For this article, perhaps the best way to describe the potential of these is through scenarios:
If your B2B or B2C company is considering a new product or service, but is unsure of the demand in a specific geographical territory, search engine ads can function as a real-time focus group. You can post an article, white paper, online questionnaire, survey, or any useful resource on your website that works as an interim/substitute conversion. The response is a useful indicator of how the proposed product or service will do. For example, if there is low search volume online, the new effort will likely require a lot of education to generate online demand. As stated earlier, the click through response can be tested on different offers and messages in text ads. Finally, the onsite offer or content can be tested, provided there is enough time and search data available. This data can be compared to deeper conversion data from a known category to help project how the new product or service would impact your business.
We have a corporate client whose regional locations provide services to homeowners. When gas prices rose rapidly, they wanted to consider the benefits and impact on their business of temporarily reducing the geographical territory in which they advertise for new customers. The goal was to reduce the miles driven, which would save fuel costs and increase the amount of time technicians were performing billable services. By testing with different custom geotargeting, and projecting the new search and click through data with their previous conversion rates, we were able to accurately estimate how many fewer searches (thus appointments, jobs, and revenue) they would receive if they reduced their service area being advertised. The same testing process would also work if an expansion in territory is being considered.
If a company is considering rebranding, creating a new tag line, or microsite, text ads can be used to test the initial response to the proposed change. Changing and testing one variable with equal amounts of traffic is a simple way to quantify which version potential customers like. Since impression and click data are initial indicators of interest, to project profitability and overall success, there should be additional tests to see which variables on the landing page get higher conversion rates also.
For businesses that are subject to fads or trends, such as the retail bicycle industry, search data can be used to predict future business activity and needs. For example, we can monitor search/impression data by category, such as generic searches for road bikes and compare it with similar searches for mountain bikes. If a sustained shift in the ratio of searches in the two categories occurs, that could predict the number of upcoming sales of units for first time buyers by category. This data could be used to help with ordering, managing inventory, pricing, merchandising, and more.
The scenarios above are simplified for the amount of space available in this post. In the same way the process works for a retailer, it could be equally beneficial to a car manufacturer as a leading indicator for planning their production.
Because the data being gathered is actual consumer or end user search behavior, it is free of many of the biases inherent in focus groups or questionnaires. Why? In situations where participants know they are being observed or questioned, many times their answers are skewed.
Because we control so many elements, Google AdWords allows testing that would be more difficult or impossible with natural, more random traffic to a website. Many settings, such as the use of negative keyword filters and conversion tracking tools help us dial in the traffic to make Google AdWords a very effective research tool.
The post Using Google AdWords As A Research Tool first appeared on TopSide Media.]]>To help clarify the search marketing and advertising options available to local businesses we’ll divide them into two categories: 1) partially automated search packages and 2) fully customized search marketing services. TopSide offers both options, and we are writing about them candidly from our own experience.
This search marketing service typically combines a web page or microsite with advertising traffic from multiple search engines for one fixed, monthly price. Depending on the provider, there could be other sources of web traffic, ranging from natural search traffic to contextual ads included in the package. Local search packages typically have a low cost of entry (starting at a few hundred dollars per month) and do not provide the option for lots of ongoing changes to the overall search program.
Since many packages include a web page or microsite, this is the choice for businesses that:
The type of features that typically are not available in the packages include frequent changes in monthly ad budget, different geotargeting or changes in the geographic territory of who can view the ads, testing or changing landing pages, etc. The packages cost less primarily because there is less hands-on customization required in the building and ongoing optimization of the settings. The automation allows features that are otherwise not affordable to a local business.
We won’t mention any companies by name, but one issue to beware of is the bundling of offline advertising you have already done too much of (or otherwise don’t want) with the online search marketing that nearly every local business currently needs.
In contrast to the partially automated package above, customized search marketing is suited to businesses that need lots of changes and manual attention to the settings that control their ads. Examples of these changes include regular changes to the monthly ad budget (up or down), changes in the geographic location in which ads can be seen (by IP address), changes or testing of landing pages, etc. Although bid management tools may be used to reduce some routine manual actions, custom services require a great deal more hands-on time to build and maintain.
If the criteria listed above do not provide you with sufficient direction on which type of search program is right for your business, then comparing the actual cost or estimates of the total cost per lead or sale is the best first step. Be sure to count online leads and incoming phone calls. Cost per lead (and of course, the percentage of those leads that covert to paying customers) is a way to measure or compare any direct marketing effort. If you have decided that a local search package is for you, then use total cost per lead to compare one provider of local packages with another. We often see local business owners put too much focus on the process details and not enough on this simple but critical measure of results.
The post Search Engine Marketing and Advertising Choices for Local Businesses first appeared on TopSide Media.]]>