Ecommerce Blog

A Get Elastic reader emailed me a question about paid search advertising: How do you maintain a keyword list when the SKU count is large and the product turnover is high? Think of all the money a large advertiser wastes sending traffic to out-of-stock product pages!

To answer this question, I commissioned my friend George Michie from the Rimm-Kaufman Group (RKG), one of the most respected paid search agencies in the SEM world, working with many advertisers of this size. George very graciously gave such an in-depth answer, we decided to turn it into a blog post and share it with you all. Thank you, George!

Question: “How do you maintain a keyword list when the SKU count is large and the product turnover is high?”

The answer is: “Very carefully.”

We manage campaigns for a number of companies with over 100,000 SKUs and huge product turnover rates. These folks end up with programs with millions of unique keywords and it is incumbent upon the paid search manager to make sure that the keyword list:

1. Has coverage of new products;
2. Ties keywords to the optimal landing pages;
3. Has targeted ad copy; and
4. Is purged of keywords as the products they reference drop out of stock

This is no small feat and requires smart tools. We’ve developed our own tools and systems for helping RKG’s analysts do some of the heavy lifting using a clean product feed.

Core Keywords: category, subcategory, non-product specific head, torso and tail.

The first and most pressing order of business is to make sure coverage of the head, torso and the top of the tail is well done.* We advocate a careful, machine-aided but human-driven process that starts with landing pages and works backwards. Building out keywords, assigning landing pages and writing copy for these core terms is of paramount importance and this piece needs to be separate from, and to an extent protected from, the ongoing product-level keyword process that follows.

*Linda’s note: Head, torso and tail refer to the pieces of the bell curve. In the context of paid search, the “head” consists of the keywords that send the highest volume of PPC traffic to your site, individually. The “tail” is made up of less popular terms that might occur only a few times per year but collectively can add up to a big chunk of your keyword referrals. The “torso” is all the good stuff in between. For example, Nike might have the head term “nike shox,” the tail term “D width mens cross trainer gray suede upper” and the torso term “mens d width cross trainer.”

Product-Level Keywords: SKUs, product names with and without manufacturer names, etc.

Building out huge lists of permutations on product names, SKUs, manufacturer names, feature lists, etc. is trivially easy, but doing it well requires a more sophisticated tool set than most folks can easily access. The tools must:

• Control for requiring modifiers. Imagine you sell Halloween costumes. If you bid on keywords like Harry Potter, Mickey Mouse and Playboy Bunny without key modifiers like “costume,” “suit,” “outfit” etc. would be disastrous – your ads would show whenever these keywords are searched, regardless of the context, diluting your click through rate and attracting irrelevant clicks. The tool must provide the ability to automatically weed out dangerous phrases that are missing those modifiers.
• De-dupe against core keywords. Because we’ve put more time and oversight into building the core keyword list than a simple machine can match, we should give preference to those keyword-landing page-copy combinations than to phrases generated by a product feed. Keywords generated through this process that match existing keywords should be discarded.
• Make smart landing page choices. Most product specific search terms should land on product specific pages, however the process described above will create many keywords that aren’t product specific. Because similar products may have like feature sets, keyword development tools will create many duplicate phrases. Most of the tools on the market will de-dupe internally but will simply grab one of the product URLs at random for the landing page. This is a problem. It tells the user that you only have one product that responds to their search when in fact you have many. By not showing the user the full-range of choices you lose opportunity every time. Whether the search results page on the advertiser’s site or a category or sub-category page is better will depend, but a process needs to exist for a smart analyst to provide guidance. A machine will get this wrong every single time.
• Assign copy, and cluster appropriately. A dynamic process for clustering related phrases and gluing on appropriate ad copy is also important. More targeted ad copy yields better Quality Scores (which is largely influenced by click-through rate), and smart clustering provides important clues for a sophisticated bid management system.
• Identify other potentially high-traffic, ergo dangerous, keywords. The system should output potential new ads in a format that ranks the terms by likely traffic volume. This helps prevent overly broad keywords, studiously avoided in the core buildout, from creeping in through the back door.

Hygiene: Now the keywords are out there, how do we know when they should be dropped?

First, it’s important to note that in some categories, advertising on out-of-date models can actually be quite profitable, provided that the landing pages handle those “upgrades” well. If products have been replaced by newer models, you may benefit from advertising on both as long as the user ends up on a page with a good alternative product. Testing can reveal whether this works for your business.

Second, recognize that because the process for generating keywords generates both product specific and more general keywords the connection between products that drop out of inventory and the keywords generated from those products isn’t an exact match.

Finally: consider whether “Out of Stock” is generally a temporary condition or a more permanent reality. If the process pauses keywords that are out of stock, but two days later the products are back in stock, is there a way to identify those and flip them back “on”?

RKG uses a system to flag products that drop out of stock or out of the product feed. We also have built custom flags for certain clients where inventory becomes thin in ways that impact conversion rates, e.g.: “we still have men’s swimsuits but only for waist sizes less than 24″ and greater than 52″.” Much depends on the quality of data provided by the advertiser in the feed.

We couple this with a URL-checking system that flags landing pages tied to search keywords that contain page-load error messages or “out of stock” messages.

What to do with the output.

This is tricky business. It is tempting to automate the whole process from keyword creation to posted ads to paused or deleted ads as the products drop out of inventory, but experience has taught us the value of human review.

We recommend baking in some level of analyst oversight before any ads go live and before any ads are paused. While this does create a lag time between inventory shifts and keyword list changes, the cost of a single big mistake can greatly overshadow lost opportunities in the deepest regions of the “tail.”

What if we don’t have these kinds of tools?

Doing all of this work manually adds greatly to the cost of the keyword list maintenance. This can change the cost/benefit calculation quite a bit and may mean that this level of housekeeping can only be done every other month, or quarterly. Much depends on how important the tail is to your business.

High product turnover is a paid search management challenge, which, through well-regulated use of smart tools can be handled effectively.

You can read more of George’s blog posts on the Rimm-Kaufman Blog.

Original post by Linda Bustos

PPC bidding can be tricky. Placing bids on various PPC keywords is an art and a strategy. Use these three tips and a little math to make the most of your ad dollars.
The most daunting aspect of PPC is the first time you enter the PPC bidding arena. Fans are screaming, the pressure is on, […]

Original post by Matt

PPC bidding can be tricky. Placing bids on various PPC keywords is an art and a strategy. Use these three tips and a little math to make the most of your ad dollars.
The most daunting aspect of PPC is the first time you enter the PPC bidding arena. Fans are screaming, the pressure is on, […]

Original post by Matt

Like SEO, PPC keywords are dependent on your business. But there are major differences with PPC keywords, such as the number of variations and more specific targeting. Read more to learn how to better pick your PPC keywords.
Millions of PPC professionals spend hours upon hours burning their eyeballs out from staring at dozens of spreadsheets, […]

Original post by Matt

Like SEO, PPC keywords are dependent on your business. But there are major differences with PPC keywords, such as the number of variations and more specific targeting. Read more to learn how to better pick your PPC keywords.
Millions of PPC professionals spend hours upon hours burning their eyeballs out from staring at dozens of spreadsheets, […]

Original post by Matt

Split testing – it’s not just for emails and landing pages anymore.

This week, Google Adwords announced a new tool for its paid search advertisers: ACE (Adwords Campaign Experiments) (Beta) which allows you to split test your PPC campaigns.

Until now, decisions to raise bids, add / delete keywords, change keyword match type or create different campaign structures have been made on gut feel without hard data on their efficacy. Results had to be measured by comparing metrics like traffic, spend, average CPC and conversion before and after a change, which is never as reliable as running split tests. When you “test” in succession rather than concurrently, your data may be muddied by external factors like seasonality, competitor behavior and consumer confidence.

50/50 vs. shifting your risk

A neat feature in ACE is the ability to shift the risk of your experiment to a smaller slice of your traffic. For example, you may choose to send 80% of traffic to your existing campaign (Control) and 20% to your Experiment. If the Experiment is a bomb, there’s less impact on your total spend and conversion. Keep in mind, however, that such experiments take longer to complete because you require a certain level of traffic in the Experiment, and the data won’t be as reliable as a 1:1 relationship between Control and Experiment.

Statistical significance shortcuts

Another great feature for mathophobes like me is the clear markers that indicate statistical significance. A statistically significant result is unlikely to have happened by chance, so you can be confident that applying such results will improve your campaign performance. These markers make it easy to spot from a glance exactly what changes had impact.

One question I have for Google is whether testing impacts a campaign’s Quality Score. If it doesn’t, perhaps there’s a loophole for advertisers with lower Quality Scores – they can set up an identical “Experiment” campaign that’s scrubbed of the click through history accrued from the existing campaign.

If you’re interested in learning more, check out the video tutorial series or sign up for the public Beta (US only).

Original post by Linda Bustos

Not long ago I had the privilege of teaming up with George Michie of the Rimm-Kaufman Group for an interview on ecommerce issues. George has graciously reciprocated to offer his expertise in paid search. George is a well respected thought leader in search marketing, serving as co-founder and CEO of RKG, member of Google’s SEM Advisory Council, professor at Market Motive, columnist for Search Engine Land, frequent speaker at ecommerce and search conferences and has worked for top retailer Crutchfield Corporation. You can follow George’s blog here.

Linda: We’re seeing a lot of changes with Yahoo and Bing merging. Does that make things easier or more complicated for advertisers?

George: We think it will help search advertising, at least in the short term. The richer data set afforded by combining the Bing and Yahoo.com traffic will be a boon to those who know how to exploit the long tail, and having one less set of copy changes to make won’t hurt either.

Long term, is the industry better served having one larger competitor to Google or two smaller ones? That’s a tough question. To the extent that Google acts as simply a marketplace where advertisers compete against each other for placements, one could argue that a Google monopoly poses no real risk. On the other hand, given an absolute monopoly, who’s to say that Google will stick to the auction model? If negotiated placements yielded more revenue per impression and greater profits, they’d drop the auction in a second. I don’t think that’s likely to happen; I think the reason for Google’s success lies in the fact that the ads are cost effective when managed properly, and moving away from that model makes them just another portal.

Linda: It’s rare to talk about paid search strategy and escape the topic of the “long tail.” As you elude to, those who know how to work the long tail have an advantage. [Reader note: “Long tail” queries refer to searches that happen only a handful of times per year (maybe only once) can make up the lion’s share of clicks and sales.] What is the best way to capture the long tail? Is the broad match type with a thorough negative keyword list the answer, or should you try to predict the tail with keyword research and exact match terms?

George: I’ve written about this a good bit recently. The importance of the tail does vary a great deal from advertiser to advertiser so it’s not quite true that it matters tremendously for everyone. However, when it does matter, there’s no question about it: broad match by itself is not the best solution.

The right way to approach the tail is to build out the keyword list thoroughly and carefully, with attention to landing pages and copy to maximize both CTR and conversion rates. Then, with sophisticated bid management and flexible attributes applied smartly, the real power of targeting bids to the differentiated value of the traffic takes over.

We like using broad match as a catch-all with lower bids on the broad matched versions than the exact matched versions. The keyword list can never be perfectly comprehensive, and broad match is tremendously valuable for catching word orderings and typos that you’d never catch with exact or phrase match.

Linda: Keeping up with the changes in search engines and advertising program capabilities is a full time job in itself. It’s almost as if when you take a week’s holiday, you’ve surely missed a major announcement or change to the way things are done. The result is do-it-yourselfers may be relying on outdated books or blogs for guidance in managing their PPC campaigns, and even the professionals can be behind the times. In your experience, what’s the most outdated tactic that is still in use by too many advertisers?

George: Things do change all the time but in many senses the fundamentals haven’t changed, and what surprises me is the number of folks who still don’t seem to know the basics.

The fact that so many folks are still bidding by position just amazes me. In fact most of the platforms available for rent and used by many agencies are nothing more than position crawling systems. Even when turned to “efficiency targeting”, they find efficiency by hunting and pecking for the right position, rather than measuring the value of traffic, bidding what makes sense, and letting the position fall where it may. Position crawling guarantees inefficiency and lost opportunity, but even though careful studies have proved that the value of traffic is largely independent of position, people still use position crawlers.

Linda: Surely ignorance is not bliss! That reinforces the importance of having a search manager that really knows what they are doing. Often paid search is outsourced because the retailer does not have the in-house expertise to manage or even understand a campaign, which leaves the program without much oversight. How can you verify your campaign is being managed well? When do you know it’s time to fire your agency?

George: The devil is in the details. I outlined a process for a top-down evaluation of a paid search program. It’s imperative to periodically take the program apart to make sure it is being managed well. Too many folks assume that because they’re using a well-known, expensive agency that their program is therefore well-managed.

Certainly, you shouldn’t have to micro-manage your agency; if you do, what’s the point of outsourcing? But if periodic, detailed evaluations of the program reveal significant problems, the solution isn’t micro-management, it’s finding a competent agency.

Linda: I suppose when clients comes to you after working with another agency, there’s a certain degree of “reworking” you need to do. In your experience, what is the biggest (or most common) mistake that online retailers make in paid search?

George: The biggest mistake is also stunningly common, it’s failing to separate results of brand search and competitive search. Particularly for companies that do a great deal of offline marketing, brand search represents a fundamentally different subset of customers, those who are proverbially ‘walking through your front door.’ Crediting these sales to paid search efforts leads to tremendous overspending in competitive search.

Advertisers mistakenly believe that since the overall cost to sales ratio is reasonable, they’re spending money wisely. If we think instead about the law of diminishing returns and the question: what happened to the last $1,000 we spent and what would happen to the next $1,000? We’ll end up seeing that those answers are all found in the competitive non-brand search program, because that’s where all the incremental spending happens.

Linda: Speaking of keywords, it’s rare to talk about paid search strategy and escape the topic of the “long tail.” As you mentioned earlier, those who know how to work the long tail have an advantage. [Reader note: “Long tail” queries refer to searches that happen only a handful of times per year (maybe only once) can make up the lion’s share of clicks and sales.] What is the best way to capture the long tail? Is the broad match type with a thorough negative keyword list the answer, or should you try to predict the tail with keyword research and exact match terms?

George: I’ve written about this a good bit recently. The importance of the tail does vary a great deal from advertiser to advertiser so it’s not quite true that it matters tremendously for everyone. However, when it does matter, there’s no question about it: broad match by itself is not the best solution.

The right way to approach the tail is to build out the keyword list thoroughly and carefully, with attention to landing pages and copy to maximize both click through and conversion rates. Then, with sophisticated bid management and flexible attributes applied smartly, the real power of targeting bids to the differentiated value of the traffic takes over.

We like using broad match as a catch-all with lower bids on the broad matched versions than the exact matched versions. The keyword list can never be perfectly comprehensive, and broad match is tremendously valuable for catching word orderings and typos that you’d never catch with exact or phrase match.

Linda: Yes, sometimes the queries that trigger your ads can be very irrelevant (even humorous!) We would get searches like “granny cart” triggering our ecommerce software ads at Elastic Path, for example. When you add them up, there truly is a long tail of negative matches that can really dilute your click through rate.

Linda: If you’ve added sufficient negative matches and a keyword still suffers from low click through or abysmal conversion, Is it ever a good idea to delete the keyword? What are some strategies to turn a “dog” keyword into a “star”?

George: I once went so far as to say “there are no bad keywords, only bad bids.” That might have been a bit overstated, but my point was simply this: there are very few keywords – assuming they’re reasonably targeted — that draw in traffic of zero value. The value might be small, but it’s rarely zero. So, first and foremost is the notion that it isn’t a matter of finding keywords that “work” on the first page, and turning the others that “don’t work” off. Bid the appropriate amount and take whatever traffic you get.

Now, it is possible to improve the value of the traffic on a given keyword by identifying negative associations to knock out the wrong traffic, and by making sure the copy qualifies traffic as much as it can. If you sell “desk chairs”, but yours start at $350, where Staples has “desk chairs” for $35, you may find “$350 + for quality office chairs” helps steer the bargain hunters elsewhere.

To a large degree, paid search is dominated by mass marketers. Keywords that speak more to mass market intent can be tough for niche marketers who don’t have selections that appeal to the mass market.

Linda: Ad copy, like any copy, can benefit from split testing. What have been some of your most effective PPC tests? Are there any “rules” to live by?

George: There are very few rules that apply to every advertiser, so maybe one universal rule is to test assumptions! In truth, what may be a universal rule is this: never assume that the traffic on Google.com will perform the same as traffic on Google’s syndication network – even more true for Yahoo and its syndicates. Separate campaigns and measured bid differentials for the engine and its partners almost always delivers positive results.

We have some very exciting results from Yahoo’s new syndication bidding settings that should yield more revenue for our clients, and for Yahoo.

Linda: Sounds juicy! For my final question (you cannot interview a guru without asking something to this effect): where do you see the future of paid search going?

George: The two biggest changes on the horizon are likely to involve the ad formats and how paid search integrates with other marketing efforts.

Google is testing and testing to find formats that generate more revenue per impression, and they may find something. I don’t think product images are going to be it, though. Someone searching for “Pet Supplies” isn’t likely to respond to any particular product image. That said, giving marketers and agencies flexibility to design appropriate display ads for different levels of search depth might work. Providing a plus-box like expansion to the next level of depth, rather than all the way to the bottom with products, might be the best solution.

The ability to parse credit between multiple ads within a search program and across multiple marketing programs will become imperative. We’re launching an attribution management solution for our clients by the middle of March, and I’m sure other agencies will do the same. The better we understand what advertising dollars truly drive sales, the more efficiently we can allocate resources.

It keeps getting more complicated, but that keeps it interesting for us geeks.

Linda: It sure does! George, thanks again for sharing your brain. And now, we open up the floor to questions…

Original post by Linda Bustos

This post was originally published in August 2008 and is part of our Get Elastic rerun series.

Here’s a tip for retailers who offer free shipping on one or more products during the holidays. (My apologies to those who don’t offer free shipping, but bookmark this anyway - you may offer it down the road!)

Free shipping offers consistently top surveys of what customers want from online stores. And people do search for “free shipping,” and most often in November / December - as you would expect.

Now I’m not saying you have a hope in the North Pole of ranking for the term “free shipping” alone (though Amazon, Zappos, Shoes.com and Shoebuy have succeeded). The point is people really care about free shipping, and even search for it in search engines. And if you offer it, you should flaunt it when customers do searches for the products you carry — in your title tags and meta descriptions.

Even if you’re not ranked number one in the search results, if your offer is more attractive than the highest ranking link, you can win the click.

And if you offer other guarantees or customer-friendly policies, throw them in too. Yay, Zappos!

We can also assume many customers will append their product searches with “free shipping”:

PS this goes for PPC ads too, “free shipping” in the ad copy is a great offer that would likely increase click through rates. Just triple check that your landing page repeats the offer and the promotion applies to the product and the geographic area the ad is being shown. Don’t bait-and-switch. Same goes for your title tags for your organic listings. And only add the offer to the pages the offer applies to.

PPS If you want exposure on the sites that do rank tops for the term “free shipping,” you contact them to submit your offers or start an affiliate relationship. The top 3 are FreeShipping.org, FreeShipping.com and Shopping-Bargains.com.

You may also like these similar posts:

• Yes Virginia There Is a Santa Claus & He Searches for Free Shipping
• Ecommerce SEO: How To Plug Free Shipping Traffic Leaks
• Free Shipping: Got It? 10 Ways to Flaunt It
• Zappos Secret SEO Sauce For Branded Pages
• Ecommerce SEO Hack: Free Tool to Hone Your SEO Strategy

Original post by Linda Bustos

Wanna do some extremely cheap (free) and fast market research? As lovely as Google Trends, Google Insights and Google’s Keyword Tool are - they are not as valuable as Amazon for commercial keyword research. They can’t tell you which products are most wished for and most gifted.

Though it’s hidden amongst a jungle of other links, products and calls to action - Amazon has a Bestsellers department. On the Amazon.com home page, scroll down to Features & Services / Amazon Exclusives / Amazon Bestsellers (or just click our link).

You’ll find every category that Amazon offers (which is pretty much everything) and even sub-categories.

And you’ll notice you can select the Most Gifted and Most Wished For items, based on Amazon’s tsunami of customer tracking and purchase data.

For example, if you’re in the beauty category, you can see the top 3 wished for fragrances are Vera Wang Princess, Dolce & Gabbana Light Blue and Marc Jacobs Daisy.

Comparing to Sephora’s best seller list, this is pretty good data.

So What?

When you understand what customers’ most desired and most gifted items are, you know where to focus your SEO efforts at the product page level as we approach the holiday season. And by SEO efforts, I mean link building.

If I were Sephora, I would head over to the search engine and scope out the ranking situation (making sure I’m signed out of my Gmail account so my rankings aren’t skewed by my frequent visits to the Sephora site). Now it doesn’t really matter what position you are in the results - results may vary based on a searcher’s location, browsing history (personalized search) and exact keyword term (rankings may differ for “vera wang princess” vs “princess vera wang”). And there’s always room for improvement when it comes to link building.

But you want to get an idea of which pages you are competing against. Is it Amazon? The manufacturer’s site? A popular blog review or shopping engine? Also, you want to know if you have a hope in the North Pole to actually rank for the product. If you’re not on page one or two, you may want to think realistically about your chances. Or, aim for a less competitive search like “buy vera wang princess” or “princess by vera wang.”

Okay, keeping with our hypothetical Sephora case:

Sephora is doing really well, and it’s tough to outrank the manufacturer site but we’ve seen it happen. Also, assuming Sephora’s competition reads Get Elastic and is embarking on link building campaignage as we speak, Sephora must protect its position. The key will be to build links (and start soon), and here are some ideas to accomplish this.

Leverage the Blog

Sephora has, in my opinion, one of the better retailer blogs out there. It actually has several posts linking to its Marc Jacobs Daisy page. But linking from a new blog post that includes “Marc Jacobs Daisy” in the title tag and URL will give extra topical relevance to the link. I’d go ahead and write a post on how it’s one of the top sellers, what customers have to say about it or which celebrities wear it.

Blogger Outreach

Why not make a list of influential beauty bloggers and send them a free Vera Wang Princess bottle or sample to review? As long as the review is appreciated but not required, I don’t see how this would violate the “don’t buy links” rule. Of course, I’d love to hear your opinions in the comments.

It works for quirky lounge chair maker Sumo. Top Internet marketing and advertising blogger B.L. Ochman calls Sumo’s blogger outreach smart marketing:

Sumo has used blogger outreach to get their furniture reviewed, and it’s smart marketing. Sending chairs to bloggers is cheap; effective because you feel like you need to review something that costs more than $100; and, unlike a book, way too big to ignore once it gets to your house. They didn’t send some stupid press release, or cutesy pitch. They just sent an email asking if I’d like to try the chair and review it, with a link to the site.

Sumo ranks quite nicely for terms like “lounge chair” and “bean bag chair,” thank you very much.

Search for Conversations

Who’s been blogging about Vera Wang Princess? Two tools I like to use to find out are blog search engine Technorati and reputation monitoring tool Trackur. These both have advantages over Google Blogs search.

Technorati shows you an authority score (higher is better), so you don’t waste time checking out low-quality blogs:

And Trackur lets you bookmark items with “Add to Favorites.”

You may discover some interesting things, like this blog that actually did link to Sephora:

But as you can see in the status bar, the blogger buggered up the link with a cut-and-paste so it reads http://http//www.sephora.com/browse/product.jhtml?id=P212915&shouldPaginate=true&categoryId=5625 which sends people and search engines to a dead page.

Sephora should send this blogger a heads up, and some form of thank you for linking (coupon or free gift). And to build a relationship, ask if she’d like to be an official reviewer for Sephora products on her own blog.

Help a Reporter Out

Get on Peter Shankman’s HARO (Help A Reporter Out), a thrice-daily mailing list of press opportunities. I’ve seen requests for sources from reporters from major news papers, magazines and even network TV morning shows. Several calls for products for gift ideas have come through. Getting on the list to receive the notices is easy, sign up here. You could get a link or great word-of-print marketing.

Don’t Forget Value Propositions

Sephora not only ships for free over $50, but also has free return shipping.

This should be in the title tag / meta description. Especially for searches like this:

This will also improve click through for searches without “free shipping” as we discussed yesterday.

So try out Amazon Bestsellers for the category/ies you sell - and remember, you can apply this insight to email marketing campaigns and merchandising strategies too. If you have additional link building tricks, you may want to keep them close to your chest. If you’re brave and already in the holiday spirit, you may want to share them in the comments here *wink.*

You may also like these similar posts:

• Amazon Bestsellers for Keyword Research
• Ecommerce SEO: How To Preserve Your Deep Link Juice
• Ecommerce SEO Hack: Free Tool to Hone Your SEO Strategy
• SEO Tips for Special Holidays
• Bloggers Digest 10/17/08

Original post by Linda Bustos

Google Alerts ping you every time new occurrences of the keywords you track are found by Google’s search robots. This is great for reputation management (tapping into what’s being said about you, your brand or your competitors online) but it’s also a handy tool for keyword research.

For example, I’m subscribed to Google Alerts for the Vancouver 2010 mascots Quatchi, Sumi, Miga and Muk Muk. We’re buying these terms in Google Adwords and using the broad match type so it’s important to do exhaustive negative keyword research. Even though these are fairly specific terms, and we’d like to think all searches including these keywords are looking for merchandise — truth is there are a lot of other reasons someone might include “sumi” or “miga” in a search engine.

Over time I’ve discovered negative matches that my keyword research tools missed:

• Andrew Miga (journalist)
• Motherson Sumi Systems Ltd
• White Snow Sumi Brushes
• Sumi Ink Painting
• MUK: Muk (EP)
• MIGA-World Bank
• Western Sumi Student’s Union
• Sumi Salad

Negative matches: -andrew -motherson -systems -white -snow -brush -ink -painting -world bank -western -students -union -salad

The tough one is Muk, the self-titled album by the artist MUK. Negative matching “muk” to “muk” won’t work unless I phrase match the keyword “Muk muk” or -ep -album.

It only takes a couple minutes a week to stay on top of this small list. Certainly you wouldn’t want to be alerted every time someone mentions “iPhone” or “skinny jeans” - but for unique terms this works well.

You may also like these similar posts:

• PPC Tip: When to Use Negative Exact and Negative Phrase Match
• PPC Myth Week Pt 3: Kill Keywords That Dont Convert
• How To Apply Google Search-Based Keyword Research
• Negative Keyword Research Tools & Tips
• PPC Myth Week Pt 2: Bid Higher to Appear Higher

Original post by Linda Bustos

This is Part 3 of our PPC Myth series. Please check out Organic Search Traffic is More Qualified Than Paid and Bid Higher to Appear Higher if you missed them.

There’s a lot of PPC experts out there who will tell you to look at your PPC keyword reports and get rid of keywords that don’t convert. Sounds logical, right? Why spend money on losers when you can spend more on winners? Especially when you’re under pressure to show strong ROI (or ROAS - return on ad spend) or are working with a tighter budget in these tough economic times.

But nixing “non-performing” keywords is not always a good idea.

Attribution

Most analytics reports (including your Adwords report) credit the last keyword clicked before conversion. For example, your customer searched for “kids bedroom furniture” on Monday and found a Cars movie race car bed on your site. The customer searched Google for “Cars movie racecar bed” on Tuesday, clicked your paid or organic search listing and completed the purchase on your site. “Cars movie racecar bed” is credited for the $400 while “kids bedroom furniture” registers as a non-converting click. Because the credited keyword is “long tail” - perhaps that click only cost $0.50 while the more competitive “kids bedroom furniture” costs $2.50 - certainly one appears more “profitable” than the other.

Multiple keyword searches and site visits are not uncommon. According to a 2005 comScore study, people perform an average of 13 searches before converting — leaving 12 keywords out in the cold in conversion reports. (Though these keyword searches may lead a customer to other sites, not just your own). Craig from ClickEquations shares some actual data on visitor behavior on his blog.

There is much debate whether philosophically the first or last click should be credited - or credit be divided across keywords. And there are tools like Omniture SiteCatalyst that allow you to use “linear” allocation (again, Craig shares an example).

But this post does not attempt to solve the attribution/allocation dilemma. Because allocation/attribution is not the only thing messing up your keyword reports! Other reasons keywords may not receive the credit they are due:

• Orders placed by telephone. There are ways to track telephone orders, but it is not default in any analytics package.

• Cookie deletion. The customer clears cookies, uses another machine or browser or returns to your site after the original cookie expired. Any of these would fail to correctly credit a keyword. (Some estimates suggest 30% of web users regularly clear cookies)

• The broad match type. For example, the “kids bedroom furniture” keyword may be matched to a search for “kids bunk beds” which you don’t sell. A high volume of searches for “kids bunk beds” and other searches that cause your ad to appear will boost a keyword’s impressions and will either dilute your click through rate (if your ad is not specific to the search term) or your conversion rate (your landing page doesn’t match the search term). If you use broad match - always use the broad match keyword exposure filter.

Before you hit delete…

1. Add this Google Analytics filter so you can see what exact searches trigger ads from your broad match and phrase match keywords. Anything irrelevant gets added as a negative keyword at the Campaign level (to prevent ads from other Ad Groups from appearing).

The benefit will be a better click-through rate (less clicks but far less ad impressions). You’ll have a lower absolute spend because you’re not paying for irrelevant keyword matches anymore, and your higher click-through rate means a lower cost-per-click. Hurrah!

2. Play customer on your own landing pages. Think about search intent - certain keywords are more “informational” than “commercial.” Would someone using the keyword in a search engine hope to find information or a product page? How can you improve your landing page to connect with that visitor? Does this keyword need its own Ad Group with its own landing page?

3. Chop at the Ad Group level. If you need to save money on PPC, figure out which product/categories are low margin, under-performing or are too expensive per click to keep bidding on and pause or delete the entire Ad Group, rather than killing individual keywords.

Again, deleting individual keywords within Ad Groups may not improve your results, because these keywords may not be getting credit for all the “assists” they’ve made to conversion. And your ads may still appear thanks to the broadness of broad match if the same search just gets matched to a similar keyword. If you do remove a keyword, be sure to add it as a negative keyword at the Campaign level.

You may also like these similar posts:

• PPC Tip: When to Use Negative Exact and Negative Phrase Match
• PPC Myth Week Pt 2: Bid Higher to Appear Higher
• Should You Remove Keywords With Low Click Through Rates?
• PPC Myth Week Pt 1: Organic Search Traffic is More Qualified Than Paid
• Dont Miss These Holiday Keywords Next Christmas

Original post by Linda Bustos

Because top positions typically receive better click through rates than lower, many people use average position as a KPI (key performance indicator) to measure campaign health, and seek to optimize it — either by trying to improve Quality Score* or raising the maximum CPC (cost per click) for the keyword. For some, raising the bid is easier than trying to figure out how to appease the Google Quality Score god.

*Quality Score is Google’s way of scoring the quality (clever name, hey?) of your ad and landing page relevance and attractiveness to searchers. If you’re interested in learning more about Quality Score, Craig Danuloff of Click Equations is writing a book about it and is dripping out chapters on his blog.

Click through rate (CTR%) is the most important part of Quality Score, according to Google’s own explanation of how it ranks ads (Youtube video). CTR% is followed by ad/landing page relevance and landing page quality. The video goes into detail on how ads with high Quality Scores are rewarded by higher positions and lower average CPCs.

It used to be common practice to crank up your bids when you first launched keywords so they would rank higher and get better click through, and turn them down once you established a good click through history. Today, Google calculates your click through rate at each position it tests your ad in, comparing it against other data it has for advertisers in those positions rather than an average across every position. So there’s no need to bid high - your focus should be improving that click through rate!

Tips for Improving PPC Click Through Rates

1. Find negative keywords. Add as many negative keywords as possible to reduce impressions for irrelevant or near-relevant keyword searches. Some negative keywords will be applied at the Campaign level, others at the Ad Group level. You can also find negative keywords by adding a broad match exposure filter.

2. Group keywords more tightly. Studies have shown click through is highest when the ad headline includes the exact keyword the searcher typed in (limited to 35 characters) — especially for brand / color / model number searches. So rather than having one big Digital Camera Ad Group with all your brands and models, you would have a Digital Camera group with only unbranded keywords, and Ad Groups for each brand, and model-specific Ad Groups for each brand.

Some keywords might be so popular / high converting they may justify their own Ad Group so you can write an even more specific ad, like “Ashton Kutcher Coolpix.”

3. Write better ad copy. Some tips include:

• Use keywords in your ad’s headline that match your keyword list (you might use Dynamic Keyword Insertion to accomplish this
• Write persuasive ad text including value propositions about your business or enticing calls to action
• Use numbers like prices and percentages
• Capitalize The First Letter Of Each Word. Don’t Laugh, It’s Proven.
• A/B test your ads

In this economy, you can’t afford sloppy PPC campaign management. Make sure you do everything you can to improve Quality Score before you ramp up bids on keywords. After optimizing for CTR%, look at improving landing page relevance, not just to please Google, but to convert more clicks to sales.

You may also like these similar posts:

• PPC Tip: When to Use Negative Exact and Negative Phrase Match
• Should You Remove Keywords With Low Click Through Rates?
• Negative Keyword Research Tools & Tips
• Laptop Bags, PayPerClick and Landing Page Relevance
• PPC Advertising: Are You Selling Yourself In Your Ads?

Original post by Linda Bustos

Welcome to PPC Myth week! Today is the first installment of a 3 part series challenging common misconceptions about search marketing and analytics.

Myth #1: Organic search more qualified traffic than paid

I was surprised to see in print one of the most respected search marketing gurus state “Organic searchers who click on your pages are highly qualified visitors to your site. They are much more likely to make a purchase than some other kinds of visitors you receive.”

In fairness, the guru went on to explain that banner ad clickers are less qualified than searchers actively looking for a product in a search engine. Nevertheless — to claim that organic searchers are highly qualified is false. It also implies that organic search converts better than paid search, comparison engines, email traffic, affiliate leads and so on. This just ain’t so.

1. SOME organic traffic is better “qualified” than others.

Remember, in this context “qualified” means more likely to purchase. If you look through your organic search referring keywords, you’ll find a number of non-transactional terms, and transactional terms that are not necessarily close to purchase or even relevant to what you offer.

Examples from the 2010 Olympic Store:

• Non-transactional: “vancouver 2010 schedules”
• Transactional, not relevant to our offer: “how do i get tickets for the 2010 winter olympics”
• Transactional, too general: “business card holders” (may like our offering but is likely in research/comparison mode)
• Qualified: “vancouver 2010 sterling silver heart charm bracelet”

Also, organic conversion can vary by search engine. It’s possible for your market, traffic from Yahoo, AOL or MSN sends you more shoppers and Google sends you more information hunters.

2. SEO vs. PPC - it depends on the keywords.

PPC traffic “quality” also depends on which keywords get clicked - especially if you’re using the broad match type. In fact, broad match can trigger some really un-qualified traffic. If you were only bidding on a certain number of close-to-purchase keywords with the exact match type - you *could* argue PPC is more qualified than SEO if your conversion rates also confirm so.

3. Other channels - it depends…

Comparison engine traffic is *typically* closer to purchase since visitors have already evaluated your offer against competitors and the product against other alternatives, comparison engine traffic should convert better in theory. Your results may vary.

Similarly, email and affiliate referrals have been exposed to your brand and offer before clicking through - you’d expect better results for these channels than search. Again, your results may vary.

Type in traffic (no search engine or other site referred the visit) indicates brand awareness, and perhaps preference. Repeat customers, brick-and-mortar customers or people responding to offline advertising may convert higher than SEO/PPC traffic that’s also clicking on several other results to compare. But direct traffic can also indicate you should filter out your own staff’s IP address or you have missed Javascript tags on some pages (causing a null reference).

So what’s the point of this rant? I don’t want anyone making decisions to invest more into SEO than other channels because they heard that organic search is the most qualified traffic. I don’t want you to set the wrong expectations on organic search, and set goals like “increase organic visits” or “increase conversion for organic visitors.”

You may also like these similar posts:

• Top Online Retailers Not Showing Up in Google!
• PPC Tip: When to Use Negative Exact and Negative Phrase Match
• Short URLs Attract 250% Higher Click-Through in Organic Search
• Negative Keyword Research Tools & Tips
• How To Apply Google Search-Based Keyword Research

Original post by Linda Bustos

If you use the broad match type in PPC advertising, negative matched keywords are essential to keeping your campaigns under control. But are you using negative matches to their full potential?

If you’re new to PPC, the broad match type refers to bidding on a keyword like new york pet store and allowing the PPC system (like Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing or MSN AdCenter) to match your ads to search queries that include this keyword, regardess of word order.

The way Google’s broad match type works can be broader-than-broad. It employs “Expanded Broad Match” which means your “new york pet store” ad could show for a search on “animal shelters in New York.” There is no opt out for Expanded Broad Match (not to be confused with the Automatic Match beta which is a little different) — it’s the default way Google does its broad match. The only way to prevent your ads for showing up for any search including animal shelters would be to add it as a negative keyword - either at the Campaign or Ad Group level.

For a pet store, especially an online pet store, adding animal shelter as a negative match should prevent animal shelters and shelter animal from appearing.

-animal shelter

But what about this situation: You sell books, music, DVDs, video games and software including Microsoft Office software. A hot seller is the Microsoft Office Home edition. You’re bidding on microsoft office home and checking your exact keyword referrals as per this hack, you found clicks for the following:

microsoft office home
home office
office space dvd
the office dvd
the office dvd UK
office software
ms office software
office home
home office
office home software

1. Office home and home office are completely different searches with different intents and landing page expectations. Broad match can trigger ads for any word order, and you can’t add -home office as a negative keyword and keep showing up for Office Home. Using -”home office” or -[home office] will help. Since you don’t sell home office furniture, it would make sense to apply the negative to the entire campaign.

2. You sell the movies “Office Space” and “The Office” series — UK and US editions. You don’t want to add “The Office” as a negative keyword at the Campaign level - it will prevent ads from appearing for relevant Ad Groups and keywords. Instead, you add…

-”the office”
-”office space”

…to your Microsoft Office Home Ad Group, and…

-”the office UK”
-”office space”

…to your The Office (US) group, and so on.

You may ask, if you’re bidding on Office Space and The Office DVD UK in other Ad Groups, why would you need to add negatives to other groups that don’t include those keywords? The answer is Quality Score.

Your Microsoft Office Home group may have a higher click through rate history, a higher bid or any other measure of relevance that makes up Google’s Quality Score (other PPC programs also use a Quality Score algorithm of their own). Or you may have reached your max budget in one Ad Group, so an ad from another appears.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to see the exact keywords that your broad match ads are triggering. If you’re not sure how, here’s a full tutorial to help you set up the right filters in Google Analytics. Even if you’re not using Google Analytics as your primary analytics tool, you should at least be using it for this. It’s the best keyword research tool to find the irrelevant “long tail” terms that are costing you money. I guarantee you’ll be shocked at some of the searches the Adwords system will match your keywords to.

You want to view the keywords by Ad Group. So when you’re in Google Analytics, follow this path:

Traffic Sources / Adwords / Adwords Campaigns / {select campaign} / {select Ad Group}

Unfortunately you can’t see all the keywords that trigger ad impressions, only the ones you pay for when the customers click. What’s more shocking than Adwords showing your ads for some keywords is that people actually click on them! I am amazed the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Store ads for 2010 Olympics gets clicked for searches like 2012 judo olympic tryouts!

In addition to constantly checking my Analytics reports, I also do proactive negative keyword research with the Google Keyword Research tool. Enter a keyword you broad match and let the keyword tool suggest synonyms. This will uncover some and not all of what Google considers semantically relevant - but the terms you’ll discover are likely the highest searched terms, so better to add negatives before your ad appears for them:

You really are never finished researching negative keywords.

You may also like these similar posts:

• Negative Keyword Research Tools & Tips
• Should You Remove Keywords With Low Click Through Rates?
• Stop Google Analytics From Stealing Your Valuable AdWords Keyword Data
• Google Keyword Tool: Research and Application Tips
• How To Apply Google Search-Based Keyword Research

Original post by Linda Bustos

Last summer we did a collaborative post with fellow Vancouverites VKI Studios called Stop Google Analytics from Stealing Your Valuable Keyword Data. Google Analytics really isn’t “stealing”, rather “concealing” the actual search queries that trigger your paid search ads when you’re using broad match. It’s a “ye have not because ye ask not” situation.

“Ask and ye shall receive,” and by ask I mean set up a couple custom filters that will expose this data to you. I will be so bold to say that if you can not see exact keyword referrals you have no business using the broad match type! (

This trick has become the most important keyword research tool I use after a campaigns launch (I use a few methods of keyword research to set up Ad Groups including the Google Keyword Tool). Once the campaign is underway, I use the exact keyword referrals to discover negative keywords, uncover new Ad Group and product opportunities and to understand more about how people search. What’s missing is transactional data for each keyword, unfortunately.

I decided to screencast the set up process for a few reasons.

1) To share this tip again with our new readers (we’ve almost doubled in readership last summer) and remind those who have put off adding the filter to set it up ASAP.
2) To show you how quick and easy this is and provide you with a resource (printable PDF) that will give you the confidence that you can set this filter up yourself!
3) To show you how to find your data in Google Analytics by AdGroup, so you can add apply the appropriate negative keywords at the Ad Group level.

If you bear with me to the end, I share some of the crazy matches we’ve been getting for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic store’s broad matched keywords. You’ll see why I value this information so much!

Can’t see video? View it here.

Companion Resources

Download “Cheat Sheet” Instructions (PDF)

Cut and Paste Values:

As with almost all multi-part filters, sequence is critical and must be ordered accordingly using the “Assign Filter Order” page for the profile.

First Filter:

Field A -> Extract A: Referral: (\?|&)(q|p|query)=([^&]*)
Field B -> Extract B: Campaign Medium: (cpc|ppc)
Output To -> Constructor: Custom Field 1: $A3

Second Filter:

Field A -> Extract A: Custom Field 1: (.*)
Field B -> Extract B: Campaign Term: (.*)
Output To -> Constructor: Campaign Term: $B1 ($A1)

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Original post by Linda Bustos