It often seems like a race to keep up with the escalating complexity of paid search. From an agency perspective, changes to process, technology and training are frequently necessary in order to accommodate the evolution. Many of these changes enable us to move the needle here and there on leveraging performance, but the core of a solid paid search campaign hasn’t really changed that much.
Paid search is fundamentally about presenting a relevant ad to someone who enters a keyword in a search engine. Every month, 60% of the searches on Google are brand new. With the keyword list being the pillar of the paid search campaign, keyword selection is essential. Technology now exists to scrape a page and cull a list, but the fundamental strategies for effective keyword selection remain the same now as they have been for years. Here are some of the basic keyword selection tactics that apply to the retail vertical.
Top Sellers: Site analytics can determine the top selling products through direct load and natural search. These words should be part of the paid search campaign.
Top Searched Products on the Site: Site analytics can inform what people are searching for on the site, and these words should be included in the paid search campaign. Products being searched for but not sold by the merchant should be given to the merchandising team to potentially expand the product line.
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This year’s report on paid search performance underscores dramatic improvements for retailers in Holiday 2009 compared to 2008.
PM Digital’s 4Q & Holiday 2009 Rewind report has been released with a look at paid search performance for retailers during the 2009 holiday season. And as the study quickly points out, what a difference a year makes. With 12 months’ distance from the bleakness of late 2008—a season in which e-commerce holiday sales actually dropped—online shoppers in 2009 seemed ready to buy with a renewed commitment to enjoy the holidays.
While research firm comScore cited 5% growth for online retailers, PM Digital’s clients saw paid search demand grow 19% on average. Clicks, conversion and average order value were all up.
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The major snowstorm on the East Coast on Saturday and Sunday lifted online sales for 67% of PM Digital’s retail clients an estimated 10% vs. what they would have seen for the weekend without the storm. For the apparel category, specifically, this lift affected 71% of PM Digital clients.
The strong weekend results for online sales is icing on the cake to a strong overall holiday season for ecommerce. As has been reported by comScore and others, online sales are up year over year in 2009 vs. 2008, so there is a lot to celebrate.
Some of the key drivers in lifting sales this year in particular were 1) promotions; 2) gift cards; 3) egift cards) 4) accurate forecasting (running budgets high on the best days and scaling back on lower-converting days), and 5) taking advantage of best practices in search strategies.
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Clients often ask about the differences between search intelligence products. To that end, here is Part 1 of our Keyword Research Tools Guide, designed to provide a quick overview of methodology, output and relative strengths for some of the key resources available to search marketers.
This initial write-up focuses on Hitwise and comScore Marketer, two of the major players that report on post-click data (i.e. not just ads served, but ads clicked).
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It often seems like a race to keep up with the escalating complexity of paid search. From an agency perspective, changes to process, technology and training are frequently necessary in order to accommodate the evolution. Many of these changes enable us to move the needle here and there on leveraging performance, but the core of a solid paid search campaign hasn’t really changed that much.