SMX Live: Hot Topics In Paid Search

Mar 10, 2011 - 2:05 pm 1 by
Filed Under SMX West 2011

Live Blogging Coverage SMXBelow is live coverage of the Hot Topics In Paid Search panel from the SMX West 2011 conference. This coverage is provided by Keri Morgret of Strike Models.

Disclaimer: The coverage is brought to you in real time, using a custom live blogging tool. Feel free to ask questions or leave comments for inclusion into the live coverage. During the live event, live notes will auto-scroll with newest entries at top. After the session is complete the archive version will have the oldest entries at the top. We ask you to please excuse any typos, as these are live notes.

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Keri Morgret: 11:18:06 am
Hot Topics In Paid Search
What are the big new ideas for paid search advertising in 2011? What are experts thinking and talking about? What are the most significant new developments in paid search that are impacting your campaigns? This session is all about what’s hot, what’s new and what you really need to know!

Moderator: Matt Van Wagner, President, Find Me Faster

Q&A Moderator: Joseph Kerschbaum, Client Services Director, Clix Marketing

Speakers:

Alex Cohen, Senior Marketing Manager, ClickEquations
Matt Hessler, Account Director, Trada
Tim Mayer, Chief Strategy Officer, Trada
Geoffrey Shenk, Managing Director, Kenshoo
Keri Morgret: 11:19:32 am
Matt has asked the panelists to make brief presentations, distill just the essence, then spend a lot more of the time in open discussion. Topic will be whether man or machine is better for PPC.
Keri Morgret: 11:19:41 am
Alex Cohen is up first.
Keri Morgret: 11:20:42 am
The dawn of paid search without keywords.
Keri Morgret: 11:20:57 am
Why does a publisher create content? He starts with showing us a screenshot of TMZ.
Keri Morgret: 11:21:35 am
He thinks it's helpful to think of Google as a publisher as well. Their content is the SERPs, and their goal is to monetize as a publisher.
Keri Morgret: 11:21:56 am
In 2007, they started to tweak their content with Universal Search.
Keri Morgret: 11:22:53 am
In 2010, Universal PAID search started changing things. Product listing ads, display ads in image search.
Keri Morgret: 11:22:53 am
click for full size
Keri Morgret: 11:23:39 am
Comparison ads, click-to-call also new formats.
Keri Morgret: 11:23:53 am
New monetization models. Cost per lead and cost per acquisition models.
Keri Morgret: 11:25:07 am
New advertising automation (Google Boost). Targeted at small business owners. They tell Google type of business, where they want to show up, and monthly budget.
Keri Morgret: 11:25:54 am
click for full size
Keri Morgret: 11:26:13 am
Old vs new model..which is what the picture was supposed to be of, but the slide moved too quickly. :)
Keri Morgret: 11:27:20 am
More ways that people buy ads beyond intent:
Audience, business type, product, behavior.
Keri Morgret: 11:27:57 am
Targeting by audience. Demographic targeting and demographic bidding.

Gender, household income, age
Keri Morgret: 11:29:03 am
Targeting by business type. Examples are Google Boost (SMBs) and Credit Card Comparison in the UK.

Keri Morgret: 11:29:27 am
Introduction of targeting by product, using Google Merchant. Center. Product listing ads, product extensions.
Keri Morgret: 11:30:05 am
Targeting by behavior. Interest category targeting, remarketing.
Keri Morgret: 11:31:17 am
It's about addition vs subtraction.

Right now, we start smaller and expand.
Subtraction: google determines universe, you tell Google what is unprofitable.
Keri Morgret: 11:32:49 am
One parting thought:
Some of the new features create a hybrid auction where some advertisers are controlling bids, while Google changes the bids of others while deciding whether both are eligible/relevant to appear. In effect, you are placing your bidding wits against Google's.

Keri Morgret: 11:33:15 am
He has 43 paid search marketing tools in a site.
http://clck.it/43tools
Keri Morgret: 11:34:01 am
Matt Hessler from Trada is now up.
Keri Morgret: 11:35:16 am
93 precent of transactions are not online.
Keri Morgret: 11:35:24 am
click for full size
Keri Morgret: 11:36:04 am
Google is supporting offline sales. With Google Shopping, they're showing comparisons with local offline results.
Keri Morgret: 11:36:42 am
Are people using coupons online?

Coupons leverage the number one reason shoppers come online (deal shopping) with the offline shopping model they're familiar with.
Keri Morgret: 11:37:33 am
Most popular coupon categories:
Food, entertainment, household products are top three.
Keri Morgret: 11:38:04 am
Pretty standard to require information before people can download the coupon.
Keri Morgret: 11:38:53 am
How can coupons improve your search campaign?

They make the campaign actionable.
Turn a branding campaign into a performance marketing campaign.
Collect email addresses for additional marketing efforts.
Successfully driving offline purchases can justify SEM spend.
Keri Morgret: 11:39:50 am
They can make your SEM efforts more impactful.
Offering a coupon in ad copy can increase CTR.
Use additional long-tail keywords to attract the coupon shopping audience.
Keri Morgret: 11:40:40 am
Now is the best time to test coupons! The bad economy is good for coupon usage.

3.3 billion coupons were redeemed in last two years, up 27% since 2008. 2009 was the first time year-over-year coupon usage rose since 1992.
Keri Morgret: 11:41:10 am
Average coupon face value is $1.44. You need to get over a $1 savings for people to think it's valuable enough to print out.
Keri Morgret: 11:43:04 am
Matt Van Wagner is relating a personal experience he had with online coupons.
Keri Morgret: 11:44:01 am
Tim Mayer, now of Trada, is speaking.
Keri Morgret: 11:45:02 am
He's talking about Man Versus Machine.
Keri Morgret: 11:45:47 am
He wishes they had a coupon extension in Adwords, and I imagine others do as well.
Keri Morgret: 11:46:33 am
He starts off by referencing IBM's watson on Jeopardy.
Keri Morgret: 11:48:46 am
Next example is DARPA's Locate Ten Red Balloons. Both examples of man vs machine.
Keri Morgret: 11:49:35 am
http://cacm.acm.org/blogs/blog-cacm/77440-finding-darpas-10-red-balloons/fulltext is a story explaining the ten red balloons project.
Keri Morgret: 11:50:30 am
There are many complex activities in paid search, and they need regular tinkering and adjustment. Keyword, ad copy, landing page creation and optimization.
Keri Morgret: 11:50:37 am
Also keyword pricing, corss network split.
Keri Morgret: 11:51:31 am
Automation requires data for success.
Keri Morgret: 11:52:19 am
The higher your spend, the more data you have, the more automation you can do.
Keri Morgret: 11:52:28 am
click for full size
Keri Morgret: 11:53:24 am
That's a real simplification, the slide shows more details.
Keri Morgret: 11:54:14 am
And that ends his presentation. We're now into a discussion.
Keri Morgret: 11:56:11 am
The attendance is somewhat sparse here, but we're up against The Spam Police with Matt Cutts in this time slot.
Keri Morgret: 11:57:39 am
Matt Van Wagner is now talking to Tim, asking him "How did Panama [automated, from Yahoo] work out?" Very few people in the audience used it, and he laughs and says that pretty much was the result.
Keri Morgret: 12:00:02 pm
http://www.portentinteractive.com/blog/product-extension-ads-attributes.htm blog post that Alex mentioned about how to get optimize product extensions.
Keri Morgret: 12:01:12 pm
Figuring out which ads win or lose with a small budget..human or machine? Matt Hessler: usually human, often because it's a local campaign. Neighborhoods that aren't in a an official directory that a human would know about that a machine wouldn't.
Keri Morgret: 12:01:23 pm
Alex agrees: people all the way for campaigns that size.
Keri Morgret: 12:01:35 pm
More about education and experience, less about technology at that level.
Keri Morgret: 12:02:39 pm
Competitive analysis, $50k-$100k range. Tim: have enough data, look for trends -- machine is good for first attack at this, give you areas where humans can dive in.
Keri Morgret: 12:02:56 pm
Alex: hybrid approach. Machine to get data, person to analyze it.
Keri Morgret: 12:03:11 pm
Fred ? from Google is up.
Keri Morgret: 12:03:54 pm
Pretty sure it's Frederick Vallaeys from Google who just joined the panel, though he's not presenting.
Keri Morgret: 12:04:37 pm
Audience member: thinks some people don't use the tools because they don't know about them, started out with small campaigns, was less complicated when they started and haven't realized how complicated things have gotten.
Keri Morgret: 12:05:34 pm
Frederick agrees that hybrid approach is best.
Keri Morgret: 12:06:14 pm
In Google, example could be broad match keywords. You start off providing information, then broad match lets Google help because they know more of the type of queries people are using.
Keri Morgret: 12:07:55 pm
Question for Matt H. How to even decide when to use coupons to drive offline sales from online. Matt: do some industry research, see if anyone else has done this. Decided do you need to track the downstream redemption rate of the coupon.
Keri Morgret: 12:08:09 pm
Tracking redemptions is much more involved, need to work with your retailers.
Keri Morgret: 12:08:48 pm
See if people are already searching for coupons/discounts/etc. for your brand.
Keri Morgret: 12:09:39 pm
Any coupon sites or services to recommend?

Matt: coupons.com is the grandfather of this, support coupons at all levels. There are some smaller companies doing some innovative things. Origin Ads out of North Carolina.
Keri Morgret: 12:10:12 pm
Helpful to put your coupon in a coupon aggregator site.
Keri Morgret: 12:11:32 pm
Using coupons and bidding against competitors' branded terms. Can be a good thing, especially if competitor is not using coupons.
Keri Morgret: 12:13:47 pm
And this session is over.
 

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