Paid Search in 2012: How to Plan and Grow Your Paid Search Advertising Program in The New Year (Part 1)

Relevant music video of the day (#1): Because nothing says New Year like depressing songs!

By now you're probably deep into planning for your 2012 paid search accounts. Budgets, strategies, new directions and campaigns are just a few of the considerations looking into the new year.

Avoid paid search autopilot
in 2012

The difficulty with paid search, however, is that it is oftentimes easy to get into "autopilot" mode. And why not? You've made optimizations throughout the course of the program and it's working like a finely tuned engine, driving low-cost conversions and capitalizing on the active seekers that your clients need. Why change what isn't broken?

Well, for one thing, because it isn't good enough. Paid search advertising is constantly changing and evolving, with new features rolled out and new trends emerging all the time. The New Year is the time to take a step back, outside of the confines of keyword bid adjustments and quality scores. This is the time to understand the holistic direction of the program, including how to make it work even harder without sacrificing efficiency.

There are a number of paths to go down when planning for 2012. Here are the 10 most important things to think about:

Search Engine Growth
The easiest way to grow an effective paid search program is to expand to new search engines. Surprisingly, many paid search advertisers (especially those that do it "in-house") focus their advertising efforts on Google Adwords only. The problem is Google only represents 70% of the total search market share!

Expanding to Yahoo and Bing (collectively managed under the Adcenter umbrella) is easy enough and immediately provides a 30% increase in your audience pool. Despite minor differences, the searching audience tends to be similarly qualified, given the same keyword list.

Setting up an Adcenter campaign is relatively simple, especially if you are versed in the management of Adwords. Again, there will be differences that you will need to navigate through, but the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. Just copy your well-oiled Adwords campaign to Adcenter using the Adcenter Desktop editing software and you're on your way.

If your daily budget is more than $50 per day, consider expanding to Adcenter, giving it the allotted 30% of budget, and watch your results grow with it!


Keyword Trends

Be trendy with your
keywords in 2012

It's easy to become "Keyword-myopic" when planning or optimizing paid search campaigns, but the truth is searching habits are changing all of the time, driven by a number of variables; external trends and news, user behavior, and technology are just some of the factors which can drive shifts in searching.

Take a step back and think about where there may be new pockets of keywords to target and test. Look at what's been working so far and think about related keywords, brands, services or products in addition to your current keyword lists. Review search query reports for all of your ad groups. Use Google's Insights for Search tool to find keyword trends over time. Look at the news using Google's news search feed. Analyze social conversation related to your products and services and look for opportunities there.

Even if your keyword list is humming along efficiently and effectively, one of your goals should always be to grow your conversion universe. Now is the time to take the time to research and plan for any new opportunities.


Budget Opportunities
Another "low-hanging fruit" opportunity to grow your campaign is to take a look at your budget situation. Are you meeting budget daily? If so, you are required to (not really, but you really should) either expand your budget or refine your targeting/keywords. Assuming again that you and your client are happy with the efficiency of your paid search program, the smart option is to grow your budget where it makes the most sense. If you are not meeting budget every day, turn your ad serving on to "accelerated" and review your average position and keyword bids to ensure a decent position in search results.

Review your spending over the past 90 days for a good sample size - if the graph of the "cost" metric is flat over time, that's usually a pretty good indication that your spend is hitting budget regularly (i.e. if you don't see major fluctuations in spend on a daily basis, you are probably hitting daily budget).

You can also review the lost impression share of your paid search campaigns by adding the three "lost impression share" columns to your user interface table on the campaign level. This information will let you know how many possible impressions your campaigns are missing with their current content and targeting in place (note: disregard the "rank" vs. "budget" differences. Add those two numbers together to get the full % of lost impressions, unless you are getting a #1 average position at all times.) The total lost impression share will give you an idea of how much opportunity is being missed, which you can then translate into additional budget needed to meet the searching needs of your audiences.


Mobile, Mobile, Mobile

How are you going to reach this guy
with your paid search ads?

If mobile isn't a part of your paid search strategy in 2012, you are missing a major opportunity for account and results growth. We already know about the recent growth in mobile searching, but what are you doing about it?

The number one thing to think about is your website or landing page. Is it mobile friendly? Is it optimized to generate leads from mobile devices? You should consider building a concerted mobile program including paid search and website to maximize results.

Assuming your website is at least able to be viewed on modern mobile devices, your next strategy should not just be turning on "mobile devices" in the paid search target settings; it should be to build a unique campaign targeting only mobile devices (while making sure your other campaigns target only desktops/laptops). This is done so that you can measure results separately, build an independent budget, develop mobile-specific creative and messaging, and drive to mobile-friendly landing pages.

The biggest challenge here will be putting yourself in the mobile audience's shoes. For example, what are mobile users looking for compared to other users? What information or conversions will be of greater interest to a mobile audience? What conversions can be completed on mobile devices? Is the targeting any different?

Let's face it, at some point everyone will be searching/buying/browsing on their mobile devices most of the time. Get a jump on this trend in 2012 and open up a whole new world of opportunity.


2012 Events, Messaging, and Promotions
If you haven't done this in the past with your paid search advertising programs, taking advantage of special business events, promotions and messaging is a great chance to reach new users with targeted keywords and messaging.

Think about, review and then list the full schedule of known 2012 opportunities, and make sure to build this into your budget and work schedule. For example, is there an event in March that is targeted specifically to your audience? Build this into your event schedule and plan to launch with keywords around this event 6 weeks ahead of time. Do your sales pick up in the summer months? Make sure to build in a budget increase during those months and think about summer-specific messaging and keywords starting in May. Or, is there a big promotion happening in September 2012? List this and all similar promotions and request a separate or incremental budget to support this effort with new keywords, targeting, ads and a landing page.

By thinking about and scheduling these unique opportunities now, you can ensure the funding is available while also setting the schedule to be "ahead of the curve" in 2012.


BREAK TIME!
This is the end of part 1 of the 2012 paid search strategic planning guidelines. I've asked 1983 Bono to sing us out. Check out that sweet mullet!

Why User Path Analysis is Important: Google Analytics' New Flow Visualization

Google Analytics Flow Visualiztion: The Next Frontier in free web analytics

Well, this is a pleasant web analytics development.


Google Analytics recently introduced new features allowing users to view a more complete picture when it comes to website user experience.


Why is user path analysis important? 

Google is coloring in the picture of user experience

For one thing, it makes my job more interesting and less tedious, which is always fun. 


On a grander scale, Google is conceding that it is becoming more and more important to understand the entire user experience. As web analytics mature, so do its analysts. We are starting to dig deeper into each user's path once they reach the site. 


It is, put simply, no longer good enough to see what the best converting traffic source is, or which individual page leads to the most sales. We know there were other sources which led them to convert, or other pages that encouraged that next step forward. It is now about understanding all of the predominant paths that users follow when completing certain actions. Understanding these paths helps to color in the picture of each visiting segment, making it easier to bucket, target and optimize towards specific audience segments on the website.

We all win in the race to achieve full user experience modeling

So, first there was the announcement of the Google Multi-Channel Funnel, which aims to measure visitor sources beyond just the last-click, down to the original interaction that drove to that click and conversion.


(Side note: Multi-channel attribution modeling has been a hot-topic in analytics and online marketing for quite a while, and there are some solutions out there right now, but they are often expensive and require serious tagging mechanisms to work. Obviously, this does not lend itself to small and midsize businesses, who may not have the resources or buy-in to make such a drastic decision.)


Now comes user path flow visualization with Visitor Flow, which, "...provides a graphical representation of visitors’ flow through the site by traffic source (or any other dimensions) so you can see their journey, as well as where they dropped off" and Goal Flow which, "...provides a graphical representation for how visitors flow through your goal steps and where they dropped off."


Google Analytics, as it has always done, brings the new technology to the masses at minimal price of entry. 


This is important, because it opens new doors to analysis. It is important because it paints a clearer picture of your audience. It is important because it is a step forward in seeing the whole experience of each user.


By accomplishing all of these things, Google Analytics Flow Visualization will help your bottom line.


(...as long as you use it the right way. More on that later.)



Phil Decoteau is the Founder and President of Deco Dig, an Inbound Marketing Services Company based in Connecticut. Learn more at www.deco-dig.com.