Paid Search (PPC) & Natural Search (SEO) Co-optimization Strategies

© 2012 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. Adobe Con!dential.

Speaker: Warren Lee, SEO Manager, Adobe Tweet @ SEOCUBED (#smx #33D)

In-House SEO And PPC: What You Can Learn From Each Other, Optimally


In-House SEO And PPC: What You Can Learn From Each Other

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DON’T PUT A LINE IN THE SAND BETWEEN PAID SEARCH & SEO


Global Search Alignment

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Paid Search SEO

Site Search

*2013 Team Focus: Maximizing the 3-pillar integration

§  "e Adobe Search Team is responsible for managing and optimizing the Search Experience across the 3 pillars of Search:


A holistic search strategy that considers the buying cycle

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A paid search strategy that considers targeting buyers across the buyers journey •  Each tier has its own unique KPI’s •  Types of keywords for each tier will vary by industry •  Messaging should align to the tier



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Web design

Keywords

Learn more, free trial Messaging



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Adobe Dreamweaver

Keywords

Buy now, Upgrade Messaging



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Adobe Dreamweaver

Keywords

Buy now, Upgrade Messaging

ALIGN MESSGING TO

PURCHASE INTENT

TIP



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SEO PAID SEARCH

PAID SEARCH + SEO


How to make the best use of your SERP ‘shelf space’.

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SERP example

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THE SERP PRESENTS SEVERAL STRATEGIC OPTIONS ACROSS PAID AND NATURAL SEARCH

© 2012 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. Adobe Con!dential. 13

How can Adobe best allocate its paid search budget while leveraging

its organic search rankings?


Cannibalization vs. Synergy

§  Cannibalization

§  Paid ads take away revenue, visits, trials, orders, etc., that would have otherwise gone to SEO

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$500

$250

$180

$0

$100

$200

$300

$400

$500

$600

Running Only Organic

Running Paid + Organic

Paid

Organic

§  Synergy

§  Presence of paid ads results in a li# in organic (visits, trials, orders, revenue, etc.)

$100

$150

$200

$0

$50

$100

$150

$200

$250

$300

$350

$400



Paid

Organic

*not actual Adobe data *not actual Adobe data


Both Cannibalization & Synergy

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$200

$120

$180

$0

$50

$100

$150

$200

$250

$300

$350



Paid Organic

*not actual Adobe data


Test Objectives

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§  Explore the relationship between paid and organic search

§  Cannibalistic, synergistic, or combination of both? To what degree?

§  Quantify impact of paid ads on organic performance

§  Track, monitor, and analyze across all key metrics

§  Derive actionable results

§  Glean insight into how paid and organic should focus their optimization efforts so as to provide the greatest return on investment

§  Analyze trends

§  Provide recommendations for future testing


Case Study 1

§  Objective

§  Test the relationship between paid ads & organic listings. Are there synergies? Is there cannibalization occurring?

§  Strategy

§  Test a group of pre-selected keywords, spli%ing them into 2 equal groups (based on historical performance, rank, etc).

§  Scope

§  5 weeks

§  70 keywords

§  Hypothesis

§  Organic listing ads running solo will have higher traffic and more trials and revenue yet Paid ads drive more incremental value

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Test Results - Test Resulted in Paid Search Incremental Value

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Clicks/Visits

Trials Orders Units Revenue Net Revenue Conv% Conversions

Percentage Change

+61% +72% +71% +77% +94% +80% +7% +72%

Revenue

$0

$20,000

$40,000

$60,000

$80,000

$100,000

Running only Organic Running Paid + Organic

Paid

Organic

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500

1000

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Running only Organic Running Paid + Organic

Paid

Organic

Trials

Across the board running paid + organic resulted in more volume at a higher conversion rate producing more incremental revenue and a higher AOV


Case Study 2

§  Objective: Increase trial downloads

§  Strategy: Change CTA in Organic page meta descriptions to re'ect “Free Trial Download”

§  Scope:

§  3 pages updated

§  Test ran 3 weeks

§  Hypothesis: Increased trials from these pages and (hopefully) no effect on Paid performance

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Test Results – Organic Trials

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We also saw a li! in Conversion Rate

0 500

1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000 4500 5000

Historical Test Historical Test

Acrobat Test Pages Acrobat Control

Test and control page visits

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50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

Historical Test Historical Test

Acrobat Test Pages Acrobat Control

Test and control page trials Page Name Week Conv%

Acrobat Pro Historical 9.83%

Test 9.93%

Convert PDF Historical 1.83%

Test 2.22%

Edit PDF Historical 3.72%

Test 5.11%

32%

5%

45%

8%


Case Study 3

§  Objective: Determine impact of using top paid ad copy including promotional offer in SEO meta data for new Creative Cloud product.

§  Strategy: Change CTA in Organic page meta descriptions to re'ect “40% off discount”

§  Hypothesis: We will expect synergy between paid and natural performance, and and increase in visits and orders. Paid CPC may increase and paid ROI may decrease.

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Awareness

Consideration

Purchase

Meta descriptions targeted at different points in the purchase funnel


Scope / Methodology

NORTH AMERICA

u Test Start Date: July 10, 2012

u Test End Date: August 14, 2012

Japan

u Test Start Date: July 20, 2012

u Test End Date: August 16, 2012

u Meta descriptions were changed at the same time every week

u Tracked hourly till they appear on Google

u Normalized to a 7-day week

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SOLVE FOR KEYWORD UNKNOWN

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FOR EXAMPLE: Total visits to a certain page – 100 KW unavailable – 40 KW1 – 30 KW2 – 20 KW3 – 10 To get the adjusted number for KW1: ( 40 / (100-40) + 1 ) * 30 = ( (40/60) + 1 )*30 = 1.67 * 30 = 50 For KW2: 1.67 * 20 = KW2 adjusted 33.3 (33 rounded) For KW3: 1.67 * 10 = KW3 adjusted 16.7 (17 rounded) Total of the 3 adjusted numbers = 50+33+17 = 100

( KW Unavailable / (Total Entry Page Visits – KW Unavailable) + 1 ) * KW


Test Group across all Metrics

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Baseline Promo Normal

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UNITS

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REVENUE

VISITS

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ORDERS


Control Group across all metrics

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Baseline Promo Normal 0

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UNITS REVENUE

VISITS ORDERS


Clearly the results were surprising!

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"ank you

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RESOURCES

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THE BUYING CYCLE: h%p://support.google.com/adwords/certi!cation/bin/answer.py?hl=en-AU&answer=19450 GOOGLE STUDY (2011): h%p://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2011/07/studies-show-search-ads-drive-89.html h%p://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/research.google.com/en/us/pubs/archive/37161.pdf GOOGLE STUDY (2012): h%p://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2012/03/impact-of-organic-ranking-on-ad-click.html ADDITIONAL LINKS: h%p://support.google.com/adwords/certi!cation/bin/answer.py?hl=en-AU&answer=19450


APPENDIX

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Google Study

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Google Study

GOOGLE SAYS PAID SEARCH IS INCREMENTAL.

BUT… §  81% of Displayed Search Ads Had No

Associated Organic Result

§  More than half of data was holiday data

§  Only looked at clicks, not conversions or other KPIs

§  Made no distinction between brand ad and non-brand ads

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Google Study

GOOGLE SAYS PAID SEARCH IS INCREMENTAL.

BUT… §  81% of Displayed Search Ads Had No

Associated Organic Result

§  More than half of data was holiday data

§  Only looked at clicks, not conversions or other KPIs

§  Made no distinction between brand ad and non-brand ads

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<- SO TEST FOR YOUR SELF!!

Paid Search (PPC) & Natural Search (SEO) Co-optimization Strategies

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