Search Marketing Master Class - Kevin Lee, Didit

© 2016 Didit – All Content is Sensitive and Confidential

2-Hour Search Marketing Master Class

Presented byKevin Lee

Executive Chairman

© 2016 Didit – All Content is Sensitive and Confidential @kevin_lee_QED

Kevin Lee founded Didit in 1996, and has grown it beyond SEM PPC campaign optimization with nine acquisitions.

Didit offers an advanced stand alone bid management platform at Bidit.Didit.com.

Kevin has written three books, over 550 columns in ClickZ and other publications, and spoken at over 400 conferences.

At Didit, we believe “Marketing is Everything” for any business and that why we made 9 acquisitions to become fell service.

2007

2007, 2008, 2009


Why am I here?Over the last 18 years I’ve hired and interviewed hundreds of PPC, SEO Content Marketing and Social Media “specialists.”

• Many of you get REALLY important things WRONG.

• I don’t want you to be caught doing something wrong.

• SEO and SEM may be the most powerful tool in your marketing toolbox.

Objective: Get you promoted, a raise or a better job because you’ll remember me when you need digital marketing help. You can’t do everything yourself!


Your Greatest Enemy!

Time!


What’s the best use of your time. Paid or Earned Media? Testing? • What should you do yourself?• What should you hire others to do?• How long will earned media investments take to pay back?Figuring out what to do first every day and what will deliver the biggest improvement in KPIs @ scale is the key.

What should you do first today?


There are multi-day multi-track conferences on SEM & SEO. But I’ll condense it down to: • Paid Search • SEO Basics / Webmaster Tools / Search Console• SEO Content Marketing• SEO Content Promotion• Video SEO• SEO for Mobile• Reputation Mgmt. / Content Syndication

Elements of Search Marketing


For Paid Placement & PLAs you have choices: • Google AdWords including lots of extensions• Google PLAs a few extensions• Bing adCenter• Bing PLAs• Yahoo Gemini• Others: International (Yandex, Baidu)

PPC (Paid Placement / PLAs)


Keyword Clicks Too Expensive?

Wall Street is confused. Are you?

Mobile Shift and New Ad Types


Media Auctions Can Be Painful,

The Winner’s Curse There are only two kinds of marketers at the top of the PPC search results:• Brilliant Marketers• The idiots. Irrational bidders, even in a recessionSuccess requires figuring out how to either:a) Be the brilliant marketer that can AFFORD a top position (WHEN IT MATTERS)

b) Deal effectively with those buying market share irrationally When irrational bidders bid very high on broad match terms long tail keyword expansion strategies fade in effectiveness.


Leverage is Power, Profit

• Pre-click leverage = Quality Score• Larger Shopping Cart or > lead quality• Conversion Rate increases

Each of these provide you with leverage.

lev·er·age lévvərij 2. mechanical advantage: the mechanical advantage gained by using a lever3. power to get things done: power over other people, especially something that gives an advantage but is not referred to openly


The Math Behind Compound Impact

Every improvement you make raises the possible maxbid…


Bid Management Matters Most in your top 10%We analyzed our top 25 clients, see what we found. The top 10 % spending keywords spend 80% of $

spend 80 percent 90 percent total keywords with spendPercent of keywords spending 80 Percent of spend

Percent of keywords spending 90 Percent of spend

$913,655.01 910 1633 9515 9.56% 17.16%

$692,437.78 13 30 5190 0.25% 0.58%6 10 11093 0.05% 0.09%

29 171 3598 0.81% 4.75%440 788 4187 10.51% 18.82%

15 40 1118 1.34% 3.58%

2679 5225 50734 5.28% 10.30%73 180 6264 1.17% 2.87%

897 2770 26196 3.42% 10.57%

246 447 3863 6.37% 11.57%

7 11 2194 0.32% 0.50%39 79 1314 2.97% 6.01%

135 259 1740 7.76% 14.89%

31 64 1034 3.00% 6.19%

123 269 4837 2.54% 5.56%

1140 2205 11315 10.08% 19.49%281 548 5256 5.35% 10.43%

7 23 1794 0.39% 1.28%51 88 670 7.61% 13.13%58 113 1122 5.17% 10.07%

137 275 16058 0.85% 1.71%101 195 1269 7.96% 15.37%474 868 4365 10.86% 19.89%


Your top 10%

Nearly ALL your efforts should be deployed against the top 10 percent of spending keywords.

• Have the right bids REAL TIME!• Have the best campaign structure• Have the right settings in Mobile and Desktop• Best possible ad copy and ad extensions• Best possible landing pages• Best images in PLA ads (similar distribution)• Optimal Geography (overlays on national)• Time of Day (in TV it’s Drive-time vs Daytime)• Day of Week (do weekends have an effect?)


Top down sort is the most powerful free tool you have

Tactical, opportunity identification

Impressions = opportunityPosition may not be “affordable”


Chasing the Long Tail, the Wrong Tail

In PPC the long tail is DEAD if you want a raise and promotion focus on the head of the keyword distribution.

• Going long won’t work because someone

with broader match type will likely prevail• What do you actually win when your

adrank is high enough for you to serve?


“How many Segments are you running?”

Segmentation levers are best used on power keywords. So, use targeting against the power keywords!

Pick the clicks you want most and target to segment predicted profitability. Your levers:

• Syndication, Content vs Search (same creative? different?)• Syndication site targeting in content networks (image ads?)• Geography (overlays on national campaigns)• Time of Day (in TV it’s Drive-time vs Daytime)• Day of Week (do weekends have an effect? certain days?)


Strategic Bidding, Dayparting

Not bidding based on daypart and day of the week?Congratulations, your bid is right as often as a broken clock is correctUse API-based tools or use the GUI to do the best you can.


Dayparting, Out Of Stock, Feedback Loop

Dayparting is only one reason why you might want a real-time bid management solution.Faster reaction time to:• Inventory issues• Site outages• Broken tracking

Why we never did the Google Analytics API integration with Maestro or Bidit.


USER

User served displayAd User Searches

User served displayAd

User VisitsWebsite User Converts

Touch Point Analysis

Attribution Modeling isn’t enough.Media mix modeling, Marginal Elasticity

Marginal elasticity of every media option is key!!In economics, elasticity is the ratio of the percent change in one variable to the percent change in another variable. It is a tool for measuring the responsiveness of a function to changes in parameters in a unit-less way. Frequently used elasticities include price elasticity of demand, price elasticity of supply, income elasticity of demand, elasticity of substitution between factors of production and elasticity of intertemporal substitution.

Elasticity is one of the most important concepts in economic theory. In addition when understanding how to allocate media dollars, nothing beats knowing the elasticity of the market in every direction.


Elasticity: Google can’t tell the full storyElasticity estimates assume complacent competitors.


What keywords are more or less elastic?

Think about how keyword elasticity impacts your optimization strategy.

If a keyword is inelastic, less reason to move to improve:

a) Quality score / CTRb) Conversion rate

Sure more conversion would be great but if it doesn’t have the multiplier effect of higher position, might be best to focus elsewhere.


Is your bid management “hooked up” correctly?

Many bid management / campaigns management platforms “make it easy” - use your GA tags to communicate conversion rate by keyword.

Remember that averages don’t reflect reality.


SEM and the Buying CycleCampaign Goals and Objectives should line up with the profile of the searcher. Some people also classify the keywords based on commercial intent (how interested in commerce are the searchers?) Problem with letting Google run the bids for you.


Microconversions - Avinash Kaushik

Which of these apply to you? What value?• E-mail Newsletter Registrations•Visits To The Contact Us Page •Phone Calls •Deep Navigation from the landing page•Facebook Likes or Apps Twitter Follows / Tweets•LinkedIn Share (particularly for B2B)•Google G+ Engagement

Will management give you credit for these? Sell them on it. (It will empower your marketing)


Sort by different variables. Top Down or Bottom Up

Top Down within Geo-Analytics too


- Average conversion rate: 1.5%

- New York City DMA conversion rate: 2.1%

→ You can bid over 25% more for NYC DMA clicks.

Geotargeting: Conversion Rate

Differences


Geotargeting: higher spenders

Las Vegas DMA shopping cart: $178

Average shopping cart: $122

→ you can bid 45%+ more for Vegas metro clicks.


Geotargeting: higher LTVChicago DMA customers from search order more often and for more years

Average number of orders over 3-years: 10

Chicago DMA number of orders over 3-years: 15

→ you can bid 50% more CHI


B-to-B? Can you Predict Lead Quality?

What targetable variables predict lead quality?


Have enough budget and time? Split the country (or other geography) • Raise spending in some areas but keep control groups• The bigger the spend the less time you’ll need for data• Watch for increases in brand search impression counts• Watch for increased CTR on brand and category ads• Re-normalize the geographies • Repeat switching the on and off geographies to be able to validate both lift and decay.Was there Brand lift, Quality Score lift?

Assist KW or Mobile Assist - Prove it! Interaction Test - Mini Mix Model


If you’ll be repeating an analysis a lot: • Check to see if you can do the optimization with an

AdWords script (lots of preexisting ones).• Check with your bid management platform to see what

they facilitate.• Ask your agency if they have a solution (although for

many of these best practices, I’d hope they proactively are doing them.)

How do you do all this


The POWER SEGMENT:A Perfect Storm of large, divergent Segments.


SEO: You need the right site strategy

There’s a major algorithmic shift happening at Google and the other engines. To achieve a strategy that works for immediate results and future ranking requires that we understand the rapid evolution of the algorithms.So, I’ve highlighted the collective wisdom of the industry, from Google to Moz.


SEO is a MeritocracyDon’t expect to rank / positions you don’t deserve. Search engines are on a mission.Find the SEO “white space”


Before Delving Into Specific Recommendations

There’s a major algorithmic shift happening at Google and the other engines. To win now and also get future ranking requires understanding the evolution of the algorithms PLUS things that haven’t changed.

So, I’ve highlighted the collective wisdom of the industry, from Google & SearchEngineLand to Moz.


SEO is Chemistry meets CookingMostly science with a bit of art (SearchEngineLand periodic SEO chart)


Goog/Bing decided

links > contentI doubt Rand’s %

could be that accurate

Courtesy: Rand Fishkin, Wizard of Moz


From Language, Comes Intent. Not Just Keywords


Comingling of data sources. Beyond universal search

Google has separate databases for images, news, videos, etc. That’s universal search.But they have gone beyond that to use shema and other data to understand the relationships between the data sources.


When Does Freshness Matter? Google Knows!


Google Imputes Likely Intent


Google admits to using Machine Learning for Image Recognition & Classification


Machine Learning in Image Recognition & Classification

Via Jeff Dean’s Slides on Deep Learning; a Must Read for SEOs

http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en/us/people/jeff/CIKM-keynote-Nov2014.pdf


ML in Image Recognition Emotion/Behavior


“Watson” Style Learning:

Via: IBM PPT on Slideshare


Google’s RankBrain is taking over.

Google’s RankBrain


No Human Will Know Why Something RanksMetrics Drive The Algo

Long to Short Click Ratio Relative CTR vs. Other Results

Rate of Searchers Conducting Additional, Related Searches

Metrics of User Engagement on the Page

Metrics of User Engagement Across the Domain

Sharing/Amplifcation Rate vs. Other Results


Still need the old ranking inputs

There are two major classes of factors:On-The-Page: factors that are largely within the control of site ownersOff-The-Page: factors are influenced often by others or not directly tied to a site

Within these two classes are seven categories of factors, which are:Content – factors relating to the content and quality of your materialArchitecture – factors about your overall site functionalityHTML – factors specific to web pagesTrust – factors related to how trustworthy & authoritative a site seems to beLinks – factors related to how links impact rankingsPersonal – factors about how personalized search results influence rankingsSocial – factors on how social recommendations impact rankings


Layer in Searcher Behavior Outputs

• Visits (search, direct and other)• Time on site• Bounce rate• Pageviews per session• Sharing via Gmail?• Repeat visits


Classic On-Site SEO(ranking inputs)

New On-Site SEO(searcher outputs) via Moz

Keyword Targeting Relative CTR

Short vs. Long-Click

Content Gap Fulfillment

Amplification & Loyalty

Task Completion Success

Quality & Uniqueness

Crawl/Bot Friendly

Snippet Optimization

UX / Multi-Device


Get your CTR up, your position will rise

A click (and low bounce) is a signal of relevance. So, get your CTR up.

Via Philip Petrescu on Moz

So, is this why sites that get more site traffic rank higher?Causation and correlation aren’t the same ;-)

https://moz.com/blog/google-organic-click-through-rates-in-2014




Every Element Counts (Inspired by Moz)

Is the title compelling? Is the URL aligned?Is your domain relevant

Did you get organic sitelinks?

Does the description support action &

relevance?

Brand dropdown?


Why does social activity predict SEO success?

Google is clearly looking for things it can see that correlate with social media metrics, if not the social data directly:

• Dwell time• Bounce rate• Deeper navigation from the landing page• Email data (look for shared links in Gmail?)• Google G+ Engagement

Will management give you credit for these? Sell them on it. (It will empower your marketing)


Google doesn’t use raw social shares as a

ranking input.We share based on

publisher and headline.

Via Chartbeat

http://time.com/12933/what-you-think-you-know-about-the-web-is-wrong/


Google Could Be Using a Lot of Other Metrics/Sources to Get Data That Mimics Social Shares. From Moz

Clickstream (from Chrome/Android)

Engagement (from Chrome/Android)

Branded Queries (from Search)

Navigational Queries (from Search)

Rate of Link Growth (from Crawl)


Buzz Index: Social Engagement Per 1,000 Visits


Return Visitor Ratio Over Time

Total Visitor Sessions

÷

# of Returning Visitors


Knowing What Makes Our Audience (particularly influencers) Share is Essential

From an analysis of the 10,000 pieces of content receiving the most social shares on the web by Buzzsumo.

http://okdork.com/2014/04/21/why-content-goes-viral-what-analyzing-100-millions-articles-taught-us/




Keyword Targeting Relative CTR

Short vs. Long-Click

Content Gap Fulfillment

Amplify & Return Rates

Task Completion Success

Quality & Uniqueness

Crawl/Bot Friendly

Snippet Optimization

UX / Multi-Device

Engines People


From Theory to Strategy

How do we create great content that humans love enough to send Google and the other engines the ranking signals that the AI will react to?How do we continue to double down on the ranking actors that while less important in the future are still important now? Links in particular are still tie-breakers.


Departments Can Lend a Hand

SEO isn’t purely a marketing function.Other departments have information that makes for great content and relationships that help SEO.The key is having the right strategy.


Where should content live?

SEO may be superior when content “lives” elsewhere.• LinkedIn• Medium• Industry Magazines• Influencer Blogs• Op-Ed pieces


Content & Profiles for Reputation Management

Reputation management problem for company or exec name?• LinkedIn• Twitter• Facebook• Medium• Industry Magazines• Influencer Blogs• Op-Ed pieces


Department List

Some departments may be able to help SEO with little additional effort on their part.

1. Buyers / Supply Chain2. HR3. Talent Relations4. Store / Store Managers5. Facilities / Real Estate6. Customer Service7. Product Development

8. IT9. Public Relations10. Purchasing (non resale)11. Investor Relations12. Operations10. Marketing


Explore Ideas

Each department may be able to move the ranking needle in very different ways. By understanding Google’s current and likely future algos, we can brainstorm. How can the department contribute to:a) Delighting customers / UX (online and off)b) Creating contentc) Driving links and other ranking signals


Supply Chain

Who is your supply chain?

Links does it also help them if they link to you?

Hosting your co-created content?

Are they influencers? Or socially active?


HRLinks: Job board links aren’t worth much. Links from a recruiter are & if you let the recruiter mention you, get a link.

Content: HR can facilitate creation of content by staff outside the marketing department. Have a system to steward that content and reward creators.

Buzz: Happy employees probably delight customers, create positive buzz.


Facilities / Real Estate

Links: Most stores have a landlord. Often a mall operator. Links from mall sites will strengthen both local SEO and overall.Content: Partner with malls to create content that delights customers. Use that content and get buzz and links.


Customer Service

Links: While customer service delighting customers might result in links, it’s more likely to generate positive buzz socially.

Content: Customer Service knows how customers are using products or services and the problems and challenges they face.


Public Relations

Links: Press release links are not seen as very valuable by search engines. However hard links from publishers or broadcasters are still valuable.

Content: That’s what PR does, tell stories and create content.

Buzz: Influencers of all types are being solicited by PR teams (internal and external)


Investor Relations

Links: Links from research reports, sites that list the ticker and company bio and investing press.

Content: There may be some content opportunities.


Marketing

Links: Links from agencies and all those providing marketing services including sign makers, printers.

Content: Agencies like to brag. They also create content for a living.

Buzz: Are they influencers?


SEO Conclusion

Strategic SEO requires initiatives driving quick results, plus assure future success.Sometimes a third party can:1. Do SEO training across the enterprise2. Facilitate and organize3. Help prioritize based on both SEO and non-SEO

value4. Provide continued strategic and tactical

guidance.


Conclusion

Stay Educated, best practices.Focus on the head of every data set.Use the right bid management technology and strategy.

Be a mad scientist, an inventor! I am ;-)

Search Marketing Master Class - Kevin Lee, Didit

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Transcript of Search Marketing Master Class - Kevin Lee, Didit