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Archive for the 'PPC' Category
Oct
26
2010
Did you know that the top position in the paid search results can increase your click-through and conversion volumes exponentially?
This report, based on research by one of First Rate’s Senior Consultants Stephane Bottine, draws on intelligence from over 1,000,000 Google searches across 10 large search engine marketing campaigns to shed light on the relationship between ad position and click-through rate.
Why Ad Position Matters
It’s common knowledge that ads appearing in the highest paid positions usually experience a higher click-through rate (CTR). However, surprisingly little research has been published on this subject. Few people know how fast CTR falls for ads that appear lower down the page, or even what the distribution of CTR is across ads beyond their own campaigns.
In an industry first, First Rate has conducted research using the paid search accounts of ten of its clients. Our research reveals that ads showing in position #1 experienced an average CTR of 17%. In other words, an advertiser can expect to attract 17 clicks for every 100 impressions when the ad appears in the top spot. Ads that showed in position #2 also drew significant attention, with an average 13% CTR recorded over the period. Interestingly, click-through rates flattened across positions 4 to 7, before tailing off.
This has produced some interesting insights:
- If an advertiser is appearing in position #4 and the bid is reduced, can CTR be maintained even at a lower paid position? Our research suggests that this is possible.
- If an advertiser is appearing in position #3, then how big an increase in CTR could they secure by lifting their paid ad position? Our research suggests ads in position #1 experience more than double the CTR of ads in position #3.
The Long-tail Generates Higher CTR
Ad position is only one the factors that influences click-through rates. Other factors include the relevance of your ad to the search query, the number of competing ads, and the quality of organic search results.
Our research shows that long-tail search queries experience substantially higher click-through rates. This result holds true across all paid ad positions. For example, ads appearing in position #1 can record an average CTR of 32% for long-tail searches featuring 4 words and more. Conversely, the same ad can attract up to 12% CTR for short-tail searches featuring up to 3 words.
Short-Tail vs Long-Tail Searches
Short-tail searches on non-brand keywords typically occur in the early stages of the buying cycle, when people are driven by informational needs. Longer tail searches arise further down the buying cycle, when people are likely to pay more attention to ads and convert.
First Rate research indicates that 3-word searches compose 30% of all searches. Long-tail queries featuring 4 words or more account for 58% of all searches.
Interestingly, few marketing managers know how to successfully capture long-tail searches through paid search campaigns, preferring instead to bid on short-tail, high-volume phrases. Based on this research, they would do well to expand their search campaigns beyond the short-tail, with a campaign and ad group structure that capture medium- to long-tail searches.
How to Reach the #1 Paid Spot
Appearing in the top spots above organic search results can have a transformational impact on your Internet marketing campaigns. If your focus is on brand-building, a top position will help grow your impression share and increase brand awareness.
If, however, your focus is on conversions, a top position will maximize traffic to your landing page and grow your bottom line, as long as you have struck a balance between your cost per acquisition and revenue per conversion. Importantly, if the incremental cost of bidding to the top ad position is not offset by a higher conversion rate, you could end up blowing out your CPA, making the achievement a hollow one.
Advertisers often ask us how they can target the top placements above search results. For any given search, AdWords opens these positions to the highest ranking ads only if they meet a certain Quality Score and CPC bid threshold. Reaching out to long-tail queries with compelling ad text is one of the ways you could get there.
Study Methodology
This study draws on actual search queries across 10 Google AdWords accounts managed by First Rate. Campaigns selected included advertisers from a broad range of categories, including insurance, banking and retail. Together, these campaigns accrued 1,299,969 impressions and 133,418 clicks on the Google Search Network between July 1st 2010 and September 30th 2010. Campaigns were primarily based in Australia. Importantly, brand searches for First Rate clients were excluded from the results, to remove the natural bias between brand searches and click-through rates.
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Oct
11
2010
In his last post, First Rate Head of Marketing and Business Development Tom Skotidas, discussed the topic of Conversion Rate Reinvestment and how this technique can provide an unfair advantage in SEM.
In this post he will discuss two important factors that can be used for conversion rate optimisation (CRO), the overall objective here is to increase the conversion rate of PPC landing pages:
“I won’t talk about the usual stuff, like creating a strong headline, making your offer compelling, or easy-to-complete forms. Of course these elements are critical, but I think we are all a bit tired of seeing these repeated over and over among the gurus.
What I want to give you right now, are two elements that are proven converters, but which I seldom see in landing pages.
Using FAQs on SEM Landing Pages
Go through 50 SEM landing pages and you probably won’t find more than 5 of them featuring FAQs.
Odd, isn’t it.
In real life, if a prospect had just been referred to you, would you try to close them on the spot without answering their questions or objections? Of course not. In fact doing so would either ruin the sales opportunity, or cause the prospect to politely say “I’ll think about it” and then run off to your competitors for comparison purposes. The latter scenario is especially common online, where comparison shopping is so easy.
Now I do understand that FAQs strike fear in the hearts of many landing page designers. FAQs are usually long-winded and boring, and these qualities are never good for conversion.
So how do you incorporate FAQs without compromising conversion rate?
A tactic that my agency, First Rate, often uses is called ‘Frontline FAQs’. We will sift through our clients’ customer service folders, or interview their customer service staff, to determine which questions and objections seem to occur at the highest frequency. Once we have worked out the top concerns (usually three to four), we then work with our clients to create short, interesting answers that satisfy each concern.
The idea is simple: by effectively answering their most common questions and objections, you will make your visitors feel that you “get” them. This will keep your visitors on your landing page longer (i.e. reduce your bounce rate), and make them feel a lot better about taking the next step (i.e. increase your conversion rate).
Call it, ‘Landing Page Aikido’.
Trust Credentials Support Landing Pages
As surprised as I am at the lack of FAQs in SEM landing pages, I am even more surprised when I don’t see a company’s trust credentials.
Trust credentials are pieces of evidence that make a visitor to a landing page believe that the company behind the landing page is real, unique, and will deliver on its claims. These trust credentials are necessary to secure trust, and therefore propel the visitor to proceed (convert).
Here are some key trust credentials you can adopt to increase your landing page’s conversion rate:
- PR Mentions – If you have received positive PR online, make sure you include links to every mention, and code each link with an exciting statement (Tip: make the links pop-up into separate windows, to keep your visitors on your landing page).
- Awards – Include images and links to all public awards your company or product has won.
- Social Media Comments – If you have a Facebook or Twitter page, display them in your landing page. You can either provide your visitors with links to these pages, or stream your Facebook and Twitter comments into your landing page. (Tip: you can also answer certain FAQs by linking to social media posts made on your fan pages).
- Factoids (Did you know?) – You can use factoids to demonstrate several trust credentials; e.g. how many staff and/or offices you have, how long you have been in business, products your company has pioneered, your unique product preparation process, etc.
- Comparison Tables – If your product has features that your competitors’ products lack, then comparison tables can be a very powerful demonstration of your trust credentials. This tactic reduces your visitors’ need to compare other products and increases time spent reviewing your landing page. Please note however – this tactic can backfire, if your unique features are not highly valued by the market.
Maximise Conversion Rate to Dominate SEM
As mentioned in my last post, if you can steadily and progressively increase your landing page’s conversion rate, you can steadily and progressively increase your CPC bids.
Over time, your ability to increase your CPC bids (while offsetting this with your higher conversion rate), means you can outbid your competitors, increase your ad position, and dominate pay per click search marketing in your category.
All of this while maintaining your cost per sale.”
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Sep
22
2010
Google rolled out their new Google Instant interface in the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Russia around Thursday 9th September, stating:
Google Instant is a new search enhancement that shows results as you type. We are pushing the limits of our technology and infrastructure to help you get better search results, faster. Our key technical insight was that people type slowly, but read quickly, typically taking 300 milliseconds between keystrokes, but only 30 milliseconds (a tenth of the time!) to glance at another part of the page. This means that you can scan a results page while you type. The most obvious change is that you get to the right content much faster than before because you don’t have to finish typing your full search term, or even press “search.”
So, “search speed” is clearly one of the main benefits touted by Google.
The best way to see this new interface, is to access Google via this link (google.com) – then start searching: You will see the natural and paid search results change as you type.
Google Instant is expected to be rolled out in New Zealand and Australia eventually. At this stage no date has been set as yet for an AU/NZ release, however, Google has confirmed that new domains and languages will be added “over the next several months”.
The Benefits of Google Instant
The Google Instant microsite lists the following 3 key benefits:
- Faster Searches: By predicting your search and showing results before you finish typing, Google Instant can save 2-5 seconds per search.
- Smarter Predictions: Even when you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for, predictions help guide your search. The top prediction is shown in grey text directly in the search box, so you can stop typing as soon as you see what you need.
- Instant Results: Start typing and results appear right before your eyes. Until now, you had to type a full search term, hit return, and hope for the right results. Now results appear instantly as you type, helping you see where you’re headed, every step of the way.
First Rate has investigated this new search functionality and we have pulled together some insights in this blog.
Implications for Pay per Click Marketing
This is clearly a big change to Google’s search interface. But given that it’s “early days”, at this stage it’s near-impossible to predict the full impact. Here is what we know about AdWords so far:
It will change the way AdWords impressions are counted. In the past, an impression was an impression. Now, an impression occurs when:
- the user presses “enter” to finalise a search, or
- the user pauses on the current results for 3 or more seconds, or
- the user clicks on a result (paid or natural).
This will change the number of impressions, likely increasing the number and so decreasing click through rate. Overall, Google predicts better traffic quality as a result of Google Instant.
At this early stage, one shouldn’t be too concerned about this as all advertisers will be affected exactly the same way – so we would expect the effect to even out. Obviously we’ll be watching this one carefully.
Firstly, there is currently much debate whether Google Instant will increase, or indeed decrease, the focus on head terms – and whether it will reduce the diversity of the long tail. Frankly there aren’t as yet any clear answers, what we do know is that when Google Suggest was launched, long tail searches increased.
One side of the argument suggests that this change is likely going to increase the already heavy focus on the top natural and paid listings. If people keep refining their search until they see a result they like, why would they ever scroll to the bottom of the page? This makes SEO and a well-run Google AdWords campaign more important than ever.
But potentially Google Instant is good news for online marketers. We could speculate that overall an increase in search volumes will be observed, because:
- Search queries are now easier to trigger (no need to hit enter)
- By being instant, it will teach more users to modify their searches (i.e. to try multiple queries – searching more and clicking less)
The key question is: What effects will the increased search volumes have? One likely effect is increased discoverability (i.e. long tail search phrases) – users will more likely modify their searches to find exactly what they are looking for.
Secondly, there will be less need to target misspellings because Google’s “Did you know” feature is also happening on the fly now.
Thirdly, keyword selection will likely change a bit as well. For example, in the new interface, users are much more likely to type in “Sydney Hotels Reviews” than “Reviews Sydney Hotels”. We might see users’ orthographic typing behaviour change.
Before and After – Visits by Search Term Length
Nathan Safran’s analysis of 1 week of search traffic before and after Google Instant was switched on, shows that the distribution of traffic in terms of search term length is virtually identical.
The data is based on ten high traffic websites across multiple verticals for a total of 880,000 visits. Due to the sample size across different verticals, one can assume that any search behaviour observed is following a standard normal distribution.
Source: Conductor.com
So as far as search term length differences are concerned – it appears user behaviour has remained pretty much the same, at least for now. What this data obviously doesn’t show, is to what extent users will be modifying their search behaviour as they adapt to the new Google Instant search interface. We may well observe a difference in the search term length a couple of months from now.
Conclusion
At this time the best strategy is to “wait and see”.
Due to the fact that Google Instant has not yet been released in Australia and New Zealand, we are in a good position to continue observing overseas markets and adjust SEO and PPC tactics accordingly.
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Sep
20
2010
If that’s the sort of graph that gets your blood pumping you should probably apply for this position.
We are seeking candidates with an SEO focus or SEM focus, but ideally prefer cross skilled people. We are especially interested in consultants with a strong technical background. If you have a background in web development, JavaScript programming or software engineering, with experience in SEO / PPC / Analytics – we’d love to hear from you!
Reporting to the Consulting Team Leader, you will be working with a range of top clients, helping them achieve excellent online results.
Areas the consultant will be working in include:
- Providing strategic advice to clients on how to improve their search engine rankings
- Helping clients achieve their goals through link building and other creative optimisation techniques
- Developing and optimising PPC campaigns
- Interpreting and analysing analytics reports, especially Google Analytics
- Helping clients make the most out of their Google Analytics installations
- Implementing and managing conversion rate optimisation projects
- Implementing and optimising performance based advertising campaigns
The ideal candidate will have 2-3 years demonstrable experience in:
- Onsite SEO analysis
- Link building
- PPC (Google AdWords)
- Using Google Analytics
- Basic to intermediate web development skills including HTML, CSS, JavaScript and a server side language (PHP, ASP.NET, etc), as well as experience working with content management systems, shopping carts, and other database driven web applications
Ideally, the candidate will also have experience in:
- Complex configuration of Google Analytics (filters, etc)
- Experience in using Google Website Optimizer
- Working with shopping comparison engines and affiliates marketing networks
- Google GAP and GAIQ certified. Successful candidates will be assisted getting these qualifications if not already held
Why work for First Rate?
- Competitive package
- Young, geeky team in the CBD
- We don’t just work, we also have fun.
- A flat company structure where your voice can be heard
- Leading online marketing agency that is part of Australia’s leading digital group, Q Ltd. (ASX:QXQ)
- First Rate is a Google Analytics and AdWords parter, as well as a Yahoo Ambassador.
- We value and reward professionalism, excellence and results
- Commitment to career development and opportunity
- Smart company where you will learn and grow as much as you want to
To apply for the Online Marketing Consultant position (SEO / Google AdWords / Google Analytics), send your CV to nzjobs at firstrate dot co dot nz
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