Tips and Tactics for Freshening Up Your Paid Search Campaigns

Christi J OlsonSr Manager, Online Partner Marketing

Breathing New Life Into A

Tired Paid Search Campaign

@ChristiJOlson #SMX #31B

Sometimes it can feel like you’re doing the same things,

over and over and over… and you’re not seeing results.

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Change your perspective, look at the opportunities ahead

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New Job

Old Campaign

Same Job

Same Old Campaign

Tired / Bored

Employees

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Many reasons why a campaign could use a refresher….


Signs that your campaigns might need a facelift…

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Year over Year performance is up…Everything is good, right?


If the market or your competitors are growing faster than

you….

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Ask the Search Engines about your Market Share, find out

why it is changing and what you can do about it.

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Your Market Share

Your

Competitors

Market Share


SO WHAT CAN YOU DO?

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Take a step back…

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Evaluate your campaigns as if you were a new employee or

an agency just taking over the campaigns.


Start with the basic marketing questions…

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AudienceValue Prop

Stage in Buying Cycle

Price


Start with the basic marketing questions…

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AudienceValue Prop

Stage in Buying Cycle

Price

Understand your customers:

• Create a customer profile

What makes your brand unique?

• Differentiating factors

Develop messaging to support your

price points.

Budget Mid-sized Luxury

Understand how to target users at

different stages in the buying cycle.

Awareness Research Purchase


Then dig into the specifics for Paid Search…

ALWAYS ROOM TO

OPTIMIZE & DO

SOMETHING NEW

Account Structure

Targeting

Ad Copy Betas

Testing

Bid Optimization

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When was the last time you….

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• evaluated your SEM campaign & ad group structure?

• reviewed or updated targeting (geo, language, ad targeting) options?

• checked your ad delivery options or your ad copy rotation options?

• managed lists for negative keywords and placements?

• tested new ad formats?

• developed a test plan for ad copy, landing pages, device targeting, etc?

• compared your SEM performance by device type to your overall sites device

performance?

• compared your SEM performance to SEO performance and see where you

overlap and where there are gaps?


Account Structure is always a work in progress.

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Develop a schema to organize your keywords.

Make it flexible so it can adapt and change over time.

* These are all examples, not actual BB account structure


Don’t accidently exclude 21% of the population via campaign

language settings.

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Are you only targeting English speakers in the US? You could miss out on 21% of US visitors.

US Census 2010; http://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/acs-22.pdf

English, 79%

21%

French, 3.5%

Spanish, 62%

German, 2% Russian, 2%

Chinese, 5%

All Other,

18%

Korean, 2%

Vietnamese, 2%

Tagalog, 3%

Italian, 1%

FIX: Create campaigns targeting foreign languages & multi-lingual keywords

2010 Census Data: Breakdown of Languages Spoken in US


Are you missing out on impressions due to Ad Delivery options?

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FIX:

• If you aren’t reaching your daily budget, adjust your ad delivery to accelerated delivery.

• Evaluate conversion data to see if Day Parting makes sense for specific campaigns.

Reduce bids during hours with little to no conversions.


Are you missing opportunities in Mobile traffic & Apps?

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• How does SEM compare to other Marketing

channels or the entire site?

• Are you under indexing in mobile traffic?

How to fix if mobile is under indexed:

• Increase your mobile bid modifier

• Start with best performing desktop

campaigns.

App Extensions & App Promotion Ads:

• Use App Extension to drive app downloads

and installs• Only one App Extension per text ad

• Use App Promotion Ads to promote your app

in similar apps


Are you not giving consumers the right options?

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Why use site links?

• Own more real estate on the search results page

• Cross sell products or highlight special promotions

• Help people find what they’re looking for

Take Advantage of:

• Scheduling features (State & End Dates, DOW, Time of

Day)

• Mobile specific site links


Do you have physical storefronts that you aren’t promoting?

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Why use Local Extensions?

• Help customers find your physical store locations

How to set up Local Extensions:

• Link your Google Places to your Adwords Account

• Add a location extension in campaign settings


What if the problem is you… or your employees?

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Take a closer look as to why….

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If it’s your team members or your direct employees…

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Provide opportunities to

CHANGE THINGS UP


If you’re the one that’s bored…

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Try to figure out what motivates and excites you…

Sometimes What

You Need

Is Change


Take what you know… Apply it to other marketing channels.

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This is what I manage today. It’s not SEM. I love SEM, but after 7 years I needed a different challenge.

Transferable Skills from SEM:

• Developing bidding algorithms

• Optimizing millions of unique items

• Competitive analysis

• A/B & Multivariate testing

• Landing page optimization

• Ad Copy & offer optimization

• Partner management

• Working on a cross functional team

And so much more…

Tips and Tactics for Freshening Up Your Paid Search Campaigns

Marketing

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