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
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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.
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Paid search intelligence | Top 10 tips to improve performance
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