phase in your planning. Perform a ‘keyword analysis’ to determine the most accurate ’searchwords’ for your business, website or activity. Keep in mind that there are different ways to use the adwords. You can use single words, but it’s also possible to use a combination of words and link the multiple adwords to the same advertisement. You should also decide, when using multiple adwords, if the engine should show your page only on the exact same input of the combination or if your ad should turn up with each of the included words individually too. Make sure to check the conditions with every engine you decide to contact for PPC.
  • The best ratio of click-throughs is generated through textual advertisements using a very direct sales and/or marketing approach. Ads with a clear and open content even rate up to 4 times better than ads that are formulated in a more descriptive way. A well-built text-ad contains the most important benefits for the surfer, and a very clear ‘call for action’.
  • The format of a PPC-ad is very tiny limited, compared to other advertisement possibilies as bannering etc. so it is important not to repeat words and make it a clear, brief and striking statement or message. It is very important that the ‘call for action’ is repeated on the landing page, and immediately is substantiated to ‘convince’ the visitor of your good intentions. Try to put a USP (Unique Selling Proposition) of your product into the text. It’ll most certainly be rewarded when it comes to brand recognition and appointing values.
  • Try to avoid aggressive oneliners or pushing statements. Don’t be too generous with characters as the questionmark or the exclamation point. Most engines limit the entries of such textsigns anyway, but apart from that, it testifies of very poor language skills and looks very amateuristic. Surely this can’t be your objective in a communcation process with potential or existing customers. Don’t overdo it on the capitals. Internet etiquette (the netiquette) points out the use of capital letters equals shouting in real life (IRL). Be sure to check the ‘do’s and don’ts’ of advertising with every engine. Each engine has its own terms of use. Some content might be censored or some products just are not allowed to be advertised for, and that would be a waste of your time, money and efforts. Prevent it by informing you thoroughly.
  • Think over and re-think over the content and lay-out of the landing page. This is where surfers end up after clicking on one of your ads. Consider each word very carefully. One bad thing can make the surfer bail out. Verify that you indeed let the surfer experience that what you’ve offered in the ad has come through on this landing page. If you neglect this part of SEM, you could’ve just as good skipped the whole campaign.
  • Check for yourself what potential each investment has. Depending on the rate selected and the maximum budget per day you want to use (per day/per click), your ad will be visible on various locations. Higher investments bring it to the top of the list, fewer investing lets it drop down, showing it amongst many other sponsored search results. Possibly direct competition, so think it over very carefully.
  • Measuring equals knowledge. Check on your results on a very regular basis, also check the ones from your competition, you might learn things you can use to adjust your campaign some more. Don’t be afraid to interact with the program. It’s flexible, as you need to be. Calculate the degree of efficiency from every step in the PPC program. Try to anticipate, try to predict. Read as much about the techniques and mastering skills of SEM as you possibly can.

Read : The popularity and importance of Search Engines (PDF)
Read : Inside The Mind of The Searcher (Free Registration)
Read : The State of Search Engine Marketing

Getting Started :

Read : Google’s Guidelines
Read : Google’s ZeitGeist – which words are currently ‘top searched’ ?
Visit SearchEngineGuide
Visit SearchEngineWatch
Visit SEMPO Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization

This article contains fractions of the Whitepaper on Search by MSN, DigiMedia and Extenseo. The original paper was in Dutch and
contained 88 pages. I’ll try to locate an english version as soon as possible, for download.

 
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