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2006-08-23 - Using Paid Search to Drive More Effective Lead Generation

By: Dan Vassallo

Outside of co-registration search marketing provides one of the most effective and efficient tactics for generating leads online.  Search provides and audience of users who are actively looking for something, intent on finding information important to them.  Paid search marketing provides you an opportunity to reach these users with a relevant message tailored precisely to their needs through a performance-based model.  Success in search marketing is not about getting the most clicks to your site, but getting the most qualified users to click on your ads and fulfill the actions you’re looking for them to take.

Here are some tips to assure a successful search marketing campaign.

  1. Campaign Architecture

Before starting a search campaign it’s essential to strategize and outline a plan of attack. Here the architecture of the campaign becomes important as it will provide a sound foundation for you campaign. The organization of like keywords into groups and similar groups into campaigns is critical to maximize efficiencies once the campaign begins.

Each engine has differences so be aware that what you set up for Google may not work in the same manner in Yahoo! or MSN.  Budgeting, scheduling, targeting, and bid management and positioning are features that each engine is putting its own unique twist on, so talk to your account managers at the to assure your strategies will fit within their systems.

Beyond just similar keywords and groups, you want to focus on the purpose of these terms and what the intent of the users will be when they search for them.  Group terms that you know will perform separately from terms you’d like to test so you can allocate budget accordingly and prioritize your spend by performance objectives.  This foundation will provide you the most flexibility when it comes to optimizing your campaign.

  1. Campaign Management

Determine upfront what the success metric you’ll be managing the campaign to and how this will be tracked. With tracking be as granular as possible, bucket like terms together but track all the way down to the keyword and tactic levels. You’ll also want to decide how you will be measuring performance; will you hold each keyword to a set cost per action (“CPA”) target before cutting it off, or will you measure the CPA of the campaign as portfolio of terms within each engine?

Managing and seeing performance at the keyword level is essential, but you should avoid getting tied up in managing each word to the desired CPA. Instead, take a portfolio approach to managing CPA across all terms within an a group, campaign, or engine. Find the optimal mix between terms that generate a high volume of leads at a higher CPA and those that generate a lower volume of leads but at a lower CPA.  A portfolio management approach allows you generate the most volume possible while maintaining the overall campaign CPA at maximum profitability.

Tracking performance at the keyword level provides you with actionable data to manage your bids at the keyword level.  Bid management is an important aspect of managing and optimizing a search campaign. There are numerous technologies our there to automate this function. To determine if you need this technology keep an eye on the listings for your highest volume terms and watch to see how competitive the marketplace is within you vertical. If there is volatility with advertisers swapping positions regularly you may want to implement a bid management tool. Otherwise, determine the top performing keywords in your campaign which you will manage like a hawk and pull out others that you can manage on regular intervals.

In the last two years search engines have been increasing their targeting options. Geo-Targeting is becoming a standard across all engines enabling advertisers to target their ads to specific countries and DMAs. This year, MSN has introduced incremental demographic targeting. This enhanced targeting provides advertisers a mechanism to pay additional fees to enhance their ad’s placement against selected gender and age targets. This will be a feature each of the engines looks integrate and battle to out maneuver so stay tuned for product enhancements.

  1. Creative & Landing Pages

Relevancy matters in your creative and landing page. You want users to click on your ad and come to your site, but you also want them to be as qualified as possible before clicking to assure the best changes of converting them into leads.

Your creative, title and descriptions, used for Google & MSN (and soon to Yahoo!) will be important in the effectiveness of your campaign. Click through rate influences your position and the CPC you pay as the engines rank advertisers by calculating which advertisers are likely to generate the most revenue per search query. In this model relevancy is important, the better your message resonates with users the more likely they will be to click on your ad and with an increase in your CTR you can obtain a higher position while lowering your CPC.

Associate specific creative to the groups of similar keywords created within the campaign architecture. If the engine allows for it rotate multiple creative and test to see which will yield the highest CTR without negatively impacting your conversion rate. Maintain a baseline creative and test against regularly for seasonality and promotions and to reduce burnout.

Landing page performance will be a significant factor in your campaigns conversion rate. Test landing pages for search that are different from your general landing pages to assure you are maximizing performance.  To find additional efficiencies you should test landing pages against different engines and keywords. Search users will perform in ways that are different from other media as their intent is more focused on seeking out information as opposed to seeing an ad in passing that may interest them. 

Keep in mind, each engine will perform differently. User behavior and distribution networks assure that what works one place will most likely not work in another. Testing will help you find the mix of keywords, creative, and landing pages that will work best for each search engine and help you maximize your performance.

The number of dials and controls available to advertisers in Search Marketing is not without complexity however with a solid understanding of what you can track and test it can be managed like other direct marketing channels.

By: Dan Vassallo, Director, Search Marketing for Trafficbuyer Digital, he can be reached at dvassallo@trafficbuyer.com
© 2007 The Coreg Insider