Analytics Data & PPC Optimization to Achieve Meaningful Results

Transcription

1 Analytics Data & PPC Optimization to Achieve Meaningful Results Using a Network of Tools & a Data- Driven Approach to Op;mize PPC Marke;ng WSI White Paper Prepared by: Neal Lappe & Chris Leone Digital Marke=ng Experts, WSI

2 Introduc;on A great website that few people see will not get the marke4ng results you desire, and with the explosion of online marke4ng ac4vity, capturing your place online has never been more important. As the internet becomes the dominant vehicle for marke4ng, an internet marke4ng plan is essen4al to compete in the years to come. Too many businesses are failing to fully capture the poten4al from online marke4ng, and this is due primarily to a lack of knowledge about the tools available to be successful and a fear about spending money without the ability to measure return on investment. A>er a meaningful decline in adver4sing spending during 2009 due to the recession, adver4sing spending is expected to increase consistently through the next few years. Addi4onally, while most marke4ng media will be flat or decline, marke4ng investment online is expected to grow by double- digits. Google, the dominant search engine with about 70% market share, generates most of its massive revenues from paid search adver4sing online. In 2008, they reported 97% of their revenues came from their online adver4sing business. To protect this business, Google has invested significantly in tools meant to make online adver4sing as effec4ve as possible for the marketplace. Google has made enhancements to their Adwords plakorm. Paid search marke4ng, pay- per- click, Sponsored Link marke4ng and PPC are all terms that describe the process of paid online adver4sing with Adwords as the plakorm to manage paid search marke4ng. (For the remainder of this whitepaper, we ll refer to this ac4vity as PPC.) Also, Google has made free to the marketplace its Google Analy4cs tool, which captures all kinds of data about how people are using your website. While there are many other tools we can thank Google for, the combina4on of Adwords- PPC and Analy4cs bring forth opportuni4es for businesses large and small to succeed online. A>er all, the more businesses are successful at online marke4ng, the more they will spend doing it. In this case, everyone wins the business and the search engines. Copyright 2010 by Research and Management. All rights reserved. 2 of 24

3 The real advantage of online marke4ng is that virtually everything can be measured, so you no longer need to rely on faith- based marke4ng to achieve your goals. This presents a remarkable opportunity for businesses and marke4ng professionals worldwide to embrace the tools and technologies that will be the future of our marketplace. This whitepaper is about how businesses can use the data available to them along with a network of tools to make online marke4ng decisions that produce success and a return on investment. A data- driven approach to online marke4ng and PPC op4miza4on is a three step process that involves configura4on of web analy4cs, relevant traffic building and campaign/website tes4ng. We ll now look at the first stage in this process and what it means to achieve full accountability. Configuring Analy;cs to Achieve Full Accountability 1. Configura;on 2. Traffic 3. Tes;ng GB AO Adword A vs B Action Making the right decisions about online marke4ng campaigns is based on having the right data. The risk of inconsistent, unreliable data can be expensive, and is not be_er than ignoring the data in the first place. In some instances, unreliable data will completely lead you in the wrong direc4on. Every traffic and lead genera4on campaign implemented online should strive for full accountability that is, having a system in place so every traffic or lead genera4on dollar spent online can be traced back to the site and its contribu4on to the site s goals. Achieving full accountability doesn t mean flipping a switch (figura4vely, it can, but not literally). It involves asking a lot of ques4ons and taking an honest look at how things currently exist. Your web analy4cs tool is, or should be considered, the cornerstone tool in your network of search marke4ng tools. Whether you use Omniture, Webtrends, Yahoo or Google for your site s web analy4cs (we will use Google Analy4cs throughout the course of this white paper), it will only give you out- of- the- box click- stream data. It won t automa4cally give you data that takes into account the unique objec4ves of your site and it certainly won t tell you what you have to do about the data, i.e. insight. Achieving full accountability of our marke4ng dollars using web analy4cs begins with understanding the business, how customers shop and buy and seeng the right macro and micro goals. We take these vital ingredients and build our custom metrics that capture exactly what we want to see and how we want to see it. From there, we can obtain ac4onable insight. Copyright 2010 by Research and Management. All rights reserved. 3 of 24

4 Set Goals and Drive Traffic to Your Website Macro Goals Not everyone sells something online, but that shouldn t stop you from expec4ng more from your website and internet marke4ng plans. Your ul4mate website goal could be: Downloading a whitepaper Signing up for an e- newsle_er Reques4ng a quote Submieng informa4on in return for something of value Viewing a product, service page or consuming some form of content (ar4cle, video, blog, etc.) Every website should have macro- goals things that help you generate sales or leads or prospects to which you can begin to market your products and services. Web 1.0 was all about having a website that provided informa4on about your business but those days are long gone and the landscape has become more compe44ve. Web 2.0 is all about interac4ng and marke4ng making your business stand out, using the internet to sell, market and interact with your customers and prospects. If you are not selling something online, what do you have of value to your prospects that they would give their informa4on over to you in exchange? Whatever it is, that becomes a goal for you. Once a macro- goal(s) for your website is set, you can begin to use data captured through a web analy4cs package to refine your marke4ng plans and measure your success. SeSng Micro Goals and Measuring Progress Macro- goals aren t typically accomplished without achieving some smaller goals that will contribute to hieng that macro- goal. Let s take for example a company that sells auto parts online and adver4ses extensively via PPC search marke4ng. Their macro- goal is an online sale, but there are many steps a customer must go through to get there. Here s what the typical customer might go through before buying a part, and some micro- goals that should be measured along the way: Copyright 2010 by Research and Management. All rights reserved. 4 of 24

5 Steps in the Shopping/Buying Process 1. Customer has to find you online, probably through a search engine 2. Customer makes a judgement call about whether the online seller looks credible 3. Customer searches for a part using an onsite product search func?on 4. Customer places product in shopping cart 5. Customer has to provide billing informa?on to complete the sale 6. Customer has to click the Buy bugon to make the online sale complete Your Micro Goals 1. How many customers are geing to the website and how much is it cos?ng 2. What is the Bounce Rate* on the home page and top landing pages 3. How many customers viewed a product page and how long did they stay on that page 4. What % of customers that viewed a product page put the product in the shopping cart 5. What % of customers that put a product into a shopping cart provided billing informa?on 6. What % of customers that provided billing informa?on ended up purchasing *Bounce rate is the % of website visitors that viewed one page in your website then decided to leave, or bounce from the site. A good web analy4cs package can easily track every one of these micro- goals, and if set up correctly can provide you a visual representa4on of how people on your website move through the buying process. The image to the le> illustrates how customers who came to the site from PPC marke4ng navigated through the online buying process. Not only does the data show you how many people moved through the process, it shows from where they entered each stage and where they le> each stage. This same principle can be applied to a whitepaper download or some other type of non- sell online ac4vity. You just need to figure out the likely steps it takes to complete the macro- goal conversion. Copyright 2010 by Research and Management. All rights reserved. 5 of 24

6 How Cavalier Music Established Full Accountability for Online Marke;ng: Fic44ous online musical instrument retailer Cavalier Music is interested in improving the effec4veness of their website so they can generate more online sales. The following is a look at the process used to posi4on Cavalier Music s analy4cs in a way that met their online goals and objec4ves. High- end keyboards, speaker cabinets and high- end drumsets are their highest margin products. Current marke4ng campaigns include: a low budget, internally managed PPC campaign, a weekly marke4ng campaign and affiliate partnerships with music sites and blogs. The CEO has expressed his desire to launch a very aggressive and thorough PPC campaign on Google and Bing once the site is collec4ng the proper data. This means analy4cs will need to be configured to collect all PPC traffic correctly. Any SEO traffic generated is not inten4onal as the site is poorly op4mized for search engines and link building efforts have been non- existent. Because the site is poorly op4mized for SEO, Google Analy4cs cannot naturally associate the brand or instrument type on each page. Cavalier Music has seven loca4ons throughout the Illinois area. Shipping charges are eliminated for Illinois residents willing to pick up their purchase in any one of their seven stores and the CEO is interested to see how this affects buying behavior. The CEO has also shared his frustra4on in homepage and flash design, admieng the current strategy has been to change the design s crea4ve for the sake of changing it. Li_le to no data has been used in driving any site design decisions. Our evalua;on of site s current analy;cs: Ini4al evalua4on of the website and configura4on of web analy4cs reveals the following issues and opportuni4es Ambiguity in the calls- to- ac4on on the Product Details pages Upon selec4ng an item, we re brought through an unnecessary page before reaching the checkout. On the homepage we no4ce several outbound links going to social networks and a separately branded Jam Deal of The Day coupon site with a unique URL. A review of the exis4ng Google Analy4cs configura4on shows that there s no easy way to separate and analyze the marke4ng and affiliate marke4ng campaign. While the client adver4ses on both Google and Bing, the Bing PPC visitors have not been tagged in a way that reports their clicks in Google Analy4cs. Finally, we no4ce a large percentage of direct traffic comes from the loca4on of their headquarters. Sure enough, most of this traffic are Cavalier Music employees visi4ng the site from their work computer. Given the product catalogue contains everything from $4 guitar picks to $21,000 mixing boards, there s an opportunity to track performance by product category in order to increase average order size and improve profit margins. Adding advanced Analy4cs tracking to the product pages will make this data available. Copyright 2010 by Research and Management. All rights reserved. 6 of 24

7 Elements Cri4cal To Cavalier Music Our Evalua4on of Cavalier s Situa4on Goals & Background Site Goals Product Categories Product Emphasis Geographic Importance Online marketing campaigns Analysis & Opportunity Site exploration Possible critical steps Micro goals Quiet Contributors Quiet Detractors Ac4on Plan: Action Plan: Action Plan: Sources to track What to track What to filter What to segment Ac;on Plan: Given the volume of traffic reaching the site daily, the web analy4cs will be configured to automa4cally separate Marke4ng, Affiliate Traffic, PPC Traffic and SEO (organic) into separate reports. This makes available a report about how each traffic source is performing. One report is configured to collect all traffic sources combined so comparisons can quickly be run side- by- side. For all five of these reports, internal office traffic will be filtered out of the report. Finally, a backup report is created to capture raw traffic without any filters. Copyright 2010 by Research and Management. All rights reserved. 7 of 24

8 Within the reports, segmenta4on filters are created to address the focus on high profit items, price point and customer loca4on. This enables separa4ng any combina4on of traffic source and product type. For example, we could report on how many marke4ng visitors placed a keyboard in their shopping cart that cost between $1000 and $1500. Also, the data will reveal ac4vity by those customers who made a purchase and those customers who did not make a purchase while on the site. To track the effec4veness of their homepage flash, tracking is added to each rota4ng flash image, which will measure how well each flash promo4on performs. Tracking code is also added to the social network icons (like Facebook) and the Deal of the Day link. Finally, Google Analy4cs is configured to track visitor behavior through the purchase funnel path, bringing clarity to where customers abandon the shopping process before comple4ng an online sale. The End Result A>er a thorough configura4on of the web analy4cs, a vast amount of data is being collected in a way that s reflec4ve of the site s unique structure and purpose. Everything done from this point forward to draw people to the site, whether by affiliate adver4sing, marke4ng, pay- per- click adver4sing or SEO, will be tracked and organized to immediately report what campaigns bring value and which do not. Copyright 2010 by Research and Management. All rights reserved. 8 of 24

9 Traffic Genera;on Using PPC 1. Configura;on 2. Traffic Genera;on 3. Tes;ng Adwords A vs B Online ad spending is expected to grow approximately 16% over the next few years. Compare this to expected GDP growth of 4-5% and you quickly see this is an area in which you should be involved, if not at least aware. While the best search engine marke4ng (SEM) campaigns involve significant investment in both search engine op4miza4on (SEO) and PPC, the level of control, near- immediate feedback and insight into ROI make PPC a highly pursued and highly rewarded strategy. However too many businesses fail with their PPC campaigns because they don t effec4vely align their ads, their products, the online experience and their data. A lot of customers click on the PPC ad, but few purchase or convert to a customer. While it s not realis4c to expect 100% of visitors to convert, there is a required amount of conversions necessary if the investment is to pay off. This now becomes a (poten4ally delicate) balance between the cost of sending a visitor to the site and the rate at which they convert. The following is an example of how two very different businesses can analyze the poten4al profits or loss from running a PPC campaign taking into account the balance of cost and conversion rate. PPC Opportunity Analysis Knowing What it Takes to Generate a Profit Shore Sunglasses is a popular retail sunglass chain looking to get into online adver4sing. To determine the possible scenarios, they used the following chart. On the x- axis (top horizontal) are poten4al cost per click values for their ads, anywhere from $0.50 per click to $0.95. On the y- axis (le> side ver4cal) are poten4al conversion rates (the rate at which someone buys sunglasses online). These range anywhere from 0.50% (one half of 1%) to 3%. In the bo_om yellow box, they enter their ad budget followed by the retail price of their product ($150) and the profit margin they obtain from selling the product ($75). In this case, they are willing to spend $1000 to adver4se $150 sunglasses that produce $75 in profits. Copyright 2010 by Research and Management. All rights reserved. 9 of 24

10 By entering these amounts, the spreadsheet iden4fies the conversion % needed to break even (purple) or turn a profit (green), and how much profit they can expect on the $1000 investment. As is expected, the higher rate for which the website converts, the more money can be made - likewise for a lower cost- per- click. However if the website fails to convert at a high enough rate, they ll have very li_le tolerance for the expense of each click before the campaign is losing money (red). As it so happens, their website converts at 2% (considered the average for ecommerce). As long as Shore Sunglasses maintains a cost- per- click below $1.50, their PPC campaign will turn a profit. By con4nuing to work at lowering their CPC while achieving an even higher conversion rate, their campaign stands to pay back even more. B2B businesses can run a similar exercise to determine poten4al profitability of a PPC campaign. Lyons Manufacturing is a contract manufacturing firm. Their industry is considered highly compe44ve in the online space, but projects are large enough in size to make PPC a poten4ally worthy endeavor. The sales process starts with either a phone call or online contact form submission. From there, a member of their sales team will follow up on the lead. A well configured website and analy4cs implementa4on allows for phone calls and contact form submissions to be a_ributed with the Google Adwords and Microso> adcenter (Bing) campaigns. Copyright 2010 by Research and Management. All rights reserved. 10 of 24

11 Because of the compe44ve nature, cost- per- clicks in Lyons industry can run upwards of $10. The lowest price for a project they ll accept is $10,000 at a 40% margin, so the rate they close leads can be much lower than the sunglass example yet s4ll turn a profit. Using this informa4on, Lyons Manufacturing now has a clear understanding of what it has to achieve from its sales process at various cost- per- click levels in order to maintain a profitable campaign. Using Adwords To Achieve High Relevance and Higher Conversion Rates There are many methods and strategies to achieving a successful PPC campaign, but there is one guiding principle that should be the cornerstone of any PPC ini4a4ve. This is the overlap of the customers desire and the offering of the business. In a word RELEVANCE. The chart used in the previous two examples brings to light the importance of achieving a good conversion rate when implemen4ng a PPC campaign and it is the overlap of the customer s desire and business offering that becomes a key contributor in achieving the required conversion rate. Let s take a look at what it takes to obtain a high level of relevance, ul4mately leading to a higher conversion rate, and what this means to a_ribu4ng value to specific areas of a campaign. The following is a demonstra4on of how different landing pages achieve different levels of relevance for a searcher. Copyright 2010 by Research and Management. All rights reserved. 11 of 24

12 In this example, the searcher is looking for a 2006 Volkswagen golf engine. He s offered several levels of detail including the make, the model, the year and the specific part. A>er having several ads presented to him, here are the three sites he saw along with their respec4ve ads: Copyright 2010 by Research and Management. All rights reserved. 12 of 24

13 In this example, the adver4ser has bid on the broad phrase Volkswagen. When the search was performed, Google acknowledged the adver4ser s desire to show for any search including Volkswagen and subsequently showed their ad. The problem is there is nothing on the page to address what the searcher was looking for in the first place - including the word Volkswagen! The massively over- targeted campaign has done a poor job of showing the searcher what they asked to see. Having no overlap between the customer s desire and the site s offering means zero relevance and zero chance for a conversion. $0 Customer Desire Business Offering Here s a look at what the next adver4ser had to show the searcher upon clicking through: Copyright 2010 by Research and Management. All rights reserved. 13 of 24

14 Suddenly we re star4ng to see more relevance, but it s not perfect. This site clearly offers Volkswagen parts, however it is reques4ng addi4onal informa4on at the bo_om of the page in order to display the selec4on. What s par4cularly frustra4ng for the search visitor is that this informa4on has already been disclosed (refer to the original Google search). To their credit, the massive body of text on the landing page is full of interes4ng informa4on regarding Volkswagen s history. Interes4ng, yes. But it may not be very relevant in someone s quest to find a used part. Also, implemen4ng Google Checkout on their site has also allowed for the blue Google decora4on underneath the ad. This helps both dis4nguish the ad as well as add credibility. Overall, this site s ad and offering achieves some level of overlap with the customer s desire, but could probably use some improvement. $$ Customer Desire Business Offering Finally, the third adver4ser: Copyright 2010 by Research and Management. All rights reserved. 14 of 24

15 In this case, the ad displays differently from the previous two because it is located in the first posi4on of the Google search result page while the previous two ads were located along the right panel of the page. For the searcher, the experience is a significant overlap between their original desire and the offering of the adver4ser because the landing page (the page that is linked from the PPC ad) is highly relevant. $$$$$ Customer Business Desire Offering The careful setup employed by the third adver4ser accomplishes many wonderful things in achieving relevance and full accountability in their PPC program. First and foremost, they have shown the searcher exactly what they asked to see. You wanted it, here it is. This is PPC harmony. Secondly, in order to obtain full accountability for adver4sing spend, we have to be able to associate effec4veness on a detailed level. The first adver4ser will have a near- impossible 4me determining which adver4sing dollars were put to good use. Their poor campaign structure will report a low ROI on the Volkswagen keyphrase, but it doesn t mean people are less likely to buy Volkswagens. Unfortunately, their data can t help but suggest this scenario. With the third adver4ser however, the dollars spent on the phrase 2006 Volkswagen golf engine can be compared directly to the sales of 2006 Volkswagen golf engines to determine if this par4cular part is worth adver4sing. This becomes a data- driven decision supported by the proper structure of their PPC campaign. If the third adver4ser has employed the first stage in our process of configuring their Google Analy4cs, they ll obtain even more insight. In this example, analy4cs could be configured to record the click- stream data based on the make, model, part and year. With this kind of advanced implementa4on in place, the adver4ser may discover Volkswagen parts made before 2006 and a>er 1999 are profitable, whereas parts from 2006 and later are only profitable for the New Beetle model. This kind of ac4onable data can be immediately implemented in the PPC program and in 4me across other traffic building channels. Tips For Improving Exis;ng PPC Accounts For exis4ng PPC campaigns, each keyword used to trigger an ad generally lands in one of four scenarios: 1. Ads Never Show, Ads Never Clicked 2. Ads O>en Show, Ads Never Clicked 3. Ads Get Clicked, Visitors Don t Convert 4. Ad Gets Clicked, Visitors Convert Copyright 2010 by Research and Management. All rights reserved. 15 of 24

16 Ads Never Show, Ads Never Clicked These keywords are the "bums" of the campaign. Not only do they not drive traffic to the site, but they rarely trigger an ad to display - referred to as an impression. Possible Causes: Not bidding compe44vely enough, receiving a low quality score due to lack of relevance, targe4ng phrases that are rarely, if ever, searched. Solu4on: Examine the quality score (QS) assigned to the keyword. As your QS gets closer to 1 (on a scale of 10), Google may decide to stop showing your ad all together. If your bids on keywords are not compe44ve enough to be shown, look for the suggested first page minimum bid provided by Adwords. This will tell you the minimum amount you have to bid in order for your ad to show on the first page of the search results. The keyword tool built into Adwords approximates search volume for keywords and is a quick way to determine if a keyword is poten4ally worth targe4ng. Google's search- based keyword tool goes a step further by sugges4ng keywords it considers to be highly relevant and specific to your website. It also provides insighkul informa4on including how o>en the phrase currently triggers an ad in PPC and how o>en it triggers your site lis4ng on the organic side of Google. Ads Oden Show, Ads Never Get Clicked Your keyword manages to get several impressions but no one ever clicks the ad. Possible Causes: Ads don t en4ce the searcher to click, poor alignment of the keyword that triggered your ad and the ad itself, targe4ng too broadly. Solu4on: Make sure the ad does a proper job of addressing what the searcher was looking to find. Try incorpora4ng or tes4ng different calls to ac4on that address the experience on the site - i.e. "Get A Free Online Quote In Minutes." Include the search phrase that triggered the ad in the ad copy to increase relevance and the chance of earning the click. Run a search query report to determine the exact search phrase that triggered your ad. For example, bidding on the phrase "speed boat" may trigger "toy speed boat" or "remote control speed boat." Once you've iden4fied these irrelevant varia4ons, add them to your campaign's nega4ve keyword list - in this case, you would include "toy" and "remote control." The next 4me someone searches "toy speed boat," the nega4ve keyword list (black list) will prevent your ad from being displayed. Be aware of quality score in this scenario as well. Many impressions with few clicks means a low click- through rate (CTR). The lower the CTR, the more your quality score will decline. Copyright 2010 by Research and Management. All rights reserved. 16 of 24

17 Ads Get Clicked, Visitors Don t Convert People click on your ads but hardly ever convert. Possible Causes: Not showing visitor what they are looking for, poor alignment between the ad and the landing page. Solu4on: Start by running a search query report to see the phrases triggering your ads. You could be receiving clicks for search varia4ons you don't mean to target. Using analy4cs, look at bounce rate to see if the landing page aligns well with the keyword and ad that brought the visitor in. Iden4fy the exit pages (the last page someone saw before leaving the site) to iden4fy trends and possible causes. For example, a product page that displays the price or a disclosure page. If price is a poten4al issue, consider placing price informa4on in the ad text so the visitor isn't surprised once they get to the site. Try comparing the onsite behavior of non- conver4ng versus conver4ng traffic to see where the behavior begins to differ. Ads Get Clicked, Visitors Convert The keywords trigger the ad and convert at a profitable rate Probable Cause: High relevance between keyword, ad and landing page. Friendly site experience. Ac4on: Experiment with different bid levels and analyze keyword posi4ons to determine the most profitable areas on the page to display the ad. Run A/B tests for new ad varia4ons based on ads that have historically performed well. Run A/B and mul4- variate tests on landing pages to improve conversions. Expand out with related keyword varia4ons. Allocate budget towards these campaigns and away from poorer performing campaigns. The right PPC strategy does not come easily and it o>en takes 4me and experimenta4on to get right. Beyond the Google Adwords plakorm, Google offers a suite of other free tools that, when networked together, create a synergis4c effect in earning the click and ul4mately the conversion. Building out a strategy that leverages these tools will help set your campaign apart from the compe44on. Implemen;ng Product Displays In Ads Google Merchant Center (MC), formally known as Google Base, provides one of the best visual examples of permission marke4ng and one of the most under- glorified search engine marke4ng strategies. MC provides the ability to upload and manage product informa4on and images that can then be displayed in both organic lis4ngs AND PPC lis4ngs. Not only that, but they can be (and o>en are) placed above the first organic search result. So while an SEO spends hours, resources, and money to gain the first organic lis4ng in Google, their site s lis4ng is pushed down by a half dozen other merchants. While frustra4ng for an SEO, Places the customer couldn t be happier because the quality of his search experience was just significantly enhanced: Adwords Merchant Center Copyright 2010 by Research and Management. All rights reserved. 17 of 24

18 Customer: I want to buy a cappuccino machine. Google: Here are some cappuccino machines. On a page otherwise filled with nothing but green, black and blue text, having an image set above the normal organic lis4ng or placed in support of your PPC lis4ng sets the ad apart and increases the likelihood of it being clicked. With a heavily targeted PPC campaign, exact product images can be displayed for every product adver4sed. For more generic campaigns, we can select what images show for what ads. Being part of the Google suite, the merchant center can be built and linked to an exis4ng Adwords campaign. By implemen4ng a targeted PPC campaign, this only further enhances the overlap between the customer s desire and ad/website s offering. Besides the overlap between searcher s desire and the offering of the adver4ser, this is a tremendous way to differen4ate your ads from your compe4tors. PPC adver4sers using Google s Merchant Center have reported click- through rate (CTR) increasing anywhere from 10% to 50% when an image was displayed with their ad. Copyright 2010 by Research and Management. All rights reserved. 18 of 24

19 Op;mizing For Local Searches Places Adwords Op4mizing local map lis4ngs is considered essen4al for businesses with local relevance. In other words, when the physical loca4on of your business is relevant to the customer experience. The physical addresses of Amazon.com or Expedia.com are not relevant to customers because the en4re purchase and interac4on takes place online. For a business that requires the customer to come to the physical address, for example a self storage company or local pizzeria, Merchant Center having an op4mized presence on local map lis4ngs will play a huge role in how people find your business. When someone performs a search for a local business on a smartphone (for example, an iphone), it uses GPS technology, Google Maps, and Google Places lis4ngs to display relevant businesses near your area. When searched in a Google Map mobile applica4on, the searcher would see results like this: The blue dot in the middle of the screen represents the searcher s loca4on and the red pins represent the self storage facili4es nearby. One of the businesses on the map has an op4mized Google Places lis4ng configured with their Google Adwords PPC campaign. As a result, not only does their business show up as a red pin, but their lis4ng is highlighted when the searcher performs their search. So while Google has selected 10 self storage facili4es based on the searcher s loca4on, it has given priority to the sponsored lis4ng. Clicking the blue arrow displays the following screens: The process for the poten4al customer is search, select, call - and it takes place in as li_le as ten seconds without the searcher ever visi4ng the business website. The coopera4ve synergy between Google s informa4on base, its ad plakorm, and the Apple iphone opera4ng system has created an efficient and effec4ve experience for the user. Copyright 2010 by Research and Management. All rights reserved. 19 of 24

20 Mobile Ad Op;miza;on While the above scenario applies to someone searching for a physical address on the go, it s also possible that casual web browsing is taking place on the user s mobile device - even without the intent to visit the physical address. In other words, browsing the internet as they would on their computer but doing so on their smartphone or ipad. Here s a screenshot for a site not designed or intended for mobile web traffic, but one that s4ll captures a significant amount. A>er reviewing the data, we can see that people are in fact viewing the site from mobile devices and their experience on the site falls below the normal site averages. This might not just mean your mobile traffic is poor. It could also mean your site is op4mized poorly for mobile traffic. To understand which is the case, the data needs to be explored. How they are finding the site and what content they are consuming are two very important ques4ons. From there, the hypothesizing and tes4ng can begin. If a>er reviewing the data you re confident you re geeng the right mobile traffic to your site and have made the proper adjustments to the site to make it more mobile friendly, you ll need to decide how to get more mobile traffic. When seeng up an Adwords account, Google gives us the op4on for which devices our ads can show (desktop, desktop and mobile, customized mobile seengs, etc.) Copyright 2010 by Research and Management. All rights reserved. 20 of 24

21 With the default being All available devices (this includes desktops and mobile devices), chances are your ads have already shown to mobile traffic. While it s only 6% of traffic for this par4cular ad group, CTR is significantly stronger and CPC (cost- per- click) significantly lower. These two results can be explained by decreased compe44on (fewer adver4sers opted- in to mobile adver4sing) and be_er visibility (fewer lis4ngs displayed = higher chance of receiving click). Developing a unique campaign that targets mobile users and touts the mobile accessibility of your site will likely award you clicks and poten4ally conversions. Adding Ongoing Value Through Tes;ng 1. Configura;on 2. Traffic 3. Tes;ng PPC A vs B Copyright 2010 by Research and Management. All rights reserved. 21 of 24

22 Now we ll look at the final tool in our network that supports the final step of our three stage process: Google s Website Op4mizer. At this point, we ve achieved a highly accountable, highly targeted campaign with an analy4cs setup that works in harmony with your site and business goals. Now it s 4me to take all the informa4on we ve uncovered and find ways to make the outcomes be_er. Just having the first two systems in place is not enough to add increasing value over 4me. The launch of the targeted PPC campaign will bring ini4al value - for example, improving the cost- per- acquisi4on (CPA). But it should not be treated as a system that maintains and fixes itself. Likewise, the high level implementa4on in our web analy4cs will do a fantas4c job of capturing the ac4vity of your site. Unfortunately, no analy4cs package is sophis4cated enough to analyze its own data in order to test and implement new changes/designs. Ongoing improvements require thorough tes4ng and experimenta4on by someone familiar with the site s data and goals. Tes;ng Webpage Varia;ons - An Example from Oceanic Airways Fic44ous airline company Oceanic Airways developed a landing page for booking flights to Japan. This makes booking a flight the macro- goal of the site. Like many other online sales processes, the booking process is a mul4ple step/mul4ple page process. A>er combing through the data, a poten4al bo_leneck in the online booking process was iden4fied. For Oceanic Air, this was geeng someone from the PPC landing page to begin the process of booking their flight. The data tells us only 2% of visitors who saw the landing page began the process of booking their flight. While it s temp4ng to quickly label this 2% as good or bad, we treat this micro- goal as nothing more than a benchmark to test and improve. While there was a wealth of informa4on available on the landing page, the link to the Book Your Trip page (i.e. the one ac4on we want the visitor to take), was camouflaged among all the other links on the page. The tes4ng hypothesis was simple: develop a new landing page with an increased emphasis on the desired ac4on and more people will begin the process of booking their flight. Here s the process to develop, test and op4mize this micro- goal in the conversion process. Copyright 2010 by Research and Management. All rights reserved. 22 of 24

23 We could easily just upload the new changes to the site and monitor the number of visits to the "Book Your Trip" page and see how the new page performs. However, with most businesses there are outside forces that affect business on a daily basis. Any changes we experience in flight bookings could be as much a factor of outside forces as it is a change in the page design. The experiment of running different page versions at different 4mes lends itself to too many outside influen4al forces, ul4mately tain4ng whatever results we see reported in Google Analy4cs. This is where we introduce Google s Website Op4mizer tool to test both pages fairly against each other at the same 4me. The concept is simple: select a page, iden4fy the goal of that page and upload different varia4ons to test against each other. A>er configuring the test and adding the proper code to the test pages, Google will display the different page varia4ons to a percentage of traffic (determined by us). It measures the success rate for each page, then a>er it has accumulated a large enough sample size, it declares a winner. In our Website Op4mizer experiment with Oceanic Air, here's what we saw: Both pages received nearly 800 visitors over the course of the test. Of all the visitors to the original page, less than 2% clicked the link to book a flight (consistent with what we saw originally). On the new landing page, visitors began booking a flight at a rate of 21%. We went from geeng 1 in 50 visitors to take the desired ac4on to 1 in 5 visitors. It's important to note we did not increase the booked flight conversion rate from 2% to 21%. We've only reduced the bo_leneck for a very important micro- goal of the macro- goal ac4on. Having said that, this is s4ll a VERY significant result and a shining improvement over what originally existed. More tes4ng needs to be done, but we have seized a very low hanging fruit. Everyone speculated the new design would perform be_er, but now we have the data to back it up. Copyright 2010 by Research and Management. All rights reserved. 23 of 24

24 Conclusion The Right Data Combined with Ongoing Tes;ng Makes PPC Marke;ng a Winning Strategy Pressure to generate faster returns on investment and ever- increasing compe44on put greater pressure on marke4ng campaigns to produce results. With the trends showing eye- balls going online, marke4ng dollars are being re- allocated to the internet. Companies in all sectors should embrace this movement and establish an internet marke4ng strategy. Having a good web analy4cs tool and configuring it to measure macro- and micro- goals is the star4ng point. PPC marke4ng can be a source for significant customer traffic to your website, but can also end up being an unbearable expense if not managed well. Constant tes4ng is the main strategy to ensure your PPC marke4ng dollars pay off and sales con4nue to improve. U4lizing many of the tools made available to us such as Adwords, Mobile Op4miza4on, Merchant Center and Website Op4mizer, online marke4ng can become a significant means to increased sales and profits. About the Author Neal Lappe WSI Internet Consultant Neal is located in Richmond, VA and has been with WSI for over 6 years. Having worked with hundreds of businesses in virtually every sector, his primary objec4ve is providing online marke4ng solu4ons that deliver measurable results for his clients. His areas of exper4se include integra4ng internet marke4ng with an overall business plan, small business development, web analy4cs, search engine marke4ng and web usability. Chris Leone - WSI Internet Marke;ng Manager Chris is also located in Richmond, VA and has been with WSI for more than 2 years. He is a cer4fied Google Adwords Professional and a cer4fied Google Analy4cs Consultant. His exper4se includes web analy4cs, search engine marke4ng and social media. If you have any ques4ons, please educa4on@wsicorporate.com. Copyright 2010 by Research and Management. All rights reserved. 24 of 24