Bid Management Tools

It’s been a while since I’ve taken a deep dive into tactical campaign management strategies. As such, I wanted to focus on some low level tips today that will directly impact your campaigns. Specifically, I’m going to focus on Google AdWords match types and how you can leverage broad, phrase, and exact match to their fullest potential.

Tip 1: Always Start With Exact Match For Added Control

If you watched my recent PPC Ian video about launching new AdWords accounts, you already have a preview of my first tip today. It’s really simple: Always start with exact match, period. Exact match gives you the most control out of all match types. Exact match has the highest revenue per visitor out of all match types. Exact match is straight-forward and simple.

After starting out with exact match, you’ll have a great understanding of which keywords work and which don’t. In the cases where the keywords don’t work, you will have minimized your losses because you started with the most controlled match type. Now, it’s time to expand to phrase and later broad. As an ideal structure, I always like to see the largest number of keywords on exact, fewer on phrase, and even fewer on broad. Also, I’m a huge fan of separating the different match types into separate adgroups. Sure, this creates more adgroups, but you’ll see later that it offers even greater control for a niche strategy leveraging negative words.

While this tip may seem very basic, it’s amazing how rarely it is followed. Time and time again, I have experienced AdWords accounts over-weighted in broad match. Oftentimes, accounts are exclusively focused on broad match with very few exact match keywords. I can’t underscore it enough: The healthiest AdWords accounts are over-weighted on exact match.

Tip 2: Leverage Broad Match For Keyword Generation

I really like tip 2 because it ties into tip 1 very nicely. Once you have established your baseline of exact match keywords, it’s time to start experimenting with phrase and broad. I especially like deploying phrase and broad match variations of my top tier exact match keywords. Not only do they offer great volume expansion opportunities, but they also offer amazing keyword generation opportunities! You heard that right: I leverage phrase and broad match to generate more exact match keywords. The beauty of this tip is it keeps feeding back into tip 1 (over-weighting in exact match). As my phrase and broad match variations start generating some serious traffic, I’ll run a search query report. Those search queries that drove conversions (and are missing from my exact match keyword set) are immediately deployed as brand new exact match keywords. Why deploy them on exact? Simple: Exact match offers the greatest control in terms of traffic quality and also bidding.

Of course, it’s very important to not go overboard here. Search engine accounts need to remain manageable so it’s a judgment call whether to let phrase and broad match take care of a certain query or to deploy the query as a new exact match keyword in your account. If a query has driven a conversion, it’s important to deploy it in my opinion.

Another important point: 20 to 25 percent of Google queries are new. Because of this very fact, it’s important to have good phrase and broad match coverage. Moreover, it’s important to go far enough down the tail on phrase and broad match to help the algorithm match to all of these possible new queries. My point: Remember to keep things balanced and invest time building out phrase and broad match as well so you definitely capture those 20 to 25 percent of new, unique queries.

Tip 3: Leverage Negative Match Types To Improve Bidding Accuracy

I’d like to close out with my most advanced match type strategy. Remember under tip 1 when I said that I like to separate the different match types into different adgroups? That all comes to play with my final strategy of creating added bidding efficiencies with savvy match type execution. It’s really simple: Once I’ve separated the three match types into different adgroups, I like to leverage negative match types so the phrase and broad match versions get none of the exact match traffic and the broad match version gets none of the phrase match traffic.

Let me explain this through an example. Let’s say we deploy three keywords in three separate adgroups: [mortgage], “mortgage”, and mortgage. Let’s say we have no negative words. Let’s even say that the exact match version is bid the highest, the phrase match in the middle, and the broad match the lowest. (Side note: This should usually be the strategy.) No matter what, the phrase and broad match variations will always get some amount of exact match traffic. Moreover, the broad version will get some amount of phrase match traffic. If the user types in the exact match [mortgage], it will sometimes get mapped to “mortgage” or mortgage. Why? Google likes to test.

We know that exact match offers the best quality traffic. Pay per click is all about optimization. Now, if some of that really high quality traffic is getting attributed to the other match types, we are probably over-valuing phrase and broad and under-valuing exact. What’s my solution? Easy: I’ll add [mortgage] as a negative keyword to both the phrase and broad adgroups. I’ll add “mortgage” as a negative to the broad adgroup. That way, my traffic is always perfectly segmented by match type and I’ll bid as effectively as possible. Another option: Place your exact, phrase, and broad keywords in separate campaigns. That way, you can also use campaign level negatives if you’re not fond of adgroup level negatives. Personally, I like to place negatives on the campaign level that are just plain bad keywords. I like to place negatives under this strategy on the adgroup level. These are two unique types of negative keyword strategies and it’s easier to keep them straight if I have them stored in different places.

Remember, good data is the foundation of a solid biding strategy. Leverage this structure and match type trick to your advantage and you’ll run circles around the competition!

source: http://www.ppcian.com/ppc-match-type-strategies/

In the past, we have talked about Inheriting Accounts from other Agencies, but what about internal accounts? As we adapt to the changes around us, we have developed a list of best practices for internal account transitions. Below are some tips and suggestions for how to smoothly transition an account to a new manager in a way that may even render new ideas and improved performance.

Two Birds with One Stone

• § Start Early!
  • This may be easier said than done. Sometimes, team members may leave unexpectedly or with little notice. Don’t panic if that happens. Hopefully, you have a history of the account in place via Basecamp or another project management system (we document almost all information on an account or changes made to an account, just in case).
  • However, if you are in a nice position where 30 days notice is given, or maybe even longer, don’t wait to transition! Start giving the new manager campaign to-dos as early as possible. This will allow them to get a feel for the account without needing to know every little detail right away.
  • If time allows give the new manager at least 2 weeks of sole management (this will come after the steps mentioned below). At this point, the original manager (let’s just say this is you) should be hands off, allowing the new manager to face any challenges with the ability to ask questions if needed, as you are still on site and available.
• § Internal Download: This involves you, the new manager, and any notes on the account. You’ll want to spend a couple of hours going through the account history, specifics about the client (their contact preferences, any quirks, etc.), and immediate plans for the account. For the immediate plans, it might be helpful to document monthly to-dos for the new manager. Write out all actions you were planning on taking in the next month or two that will help the new manager stay on top of any current plans while also helping them understand the optimizations made on a consistent basis. Be sure to grab some coffee – these sessions can be very long with a lot of information and you’ll want the new manager to be as alert as possible. Make sure they take good notes!
• § Introductory Call with Client: At this point, the new manager should be ready to meet the client. I’d suggest letting the client know on the phone, if not in person, that you’ll no longer be managing the account, and that you would like to set up a call or meeting to introduce their new point of contact. Please, don’t call them up one day with the new manager on the phone and introduce them right there. Give them some time to absorb the information of your departure before you introduce anyone new. When it comes time for the call, make sure the new manager takes lead – you will want to assure the client that this person knows the account well and can competently speak about it.
• § Keyword Audit: I’ve recently acquired a couple of new accounts and I decided to do a keyword audit with each client, which I found incredibly helpful. I created an excel document with all keywords in the account and included a second tab for negative terms. Having spent ample time learning about the client and the account, I went through all of the keywords and highlighted any that may no longer be relevant. I also embarked upon some keyword research and created a third tab with suggested terms I thought could be added. A fresh pair of eyes can do wonders for an account and this is one of the benefits of a transition. It’s always good to do some spring cleaning right?
• § Client Meeting: Once the audit was complete, I sent it over to the client for approval and requested a meeting to go over the terms. By this point, the old manager was gone and I was on my own. The time I spent with the client really digging in to the account was incredibly helpful. It helped me better understand the product and target audience, and reassured the client that the account was on the right track. Plus, they were pleased I was willing to spend so much time with them. During this time, I also spoke with the client about goals of the account. This particular account had been with us for a while and the goals were a little outdated. We redefined our benchmarks and both left the meeting feeling good about what needed to be done to hit the new goals.
• § Ad Audit: Once the Keyword Audit was complete, I moved on to ads. I revamped several of the old ads and created new ones for the new terms added to account. As with the keywords, I wanted the client’s input so I sent them over approval before implementation. When the client reviewed them, she found some old ads she thought could incorporate a new tagline that had been developed for other marketing material. If we had not gone through this process, she may not have thought to share the tagline with me.

With any change comes a time for reflection on the past and ways to grow in the future a time of transition can actually help facilitate growth. Following these steps will ensure that not only the transition goes smoothly, but you may even develop new ideas for the account. And if nothing else, you’re showing the client that not only do you care about their account, but you are a proficient search marketer.

source: http://www.ppchero.com/two-birds-with-one-stone-transition-an-account-improve-it-at-the-same-time/

I was lucky enough to be in the beta of modified broad match and have been using this match type for a couple months now to great success. Google lifted the veil of secrecy today about the new match type and let me know that I can now blog about it.

Broad match increases reach. Phrase match increases relevancy. The new modified broad match gives you the flexibility of broad match with the control of phrase match.

Broad match is useful because: “20% of the queries Google receives each day are ones we haven’t seen in at least 90 days, if at all?” – source.

While the fact that so many queries are unique often led people to using broad match – the returns often aren’t there. This new match type gives you some control over how a broad matched word can be matched.

To use this match type, go to your account and add a + (plus) symbol in front of one or more words in your keyword phrase. Then, the word/s with the +sign must either be in the query or a close variant must be in the query. A close variant is a misspelling (flor instead of floor), plural (flowers instead of flower), or stemmed version (running instead of run).

The use of the new modified broad match will help expand your possible matches while still keeping those same matches under control. Broad match and negative keywords do work well  together, and this new match type will open up some new possibilities for broad and negative match combinations. Just remember that these new matches will still not convert higher than your exact match keywords.

If you wish to try this out, I’d suggest picking a few select ad groups where you are having problems gaining the exposure you desire, and then following these steps:

• Create a new ad group using those same keywords with the new plus modifiers
• If the old ad group has all broad match, then set a higher CPC for these new match types
• If the old ad group has all exact and phrase match, then set a lower CPC for these new match types
• Let the ad group run and collect some data
• Run the search query report examining these two ad groups and their variations
• Set appropriate bids based upon conversions

The reason to create a new ad group in this example is that you can only see search query data at the ad group level. While you can see the match type; you cannot see the keyword and match type combination that triggered a query. Over time, you might get rid of one of these ad groups and combine the keywords back into a single ad group. However, this is a new match type and there are bound to be some odd combinations that you will be shown for.

When trying out a brand new function with AdWords, it can be useful to look at the new features in isolation from other variables.

This post went up yesterday on Search Engine Land and is getting a pretty positive response. That is, everyone’s emailing me to voice their disagreement with my approach! Oh well, it makes for good discussion, and that’s what this topic really needs…..

In last month’s column I talked about buying brand keywords and some of the great (somewhat) new ad products available to advertisers. All that talk about buying brand keywords brought me back to a familiar topic about which, if you read my column with any frequency, you just might be getting a tiny bit tired of hearing me rant. In spite of that, I’m back for one more round of discussion about the relationship between paid and organic search traffic, this time with some real math to show for myself. Bear with me, this one’s worth it.

I mentioned in my previous post about paid and organic search traffic that the goal in any analysis is to determine if the paid ad is a source of lift, cannibalization, or both.  At the time I was looking at isolating the traffic from the organic listing and then quantifying the incremental effect of the paid search ad. Since then, thanks to Matthias Blume, I have seen the light, statistically speaking, and have thus found a much more elegant way to conduct this analysis. Let’s put on our statistical hats and go on a journey to the heart of the issue.

Let’s reset the situation: You rank #1 organically for your brand keyword search, and you’re trying to determine if and how much you are willing to pay for a paid ad on your brand keyword search. The goal then is to understand how the clickthrough rate (CTR) of the organic listing is affected by the presence of the paid ad. You’ll do this by looking at how the CTR of the organic listing changes with and without the presence of the paid ad. The CTR rates I am referring to need to be normalized for search volume. I’ll explain what that means below, but that was the tricky part that I didn’t get before, the elusive reality about which Matthias enlightened me.

In order to calculate this normalized CTR, you’ll first need to try to figure out what the search query volume is for the keyword you’re targeting. This isn’t always explicitly defined, but if you’re clever you can find some ways to approximate it with a good deal of accuracy. Some search engines provide approximate monthly search query volume for keywords, and I believe there are third party providers of approximate search query volume data as well. Ideally you will want to have search volume by day for whichever keyword you’re testing on a particular search engine. If you can’t get to this level of resolution that’s ok, go with weekly or monthly search volume. This will just mean that it will take longer to get your results.

I’m going to explain how we did our analysis, and you can make any variations you need based on your own constraints.  First, we chose a few brand keywords to track. At Yahoo!, we have many brand terms to choose from: yahoo, yahoo mail, yahoo finance, etc. At your company you may have a similar experience, or you may have only one brand keyword that really matters to your business.

Here’s how the analysis works: On Day 1 of our research period, we had the organic listing in #1 position, with no paid search ads (at all) on the page. We began to collect referral data from the organic listing. After a week we started buying paid search ads for our brand terms, and began tracking referrals from the paid ad as well. From then until Day 30 we bought paid search at different budget levels and turned it off for periods of time as well, just to get a variety of data points.

At the end of the research period we compiled our data and began to plot it out on a chart. The metrics that we calculated were fairly simple. On any given day, Organic CTR is [referrals from the organic listing divided by search query volume], and Paid Search CTR is [referrals from the paid search ad divided by search query volume]. We calculated these two metrics for each day 1-30, and plotted them on a scatter graph.  It looked like this:

Here is the way to read this graph: On the x (horizontal) axis is the Paid Search CTR. On the y (vertical) axis is the Organic CTR. Each of the data points represents a day where we gathered data, and each point is plotted where the two CTRs meet on the graph (I’ve stripped the values out of the chart to protect the innocent). The line on the graph is a linear regression, basically a trend line that represents a summary of the scattered data points. Here’s the key: If the slope of the line is positive (the line goes up and to the right) as it is here, there is positive synergy between the organic listing and the paid ad. This means that on days where we bought the paid ad, the CTR of the organic listing actually increased. If the line had a negative slope (went down and to the right), there would be negative synergy between the organic listing and the paid ad. I referred to this as cannibalism in my previous column on this topic, and it means that your paid ad is stealing traffic from your organic listing.

So in my case I ran around the building, loudly declaring victory. I mean, what could be better than buying paid search traffic knowing that you’re driving more clicks to your organic listings?  Believe me, I’m not saying that it will turn out this way in every case. Do your own analysis and come to your own conclusions, because naturally it’s going to work differently for everyone. I’m just here to share my story with you, and mine happens to have a very, very happy ending.

source: http://industrialstrengthsem.com/2010/06/29/paid-and-organic-search-now-with-more-math/