Using Evidence-Based Search Marketing to Improve Results and Reduce Costs

Using Evidence-Based Search Marketing to Improve Results and Reduce Costs January 2011 Using Evidence-Based Search Marketing to Improve Results and Reduce Costs

Introduction The pace of research and innovation in search marketing is increasing at a dizzying pace. The search engines are constantly testing and tweaking the user interface (UI) and algorithms. New advertising channels and online destinations are gaining widespread acceptance all the time. And industry experts are publishing new research and commentary, often with minimal oversight or peer review. Search marketers have an increasingly difficult time keeping up. A new campaign management strategy that yielded great results last month now falls short. There is widespread buzz about a new social networking site with a novel paid media offering, and you must quickly determine if it makes sense to try it out. Experience and intuition can only go so far. With the pace of innovation only accelerating, search marketers must adopt a more systematic and efficient process of synthesizing the latest evidence and building best practices. Other industries have faced similar challenges and have developed some novel solutions with positive results. Over the last twenty-five years, the health care industry has undergone a pivotal structural transformation, known as evidence-based medicine (EBM), aimed at better integrating evidence into clinical practices. EBM operates on the principle that the decisions made by physicians should be based on the most reliable evidence available. Prior to EBM, there were no structural mechanisms in place to equip practitioners with well-summarized, relevant evidence at the point of decision-making. As the pace of new research picked up and treatment costs skyrocketed, it became increasingly apparent that the medical industry needed to help physicians ensure their decisions were based on the latest evidence. Countless studies have shown that hospitals and clinical staff that maintain an institutional commitment to EBM deliver higher-quality care, reduce unnecessary treatment costs, and consistently deliver better patient outcomes. The need to improve outcomes and reduce costs is a familiar rallying cry for any search marketer. As an industry, we are constantly searching for more efficient approaches to campaign management through technology and standardized best practices. The challenge we face, however, is that many search marketers lack the necessary mechanisms to apply this knowledge to campaign decision-making. In this paper, we outline a new model for search marketing based on the guiding principles of EBM. We believe that an institutional commitment to Evidence-Based Search Marketing (EBSM) holds the same potential to improve outcomes and reduce costs by making tested, well synthesized evidence easily available to search marketers at the point of decision-making, and by leveraging technology to provide research-tested decision support. Section I: Basic overview of Evidence-Based Medicine With evidence-based medicine, clinicians use the best available evidence to measurably improve the quality and efficiency of patient care. Defined as The conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best practice in making decisions about the care of individual patients, EBM operates on the principle that clinical decisions should be guided by reliable evidence, rather than anecdotal information or experience. It evolved out of an acute need to improve the efficiency of physicians decision-making abilities, in order to improve the quality of care and reduce costs. Using Evidence-Based Search Marketing to Improve Results and Reduce Costs 2

Prior to the emergence of EBM in early nineties, it was assumed that when equipped with the proper combination of education, current research and relevant experience, physicians should generally be expected to make the right decisions. Physicians would evaluate the patient s current condition and medical history, and use their own relevant experience and education to build a treatment plan. But as many hospitals and health systems soon discovered, this practice of medical reasoning was flawed for a number of reasons: It assumes that doctors were referencing all the available information, hypothetically hundred of articles, to make a decision, which is impractical and an inefficient use of time. It also assumes that if physicians were able to review this information, the human brain was capable of accurately processing it, along with all other possible variables, and then synthesizing the evidence to make an informed decision. Finally, it assumes that this literature was comprehensive. Yet at the time, there was no means of evaluating the quality of the evidence available, and while traditional textbooks and expert opinions are generally assumed to be credible, they are not always based on rigorously-defined evidence. Towards the end of the 1980s these inadequacies became increasingly apparent. New methods were emerging that leveraged statistical evidence to improve medical decisions, highlighting the deficiencies of anecdotal diagnostics. Pressure was also increasing to find a new means of reducing rapidly increasing medical costs. There needed to be a systematic assessment of medical knowledge and new means of making this information accessible to medical practitioners. EBM in practice The practice of EBM integrates an individual practitioner s experience with the best evidence available from systematic research. The goal is to generate, gather and summarize evidence for use in clinical settings to benefit the patient and improve cost efficiency. Individual Clinical Expertise Individual Patient's Values/ Preferences Best Available Clinical Evidence Improve quality of patient care This is accomplished in two stages: Systematically gather and review the latest evidence The practice of EBM requires a systematic review of current research to establish what evidence is valid and pertinent to the particular patient population. These reviews often include literature reviews, metaanalyses, cost/benefit studies and statistical summaries, which help develop a higher standard of evidence. Using Evidence-Based Search Marketing to Improve Results and Reduce Costs 3

Ensure the evidence is uniformly applied across the organization The second half of EBM requires translating evidence-based knowledge into concise research summaries that practitioners can easily access and apply in the care of their patients. With the help of systematic reviews, physicians can treat patients based on the best research available for the specific needs of that patient. Moreover, information technology such as electronic medical records and data-mining applications has further enabled the medical industry to standardize the decision-making process. Section II: Comparing Medicine to Search Marketing At first glance, the similarities between search marketing and medicine may not be apparent. Physicians must attend years of school, residency, clinical training, and continuing education to legally practice and maintain their credentials. Anyone with a credit card and Google account can manage a paid search campaign. But on closer inspection, there are striking similarities between the fields, particularly around the use of data and statistical endpoints in diagnosis and treatment: Data-driven diagnosis In a hospital setting, clinicians monitor the lab values and vital signs of patients on an ongoing basis. Systems are set up to alert clinicians when values fall out of range, indicating a potential problem to investigate. Search marketers track a variety of performance data on their campaigns, and many account management tools can be configured to trigger alerts, or take action automatically, when keywords or ad groups fall under pre-established thresholds. Multiple endpoints for analysis There is never a single lab value or campaign metric that verifies the health of the subject. Physicians must consider multiple lab values as well as a physical evaluation of the patient before making their diagnosis and recommending a course of treatment. Similarly, search marketers must evaluate multiple campaign metrics position, bid, CPC, CPA, CR, quality score along with the competitive landscape and myriad macro-economic factors when determining what to do next. Multiple treatment options The health of a patient or an SEM campaign depends on the treatment the physician prescribes or the actions the SEM manager takes to improve the campaigns. And in each case, there is rarely only one intervention for the specialist to consider. Each specialist must use data, research, and their own experience to determine which treatment option is most likely to yield the best results in this unique situation. Continuous innovation Healthcare specialists are constantly given new tools to improve outcomes for their patients. Government approval of new medications, treatment interventions, and dosage levels are a regular occurrence and clinicians must quickly determine how these innovations affect their treatment protocols. Search marketers face a similar challenge. Google alone launched a host of new features and products in 2010 e.g. Google Instant, Caffeine, Places and constantly rolls out new advertising and optimization tools in AdWords. Search marketers are expected to quickly assimilate these changes into their standard operating procedures, and determine when it makes sense to incorporate an emerging channel into the media mix. Using Evidence-Based Search Marketing to Improve Results and Reduce Costs 4

New Research Ongoing clinical trials and clinical effectiveness studies are an integral part of healthcare quality improvement. Many of these studies are supported by grants, and most are subject to a rigorous peer review process prior to publication in a relatively small number of journals. In search marketing, the majority of new research is privately-funded and is typically published in a disparate set of blogs and industry trade publications, most of which have minimal oversight of the data collection, research methodology, or tabulation of results. Integrated teams In addition to the physician, most clinical care settings include other roles (e.g. nurse, nurse practitioner, and pharmacist) that must coordinate their activities in the ongoing care of patients. Similarly, within a search marketing agency, various specialists (e.g. architecture specialist, linking and promotions specialist, content writers, and analysts) must communicate and collaborate in the ongoing management of their campaigns. Time management Go into any busy clinic or hospital, and you ll rarely see a physician spend more than 15 minutes with any one patient. Office-based physicians see patients according to an established schedule, but unanticipated changes in patient status can mean a constant re-shuffling of priorities, or a 2 AM call from the hospital. Whether they work on a single brand or have multiple brands under their purview, search marketers must balance their time between the campaigns just getting started, in a state of active monitoring, on life support, and in need of acute interventions. Section III: Evidence-Based Search Marketing (EBSM) Given these similarities, could the practice of evidence-based medicine serve as a model for quality improvement in search marketing? EBM sets out to improve the quality of care and reduce costs by systematizing the production and application of data-driven evidence. This vocabulary directly corresponds to the existing practices within search marketing, which rely on our ability to use research and analytics to inform best practices. What our industry lacks today is a method of systematically gathering and appraising the quality of evidence and an effective means of using evidence to inform campaign management. Like a physician in a hospital prior to EBM, search marketers are responsible for synthesizing all the available information, from statistical evidence to industry opinions, at the moment of decision-making for every decision for every campaign. For any given campaign, there are thousands of decisions to be made regarding keyword sets, bids, ad creative, and landing pages. All of which must be judged within the elaborate framework of algorithm modifications, interface changes and competition. It is obviously an unrealistic expectation. The human mind alone could not accurately compute this constellation of variables. Not only would it be an inefficient use of time, it would also prove incapable of keeping pace with the dynamic nature of online marketing. Thus, what we need is a model for evidence-based search marketing (EBSM) in which a group of specialists can systematically review external research, generate new evidence relevant to their unique campaigns and marketing objectives, and methodically incorporate this knowledge into ongoing campaign management. EBSM will better enable industry experts to make informed decisions specific to the individual needs of their clients or campaigns. Using Evidence-Based Search Marketing to Improve Results and Reduce Costs 5

Following the precedent of EBM, EBSM will be defined as: The conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best practice in making decisions about the management of individual campaigns. The practice of evidence-based search marketing means integrating individual specialist expertise with the best available external evidence from systematic research. The practice of EBSM requires the establishment of separate functions within a search marketing team or agency: Business Intelligence (BI) function specifically tasked with reviewing campaign performance, conducting original research studies, appraising emerging evidence, and developing research-based best practices. Search marketing team responsible for integrating this research into the management of individual campaigns. Technology platform to provide evidence-based decision support to the marketing teams and standardize routine, scalable functions based on research. Business Intelligence Division Search Marketing Teams Decision- Support Technology Business Intelligence The Business Intelligence group is charged with appraising the current state of industry best practices and conducting new research relevant to the needs of online marketers. In reviewing currently accepted practices, the objective is to measure the strength of external evidence and to determine its relevance to existing or planned campaigns. Ideally, the group would be solely responsible for the appraisal of new evidence, and entirely removed from the day-to-day management of search campaigns. In reviewing new research or industry developments, the BI group should consider the following questions: What is the methodology? Who is the source? How does this new information affect current best practices? How can we test these conclusions on our own campaigns? What is the significance to search marketers? Using Evidence-Based Search Marketing to Improve Results and Reduce Costs 6

Their second role would be to generate new evidence to investigate under-researched topics. They would be responsible for asking pertinent industry questions, conducting methodologically-sound research and generating actionable evidence, which would enable the organization to build its best practices based on verifiable data from its own campaigns. Search Marketing Teams Like a clinical care team in the hospital, search marketers are held accountable for the decisions they make and, ultimately, their impact on outcomes. All search marketers go through some form of training be it less-formal experiential training, or more regimented training and certification offered by the search engines or a search marketing firm. In either case, the marketer approaches any decision point armed with his/her own experience having faced similar questions. The key point of distinction in evidence-based search marketing is that the specialists maintain a commitment to assimilating the latest research into their best practices. In EBSM, a specialist never assumes that what worked six months ago will work equally well today. Conversely, he/she never assumes that the latest research finding or rollout of a new marketing channel will drive improved results. The practice of EBSM requires the specialist to consider both his/her experience as well as the latest research in the ongoing management of search campaigns. Decision-Support Technology The benefits of EBSM will never be realized unless there are mechanisms in place to integrate evidence into the specialists decision-making processes. This requires making well-synthesized information available to experts and developing new technologies to help automate decisions. Technology can play a critical role in bridging the gap between research and practice. It is important to recognize, however, that the practice of EBSM can never be fully automated. EBSM does not suggest that a computer applying research-based algorithms and decision trees could ever manage every aspect of a search marketing campaign. Technology can, however, play a critical role in pushing contextuallyrelevant data and research-based best practices to the specialist at the critical point of decision making. It is then incumbent upon the specialist to use his/her experience and judgment in applying this evidence to the idiosyncrasies of each campaign. Ultimately, the success of any EBSM effort depends on getting the right information, to the right person, at the right time. Broadly speaking, this type of technology-driven decision support can take two forms pull information and push information. Pull information Campaign decisions need to be made quickly and correctly. Thus, the challenge from an intelligence perspective is making the information easily findable and concise. In order to accomplish this, we need to translate reviewed evidence into best practices, which experts can easily access at the critical moment of decision making. This type of contextually relevant decision-support content is often referred to as pull information. A specialist has a particular question about how best to implement a certain action, and refers to a credible resource to help inform their decision. Examples of this form of decision support would be best practice summaries or checklists. These documents can be easily scanned and provide targeted guidance based on the specific question at hand. Using Evidence-Based Search Marketing to Improve Results and Reduce Costs 7

The Business Intelligence group would be responsible for building and maintaining this library of best practices, which would reside online to ensure everyone has access to the most current version. Push Information With multiple campaigns and multiple tactics at their disposal, no human can be expected to access pull information all the time. Rather than relying on the specialist to go out and seek evidence-based guidance, a technology platform with the right decision-support capabilities can automatically deliver the right information to him/her. This push information can take the form of an alert or reminder and is already a core feature in many bid optimization platforms. The challenge for developers of search marketing technology will be to extend the concept of push information to the entire paid search management process, as well as other forms of online marketing. The incorporation of technology into EBSM will enable us to further automate our decisions based on evidence, helping to save time and improve efficiency. Developing customized alerts will also enable managers to quickly identify challenges and optimization opportunities. Conclusion Search marketers are under increasing pressure to deliver better results at lower costs. The industry has responded with a diverse range of tools and tactics which hold great potential to improve the overall efficiency of campaign management, but which also come with great risk if not applied correctly. As an industry, search marketing is relatively immature, and much of the research and emerging standards gets published with minimal oversight and critical review. Search marketing specialists must find new ways to efficiently process this dynamic and ever-increasing set of best practices, and accurately apply them in order to improve the outcomes of their campaigns. Evidence-based search marketing is a new approach to quality improvement in which specialists are empowered with both actionable information and decision-support technology to make better decisions. Based on the principles of evidence-based medicine, its success depends on search marketing experts following a rigorous, objective process to conduct original research, objectively review secondary research and industry developments, and maintain current best practices. Search marketing specialists receive ongoing training in these research-based best practices, and are given decision-support tools to ensure they are systematically applied at the critical point of decision making. In many marketing departments and search marketing agencies, much of this work is being done already. Many agencies have Business Intelligence functions, conduct original research across their campaigns, update best practice documents, and build out reminder and alert functionality into their technology platforms. As an industry, however, we have a great opportunity to adopt a more systematic (evidencebased) approach to quality improvement and expand our commitment to ongoing primary research and publication. Given the similarities between search marketing and medicine and the success many hospitals and clinics have had in using evidence-based medicine to improve the quality of patient care, a new paradigm based on integrating individual specialist expertise with the best available external evidence from systematic research holds great potential to improve the quality and efficiency of search marketing campaigns. Using Evidence-Based Search Marketing to Improve Results and Reduce Costs 8