MediaBuyerPlanner reports ”Only about 55 percent of search marketers integrate their search efforts with offline marketing efforts; the other 45 percent make no effort at integrating SEM (Search Engine Marketing) with offline initiatives, according to a new study by iProspect and JupiterResearch.”

You may have an SEM management gap

The above article claims budgetary and resource concerns. I think the bigger picture is one of the following scenarios that many marketing organizations face:

1. Marketing, being resourced constrained, probably pawns this off as an “IT project” because it involves technology.
2. Marketing has assigned SEM efforts to a vendor specializing in SEM and no other marketing initiatives.

Scenario #1: SEM lives in IT

I can understand why SEM has traditionally been an “IT responsibility” because SEM in large part, is still a rather large mystery to marketers. They don’t understand the rules of the game and the execution of your organization’s SEM campaigns requires a fundamental knowledge of your website and the visitors of your website. It’s commonplace that a marketing communications department, who handles traditional print and television advertising, may not be the resident experts on web strategy and design. It’s easy to pass SEM off to IT — because they handle “the technical stuff.”

Scenario #2: SEM execution lives with an outside firm

There are many companies providing SEM services and not surprisingly, these companies are technical in nature and not traditional direct-marketers. Those that are direct marketers are generally small and have a localized client base, making it hard for them to penetrate the mold of Fortune 500 companies. Those that are technical may have a great technology to sell, but lack the marketing savviness of a direct marketing firm to truly bring SEM the return on investment it demands — resulting in poorly performing SEM campaigns. This leads to the disconnect in online and offline marketing mentioned in the above MediaBuyerPlanner report.

How do you close the SEM knowledge gap? Who should manage SEM?

SEM “belongs” in marketing and should be on the radar of anyone executing any outbound marketing and awareness campaigns (email, direct mail, or otherwise). “Belonging in marketing” and “being executed by marketing” are two different things. From marketing communications, to product marketing managers, to channel marketing, each group has their own functional needs/goals for SEM. Establishing a governing body to ensure the proper SEM techniques and optimization are in place is recommended — but simultaneously avoiding the bureaucracy that’s often accompanied by “governing committees.”

A good place? The web experience/usability group within your organization. SEM may be funded by marketing while the governing body and “gatekeeper” for SEM can be facilitated through the people who know your site inside and out and intimately understand the experience an end-user desires when arriving at the landing pages on your site via an ad. After all, not much ends up on the site that doesn’t pass the approval of this group. Any campaigns directing traffic to the site are right up the alley of a usability professional.

Sigh. This post claims that branding is irrelevant/dead thanks to search engines and how search is transforming the way in which people research and buy products.

Huh?

I couldn’t disagree more. You can’t honestly tell me that Lamborghini, BMW, Lincoln, and Hyundai (just to name a few random automotive brands) are all on equal playing fields when a consumer searches for “car” on Google. 

The post goes on to talk about the power of SEO and why SEO is not dead. SEO is most certainly not dead and should make for a critical component in your online strategy. His point in trying to prove why SEO is not dead is muddied by the claims of “branding being dead.” Brands don’t matter in certain categories (probably because there’s no clear category leader), but certainly not across the board.

Proper SEO can elevate your brand to the top of the listing for non-branded searches.

They key is creating brand awareness (through advertising, promotion, PR, etc. outside of search engines) and dominating on branded AND non-branded searches for your category. This is done by juggling your SEO work with your SEM campaigns to find the “sweet spot” so SEM can pick up the slack where you lag behind in SEO. Branding then goes onto heavily influence clicks on search engine results.

This type of tunnel-vision thinking is why “online” is still broadly viewed as an IT function.

Flat-out comments like this show the still “techy” and misguided view of some Internet strategists and how marketing and “tech” still quite aren’t aligned — even on established sites such as searchenginewatch.com. Any marketer worth their salt should understand that brands can drive search results. When industry publications and commentary throw out claims like this, it’s difficult to create alignment with a marketing department — especially when marketing should “own” (or at least have visibility to) SEO and SEM strategy.

I came across this article yesterday which presents very interesting findings relating to branding and search engine results. The proper combination of paid results and organic results has a positive impact on brand affinity, brand recall, and purchase intent.

This presents an interesting dilemma for those keywords that don’t convert well (i.e. “blinds”) but are high-volume in nature. Some terms are so generic that for folks in the market for the product, it can actually make sense to play in these areas for branding-related purposes.

A proper SEM strategy with channel partners and an SEO strategy for your own site now theoretically will not only help conversion rate, but the influence of your brand. Sometimes you can’t show up for every possible keyword that relates to your products, but through a combination of leveraging the breadth of sites that sell your products online (i.e. your channel partners) and your own SEM/SEO strategy, search has a significant potential to influence buyer preferences.

In essence, the more they see your brand for all keywords related to your product, the higher the probability they will associate your brand with those terms — and hopefully convert/purchase your products.

Initiatives like these make me a happy advertiser. Google has performed another wave of crack-downs on MFA (Made For Adsense) sites. These are sites which offer little-to-no content value and are specifically designed to lure uneducated web surfers into their sites to only get them to click on a sponsored link. The typical trick is to bid on low-volume keywords in an effort to turn around and get surfers to click on higher-priced keywords in the Adsense ads placed on these sites.

A quick search for “levolor blinds” produces a search result for a site called http://www.all-window-blinds.net and http://www.wholesaleblind.org.

These sites present a problem for advertisers and brands for the following 3 reasons:

1.) MFA sites derail the consumer
For the consumer looking for real information on a product, this creates an unnecessary step. For a product category already as confusing as blinds and shades, the last thing our industry needs is another speed bump in the research process.

2.) They drive up pricing of keywords for legitimate customers (as well as brand advertisers)
As we know, search advertising is based on “highest bidder wins.” The bidding will go as high as the competition is willing to pay — MFA sites force legitimate advertisers to increase their bids to gain higher positions in sponsored search results. Furthermore, if an advertiser is not careful, they may be placing sponsored links on MFA sites and be getting charged for ad impressions/clicks on these sites.

3.) They dilute a brand name
For manufacturers of brand names that mean something to the public, any tasks associated with the research of your brand name can reflect positively or negatively. A brand who does not have sponsored links under control both with their partners and by eliminating MFA sites altogether will suffer from having a product that becomes difficult to find credible/relevant information about online.

How would you like to be competing for advertising space amidst other companies who had nothing to offer in regards to your products? Who wants to dial a phone number from a classified ad found online only to be met with a recording that provides other phone numbers to call to find the product you’re looking for? I hope Google makes it easier for the community to report MFA sites in the future. This will help them create a sweeping algorithm to eliminate more MFA sites from their list of Adsense publishers.

I attended the “Creating Compelling Ads” session this afternoon. This is what these sessions should be about — actual examples were given to attendees on what to do and what not to do. Some of the sessions I’ve attended so far have been very high-level and overly vague presentations about topics with little-to-no substance. Thanks to Vic Drabicky of Rangeonlinemedia.com, attendees were treated with some very helpful tips for SEM campaigns. Here are the key takeaways from this session:

5 Rules to live by when creating ad copy

1. Include the keyword in the title and description
2. Write tailored, clear, factual creative (avoid vague and non-descript phrases like “best deal,” etc.).
3. Avoid symbols, exclamation points, numbers, and general “cutesiness” (i.e. we sell dog toys & cat treats & other things — use and instead of &, etc. avoid exclamation points)
4. Avoid non-specific calls to action (i.e. “book now,” “save now,” *** now)
5. Don’t be “salesy.” Nobody likes the used car dealer, so don’t act like one. The best thing you can do is write a description and sound informative. Act like you are selling to a trusted friend or family member and talk (write) normally.

Bottom line: Make the creative informative. It will differentiate you from the other competitors who are claiming the best deal on earth with the lowest prices and largest selection of products.

SEM Title Strategy
Titles are the most important part of the paid results creative. Use keywords in your title, use dynamic keyword insertion, use param2 and alt text to further customize (Yahoo! and MSN only), and always be grammatically correct. Differentiate yourself from your competition wherever possible. A sea of sameness will only confuse the potential buyer.

Bottom line: The goal is to get every profitable click, not every click.

SEM Description Strategy
Descriptions are just as important as titles. People read them. Customization per keyword is key — setup adgroups by creative, not by keyword. Tell your story, include your brand, and clearly indicate your unique value proposition (price, selection, etc.). Price points are hit and miss — pick and choose your battles wisely.

SEM Display URL Strategy
Slight changes to a display URL can drastically change your CTR. Always test! Here are some examples:

1. www.Travelocity.com = 5.82% CTR
2. www.travelocity.com = 5.27% CTR
3. Travelocity.com = 4.84% CTR
4. travelocity.com = 4.36% CTR

SEM Creative Rotation Strategy
The Good: The engines will automatically optimize your creative.

1. Use no fewer than 3 and no more than 4 pieces of creative per adgroup
2. Make each piece definitively different
3. Test tracking conversion at the crative level (assign different landing pages to it)

The Bad: Engines punish you for any change you make to your creative.

1. Quality score drops even on insignificant changes (even removing a “.” can drop your quality score)
2. Try keeping one piece of creative constant while you sprinkle in additional test creatives

Three Rules and Three Theories to Live your SEM Life by

• Rule #1: Use alt text and param2 for MSN and Yahoo!
• Rule #2: Test often, but not often enough to hurt your quality score. Test your creative, but don’t test it every day.
• Rule #3: Get a second opinion, then a third opinion, then implement.

• Theory #1: The goal is not to get every click, but get every profitable click.
• Theory #2: Remember that searches may think differently from you and thus need different creative than you need.
• Theory #3: Be aware of competitors — don’t chase them.

Bottom line: Figure out your value proposition, what you offer, where you are better than the competition, and tailor creative accordingly.