Fresh Ideas...
to Turbo Charge Your Keyword Search Advertising Program This Holiday Season
Message from our CEO: On behalf of the entire NetElixir team, thank you for taking the time to go through this workbook. We hope the “fresh ideas� presented herein will help you run a more efficient keyword search advertising campaign during the 2009 Holiday season. This is not meant to be a theoretical handbook but rather a practical workbook. We strongly encourage you to use the charts and performance indicators, applying your actual data, in order to derive maximum performance gains. Do feel free to write to me at udayan@netelixir.com to let me know if you found this workbook interesting and useful. Happy Reading and Happy Selling! Regards,
Udayan Bose CEO NetElixir,Inc.
Why Do You Need a Search Advertising Workbook? • Successful keyword search advertising is “75% execution and 25% strategy.” • We have tested the concepts presented here on more than 200 retailer campaigns. • While this is not an exhaustive list, it will be a solid base for getting you off to a good start. • The beauty of the concepts lies in the fact that they can be used on an “as is” basis. • The ability to conduct smart, objectives-focused tests is key for optimal search advertising. • Some control sheets presented here need to be filled out by you on a weekly basis. You will thus be able to capture essential trends. • W e place a lot of emphasis on regular data analysis and extracting usable insights. This workbook is meant to serve that purpose for you.
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The holiday shopping season spans nearly three months, from early October to end of December.
Source: Google Trends Data
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Why Do You Need “Fresh SEM Ideas” for Holiday Season 2009? • All economic indicators point to one of the toughest holiday seasons ever. • Revenue realized per dollar spent on SEM has come down over the past year. • Despite the difficult economy, SEM remains a time tested customer acquisition channel. • Online shopping behavior is likely to be different this holiday season. • A n advertiser can unlock enormous customer acquisition efficiencies by following some or all of the ideas presented here.
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10 Practical Tips to Propel Your Keyword Search Advertising Results
Build Your Objectives-Investment Scorecard
Build Your Objectives-Investment Scorecard
Why is this important? Why is this important? You will have an overview of investment vs. return on a single sheet. Remember that what you can’t measure, You will have an overview of investment vs. return on a single you can’t control.
sheet. Remember that what you can’t measure, you can’t control. Objectives Investment X units of sale
Holiday SEM budget, $
Y cost per sale
SEM technology, $
Z revenue per sale
In-house manpower, $ SEM agency fee, $
Reality check: Reality check: • What is the average CPC ($)? • Whatclick is the average CPC ($)? • What is your website’s to conversion rate (%)? • What is mygiven website’s to conversion rate (%) ? • Are the objectives achievable the levelclick of investment? • Are the objectives achievable given the level of investment? • What are the industry benchmarks?
• What are the industry benchmarks? -6-
Strategic Keyword Bidding during the Holidays Why is this important? During the holiday season, the average cost per keyword click (CPC) jumps by 50-80% for categories like flowers and gifts, apparel, and consumer electronics. 5 essential things to remember in keyword bidding • T he bidding strategy should be product category-specific (know the categories on which not to aggressively bid). • Day-parting tactics help in better utilization of advertising budget. • The days of “vanity bidding” (aiming for the top listing position at any cost) are over. • Value per click is the ultimate measure of bidding efficiency. • A conversion is an outcome of multiple clicks on (often) multiple keywords (it is too simplistic to attribute a conversion to the last keyword click).
Notes: • Since bidding is a real-time process, manual bid management is often not sufficiently expedient, especially for campaigns with 5,000+ keywords. Bid optimization technologies, such as LXRRetail, use complex algorithms to optimally execute this process. • The bidding strategy should be influenced by both short term as well as long term SEM objectives. The strategy adopted during the holiday season may not apply during other months.
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Sample Campaign Promo-SEM CampaignCalendar Calendar Sample Promo-SEM Calendar Sample Promo-SEM Campaign Nov.2626– –Dec. Dec. Nov. 2, 2, 2009 2009
Dec. – Dec. Dec.18 – Dec. Dec. 5 –5Dec. 9, 9, Dec.18 – Dec. 22, 22, 2009 2009 2009 2009
Descriptionof of Description Promotion Promotion&&Target Target Product/Customer Product/Customer Segment Segment SEM SEM Budget Budget($) ($) SEM SEM Objectives Objectives
SEM Campaign: Variable SEM Campaign: Variable Control Chart Control SEM Campaign: Variable ControlChart Chart Variable
Variable
Plan
Plan
Measurable Outcome
Measurable Outcome
Unique Campaigns
Unique Campaigns
Targeted Keywords
Targeted Keywords
Targeted Ad Creatives
Targeted Ad Creatives Targeted Landing Pages
Targeted Landing Pages Notes:
Notes: •Notes: Analyze Outcome against SEM Objectives • Analyze outcome against SEM objectives. •• Aggregate learning and use SEM for future promotions Analyze Outcome against Objectives • Aggregate learning and use for future promotions. • Aggregate learning and use for future promotions -8-
For reading the remaining 8 tips, Download a free copy of the workbook from: http://netelixir.com/semfreshideas.html