PAID SEARCH INTELLIGENCE
TOP 10 TIPS TO IMPROVE PERFORMANCE
INTELLIGENCE FOR A CONNECTED WORLD
CONTENTS
TOP TIPS #
Introduction p5
1
See the complete picture p7
2
Understand (your place in) the market p8
3
Identify your top competitors p11
4
Know when the market is shifting p12
5
See how much your competitors are spending p15
6
Identify missed keyword opportunities to drive clicks & traffic p16
7
Quickly improve your ad copy & your click through rates p19
8
Increase conversions with insight into top landing pages p20
9
Stay on top during critical times p23
10
Learn from the past to prepare for the future p24
Conclusion p27
Glossary p28
INTRODUCTION More than any other form of marketing, paid search advertising is about direct, head-to-head competition. After all, at its core is an auction in which competitive bidding is used to gain placement in a limited number of positions on the search results page, as well as a higher page position than your competitors. Because of the unique nature of the paid search advertising format, search marketers like you need actionable, timely and thorough intelligence on your competitors’ strategy and performance to effectively manage your campaigns. Such insights include vital information such as the keywords your competitors are sponsoring, how much they are spending in total and per click, what they are saying in their ad copy and landing pages and whether there have been changes in their bid prices, impressions and traffic. Using these insights, you can improve your paid search efforts by determining who your top competitors are on the search engines, benchmarking your performance against them, and identifying both new opportunities and areas in need of improvement based on your competitors’ and your own strengths and weaknesses. Without such insights, search marketers are essentially competing in the search auction with blinders on; you may see you are making progress but have no idea if you’re behind or ahead, or whether you need to change course. As a result, your campaigns are susceptible to diminishing performance, escalating costs and lost page position, clicks and traffic. Of course, this data is not available from the search engines. And understandably so, as it’s not in the search engine’s best interest to reveal how much advertisers are bidding and spending in the auction, and so on. Instead, savvy marketers turn to search marketing intelligence from a trusted third party such as Kantar Media. The following guide includes the top ten best practices you need to optimize your paid search campaigns with search marketing intelligence.
Paid search intelligence | Top 10 tips to improve performance
p5
SEE THE COMPLETE PICTURE
1
Today’s search marketplace is very different than it was just a few years ago. To truly understand your organisation’s position relative to your competitors, you must have a complete picture of your competitive landscape for paid and organic search, including both desktop and mobile search for both traditional text ads and product listing ads. To obtain a complete picture of the competitive landscape, it’s essential to have a full range of keyword-level data on key search metrics for both your and your competitors’ program in order to make useful, informed decisions about your marketing campaigns. An ideal range of data includes: Keywords (sponsored and organic) Ad copy Ad spend Cost per click Clickthrough rate Number of impressions /share of voice Number of clicks /share of clicks Ad coverage (the frequency an ad appears when a keyword is searched) Average position on the search engine results page Competitor landing pages Using only one or two metrics is not enough to truly understand your competitors, marketplace or performance, and most certainly not enough to make crucial decisions about your search campaigns.
Paid search intelligence | Top 10 tips to improve performance
p7
UNDERSTAND (YOUR PLACE IN) THE MARKET
2
The first area of search marketing intelligence to start with is understanding your overall competitive landscape, including viewing all of the competitors bidding on the keywords you are sponsoring across data type (text ads, product listing ads) and device (desktop, mobile) ranked by key metrics such as spend, impressions or clicks. This information gives you a quick understanding of where your program stands in terms of overall performance. It also lets you know the total number of competitors in your market, which can have various strategic implications— especially since paid search is a demand-based system where price goes up as the number of bidders increases. As an example, a keyword with a large number of bidders may indicate that marketers with a more limited budget should avoid bidding on it because the cost to successfully compete would be prohibitive. On the other hand, a keyword with relatively few bidders may indicate an opportunity for marketers to lower their bid and allocate their budget to other more popular keywords. 2.41
2.35 clarks.co.uk
Advertiser Comparison report enabling search marketers to benchmark their performance vs. their top competitors based on clicks, impressions and ad spend (indicated by size of semicircle). Š Kantar Media 2019
16.81
nike.com
Clicks & impressions ($Millions)
2.34 mandmdirect.com
19.76
1.41 office.co.uk
p8
23.66
8.88
The first area of search marketing intelligence to start with is understanding your overall competitive landscape...
IDENTIFY YOUR TOP COMPETITORS
3
One of the most important capabilities of search marketing intelligence is its ability to show you your top competitors, i.e., the biggest threats to your search program success. Virtually every company has a good idea who their top competitors are in a customary strategic sense, but very few can say who their biggest threats are on the search engines, since it requires a thorough knowledge of which companies are showing up most on the search engine results page for your keywords. In short, it’s not always who you think it will be. For instance, in a recent study of allergy-related keywords, Kantar Media found that three brands not commonly associated with allergy relief, Halls, Swiffer and Advil, together gained more clicks than popular antihistamine brands Allegra, Zyrtec and Xzayl, did individually. Common criteria for identifying your top search competitors is viewing which advertisers are showing up more frequently on the search results page for your keyword group, which are gaining a larger impression share than you, which are getting more clicks and/or spending more. Knowing your top five competitors on the search engines, in particular, is extremely beneficial because it enables you to focus your time and efforts on those companies posing the most significant threat, and reduce the amount of subsequent work you need to do.
...it’s not always who you think it will be...
Paid search intelligence | Top 10 tips to improve performance p11
KNOW WHEN THE MARKET IS SHIFTING
4
Of course, search marketers cannot depend on their top competitors staying the same, as the search marketplace is subject to significant shifts, especially during holidays and other key selling seasons. Monitoring your competition on a routine basis is important, particularly around holidays and seasonal events, since many advertisers (often smaller niche players) will hold back budget throughout the year to do a major holiday or seasonal push. Such changes in competition can present search marketers with serious threats, since they can essentially knock you out of the competition on valuable keywords when it’s most important for your ads to be showing up to engage in-market shoppers.
New Competitor Alert Email is triggered by criteria selected by the search marketer. In this case, a low threshold has been set for clicks and spend to alert the user of new competitors entering the search auction on the user’s keywords. © Kantar Media 2019
Hello. Please review your Kantar Media New Competitions Alert below: Alert Name: New Competitions Alert - Daily Monitoring Filter Settings: Product: SEM | Keyword Group: Branded keywords - Desktop | Search Engine: Google | Region: United States | Report Aggregation: Daily Current Date Range: 20-Dec-2018 to 20-Dec-2018 Comparison Date Range: 19-Dec-2018 to 19-Dec-2018 Rules: Impressions Greater Than 1 OR Clicks Greater Than 1 OR Spend Than $1 2 new competitor(s) found. Advertiser: smarter.com Rule: Impressions Greater Than 1 | Actual Value: 3,250 | Difference 3,249 Rule: Clicks Greater Than 1 | Actual Value: 108 | Difference 107 Rule: Spend Greater Than $1 | Actual Value: $220 | Difference $219 Advertiser: chanel.com Rule: Impressions Greater Than 1 | Actual Value: 2,853 | Difference 2,852 Rule: Clicks Greater Than 1 | Actual Value: 171 | Difference 170 Rule: Spend Greater Than $1 | Actual Value: $322 | Difference $321
p12
...the search marketplace is subject to significant shifts...
Paid search intelligence | Top 10 tips to improve performance p13
SEE HOW MUCH YOUR COMPETITORS ARE SPENDING
5
Using sophisticated algorithms and computer simulation models, competitive intelligence can provide highly accurate estimates of your competitors’ spend, clickthrough rates and average cost-per-click on the keywords you are sponsoring. This information answers the fundamental question of whether or not you need to increase your budget, and helps you make a strong, data-backed case to prove the need to do so. In addition, staying on top of competitors’ ad spend can point to key opportunities to gain an edge. For instance, if your competitors blow through their budgets toward the end of the month, it may open up a short window for you to take advantage by concentrating budget on keywords that are not currently as competitive or increasing budget for your top-performing keywords by impressions and/or conversions. Monitoring competitors’ average cost per click (CPC) can also enable you to better gauge the competitiveness of the marketplace, a capability that is particularly helpful when you’re trying to answer one of paid search’s most elusive questions—why are my CPCs rising? If you’re seeing all of your competitors’ CPCs rise at the same time, you’ll know it’s a phenomenon affecting the marketplace, saving you the time of scrutinizing your entire campaign for problems and enabling you to try alternative tactics such as concentrating on less popular long-tail keywords. Top 3 Advertisers by Spend report shows spending trends over time © Kantar Media 2019
Top 3 advertisers by spend ($Millions)
Category: Apparel & Fashion- All competitors - Google UK - Jan-Jun 2018 booking.com
9.8
6.63
2.24 JAN 18
trivago.co.uk
7.36 5.67
2.95
FEB 18
onthebeach.co.uk
9.64
7.38
4.08 MAR 18
12.47
7.54
3.38 APR 18
12.1
11.7
9.33
7.41
4.3 MAY 18
3.93 JUN 18
Paid search intelligence | Top 10 tips to improve performance p15
MISSED OPPORTUNITIES Identify missed keyword opportunities to drive clicks & traffic
6
If you’re responsible for managing a search campaign day to day, it’s essential for you to be able to quickly identify missed keyword opportunities in your campaigns, i.e., the keywords for which your ads are not appearing on the first search engine results page (SERP). If your ads are not appearing on the first SERP, your campaign is unquestionably missing opportunities to drive impressions, clicks and sales, since the majority of searchers will only spend time reading and clicking ads on the first results page.
Keyword 95 mortgage
Google UK Search volume 1,233
aviva equity release
7,060
bad credit loans UK
33,689
bad credit mortgage
50,730
best buy to let mortgages
18,819
best mortgage
4,431
best mortgage deal
1,513
best mortgage deals
29,637
best mortgage rate
103,777
best mortgage rates
120,634
best mortgages
Missing (0% Coverage)
14,970
best remortgages 15,354 Missed Keyword report identifies keywords for which the search marketer’s ads are not displaying. Search volume is provided to allow the marketer to prioritize which keywords to address first based on potential to reach the most consumers. © Kantar Media 2019
p16
As a best practice, you should monitor search marketing intelligence on a daily basis to ensure you are showing ads for all of your most important terms or are otherwise quickly identifying any problems in your campaign. Once problem keywords have been identified, you should investigate to see what’s actually happening. Begin by viewing search volume for each individual keyword, which will enable you to prioritise which keywords to address first based on how popular the terms are with searchers / your potential customers. Next, rule out any simple explanations for missed keywords by consulting the search engine’s campaign management tools to find out if your campaign was paused because of manual error or lack of budget. If no issue can be found in the campaign management tools, your next course of action is to improve your ad’s performance. See tip #7 - Observe & Optimise -Quickly improve your ad copy & your click through rates.
Missed keyword opportunities can cut both ways. As an additional best practice, you should also utilize search marketing intelligence to identify holes in your competitors’ campaigns. Knowing which keywords your competitors’ ads are not showing up for can provide you with valuable new terms to use in your own campaigns as well as enable you adjust your bidding strategy for terms you’re already on, as you may be paying too much for a keyword where there is little competition.
Paid search intelligence | Top 10 tips to improve performance p17
Paid search intelligence | Top 10 tips to improve performance p18
OBSERVE & OPTIMISE Quickly improve your ad copy & your clickthrough rates
7
Optimising ad copy is your most effective tool to increase clickthrough rates and raise your quality score. However, for most advertisers copy optimisation can be a lengthy process of trial and error that takes time to produce positive results. Search marketing intelligence enables you to speed up ad copy optimization and make a quick impact on your campaign. The concept—and practice—is simple: mine your competitors’ most successful ads to generate new ideas to use in your own campaigns. To start, utilise search marketing intelligence to identify competitors’ ads that have a combination of high ad coverage, that is, those ads that show up the most frequently on the first search engine results page, and high average position in relation to the other ads on the page. Then, analyse your competitors’ ads to uncover successful new ideas to test in your own ad copy, including compelling wording and promotions, as well as ad extensions. Employing this practice can save you considerable time and effort. It is especially effective when used in ongoing split testing to optimise current campaigns, as it can result in a boost in quality score for many terms without having to wait months for results.
Group Creative report enables search marketers to view their competitors’ most successful ad copy based on impressions and ad coverage, or the frequency the ad displays when a keyword is searched.© Kantar Media 2019
Advertiser
bedsareuzzz.co.uk
wetrooms-online.com
Text Ad
Sealy Bed Range | Winter Sale Now On www.bedsareuzzz.co.uk/sealy/beds
UK’s Leading Sealy distributor. Best price and service guaranteed.
Shower Screens for Wet Rooms 8mm & 10mm Thick Toughened Glass www.wetrooms-online.com/
Avg Position
Coverage
3.1% £0.58
1.0
100%
17 3.5% £0.77
1.67
60%
0.00
50%
Spend Impressions Clicks CTR
£4
207
£13
479
£703
2,096
6
CPC
Wet room trays & kits for tiled or vinyl floor finish. officefurnitureonline. co.uk
Office Desks www.officefurniture.co.uk
The UK’s #1 Office Furniture Website 150,000 items and Free Delivery.
136 6.5%
£5.16
Paid search intelligence | Top 10 tips to improve performance p19
LANDING WITH STYLE
Increase conversions with insight into top landing pages
8
Landing page optimisation is an important practice, since increasing your conversion rate will have a direct, positive impact on campaign performance. Unfortunately, it’s also one of the most time-consuming due to the length of time it takes to devise, test and determine successful new ideas. As with ad copy optimisation, marketers can use search marketing intelligence to greatly expedite landing page optimisation. The process begins by identifying your competitors’ most successful landing pages based on the frequency with which they appear in their top performing ads. A high frequency may indicate the landing page is successful since your competitor will most often utilise only those with the best performance. (They may also use only one landing page, which is not a best practice.) You should then analyse your competitors’ top landing pages to generate new ideas to test in your own landing pages, including ad copy, headlines, promotions and even graphic items such as colours.
...analyse your competitors’ top landing pages to generate new ideas...
p20
Paid search intelligence | Top 10 tips to improve performance p21
STAY ON TOP DURING CRITICAL TIMES
9
Timing is key during the holidays and other highly competitive seasonal sales periods, when innovative promotions and being first-to-market can give marketers an advantage in reaching and persuading shoppers to buy. Search marketing intelligence helps you stay on top of changes in competitors’ tactics and strategies by providing near real-time reports on your competitors’ specific ad copy, sorted by how often it is served, together with landing page URLs and the keywords the ads were found in. This capability gives you a host of vital information virtually as it’s occurring/changing, including: When your competitors start their holiday and seasonal ad campaigns When their deep discount promotions begin such as for Black Friday The types of promotions they are running or testing (percentage off, free shipping, coupon codes) and if they’re successful Which specific products or brands they are promoting The most effective landing page creative
Share of Voice Trend report shows when advertisers begin sponsoring Valentine’s Day keywords © Kantar Media
In addition, keyword monitoring helps you zero in on changes in competitive keywords to see if the competition is launching new holiday or seasonal keywords you may want to incorporate in your own campaigns.
Share of Voice Trend
UK Valentine’s Day - All Competitors - Google - UK - 7 Jan 2018 to 11 Feb 2018 Share of Voice %
amazon.co.uk groupon.co.uk gettingpersonal.co.uk asos.com virginexperiencedays.co.uk moonpig.com tiffany.co.uk pandora.net beerwulf.com
100
80
60
40
20
0
Jan 7
Jan 14
Jan 21
Jan 28
Feb 4
Feb 11
Paid search intelligence | Top 10 tips to improve performance p23
LEARN FROM THE PAST TO PREPARE FOR THE FUTURE
10
As detailed in tip #9, monitoring your competitors’ ads is an important practice during the holidays and other key seasonal selling periods. However, search marketers can gain a competitive advantage before the season has even begun by using search marketing intelligence to analyse what your competitors did last year, including: When they started their holiday advertising The types of incentives that were most popular (free shipping, percentage off, etc.) How much they spent The keywords they sponsored and products they promoted Using this information, you can beat your competitors to market, ensure you have the necessary budget to compete through the entire season, match or exceed competitive offers and more.
p24
... ensure you have the necessary budget to compete through the entire season ...
CONCLUSION Search marketing intelligence is a critical component of any paid search advertising strategy. In the simplest terms, search marketers like you need to know what’s working and what’s not in your campaigns—how or why your share of voice increases or decreases, why your costs go up or down, why you’re losing traffic, and so on.
Search marketing intelligence is a critical component of any paid search advertising strategy
In addition, you need a strong understanding of who your top competitors are and the actions they are taking, as well as how those actions are impacting your own campaign performance. Through search marketing intelligence, you can benchmark and improve your performance by uncovering every aspect of your competitors’ campaigns and using this insight to gain a competitive advantage in the search auction. Search marketing intelligence can help you increase traffic to your site, neutralise competitors’ advantages, optimise your time and effort, and give you a long-term advantage in the marketplace.
Our digital advertising intelligence offer We provide a single joined-up digital advertising intelligence solution encompassing comprehensive intelligence across both search marketing metrics and digital ad display, to meet all your digital advertising intelligence needs. See more.
For more information on how Kantar Media can help, contact: david.ashiru@kantarmedia.com +44 (0) 7823 369603
Paid search intelligence | Top 10 tips to improve performance p27
GLOSSARY OF SEARCH MARKETING TERMS
Ad Copy – The text included in a paid search ad. Ad Coverage – The frequency an ad appears when a keyword is searched, expressed as a percentage (e.g., 50% ad coverage indicates that an advertiser’s ad appeared 50% of the time when a sponsored keyword was searched by consumers). Ad Extensions – A component of paid search ads featuring additional information about your business such as a phone number, call button, location information and links to specific pages of your site. Ad Spend – The amount an advertiser pays for its paid search advertising across individual keywords or their total program. Average Position – The average position on the SERP that an advertiser’s ads are found for a given keyword or keywords. Click – The instance a consumer clicks on a paid search ad or organic search result. Click Through Rate (CTR) – How often an advertiser’s ad is clicked when it is shown to consumers, expressed as a percentage. Derived by dividing the number of impressions by the number of clicks. Cost Per Click (CPC) – The amount an advertiser bids or pays to the search engine when a consumer clicks on their paid search ad. Impression – The instance an ad is displayed to a consumer. Keyword – A term or phrase that advertisers bid on (sponsor) in order for their paid search ads to be shown to consumers who search for the term on a search engine. Keywords are also important in search engine optimization. See SEO. Landing Page – The website page where a consumer is directed after clicking on a paid search ad or organic search result.
p28
Long-Tail Keywords – Longer keyword phrases that are usually highly specific to a certain product or service and used by search marketers to target individuals close to making a purchase decision. Generally, long-tail keywords are less competitive than general keywords and are less expensive to sponsor. Organic Search Results – The non-sponsored (non-paid) listings on a search engine results page that are served organically/naturally by the search engine based on the listings’ relevance to the consumer’s keyword search. Also known as an organic listing. Product Listing Ads (PLAs) – A paid search ad format featuring an image and price of a retail product, known as Google Shopping Ads on Google. Quality Score – A score assigned by search engines to assess the relevance of your ad and landing page to a given keyword and used to determine how frequently your ads are shown (ad coverage), where they appear on the page (average position) and how much you’ll pay per visitor (cost per click). Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) – The marketing practice of optimising your website content to increase its relevancy for specific keywords so that your site’s listings appear in the organic search results when those keywords are searched. Search Engine Results Page (SERP) – The web page, composed of paid and organic search results, that is displayed after a consumer enters a search into a search engine. Share of Clicks – The percentage of clicks an advertiser’s paid ad or organic listing received as compared to total clicks for ads received by all advertisers for a given keyword or group of keywords. Share of Voice – The percentage of impressions an advertiser’s paid ad or organic listing received as compared to total impressions received by all advertisers for a given keyword or group of keywords. Text Ads – A paid search ad format featuring text only and hyperlinks.
Paid search intelligence | Top 10 tips to improve performance p29
ABOUT KANTAR We are a global leader in connected intelligence. Our data and insights provide clients with an holistic understanding of the changing media landscape. Our global coverage and local expertise enable clients to better understand media audiences and their relationships with brands to optimise investment. Where others see a fragmented reality, we see new opportunities. To find out more, visit us at www.kantarmedia.com. Our digital advertising intelligence offer We provide a single joined-up digital advertising intelligence solution encompassing comprehensive intelligence across both search marketing metrics and digital ad display, to meet all your digital advertising intelligence needs. See more. For more information on Kantar Media’s search marketing intelligence solutions in the UK market, please email us at david.ashiru@kantarmedia.com or call +44 (0)7823 369603.
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