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B2BM
April 2009
42
Digital
≤
Go to www.b2bm.biz/digital
DIGITAL MASTERCLASS:
Seek and ye shall find
Craig Lister, search director at paid search specialist agency Jellyfish, offers advice on
how to optimise search engine traffic to make the most of cost per acquisition
B
oosting search engine traffic is a comprehensive list of terms associated with
non-intrusive method of online your brand, including negative words and
marketing. Search is unique in phrases, and revisit them constantly with
tapping into a user at the exact insight tools to remove poorly performing
moment they are seeking a words or add new ones.
solution, so traffic originates from a
voluntary, or ‘opt-in’, audience. Laying the foundations
The tangible nature of pay-per-click The building blocks of an effective
(PPC) marketing also provides the campaign can be broadly constructed
marketer with an opportunity to generate under five main headings:
acquisitions (sales, leads, enquiries) in 1. Campaign structure. Technology
volume, at a fixed cost per acquisition platforms can take care of technical
(CPA). This ensures the campaign can be necessities such as ad group naming
self-financing and more scalable. conventions and set the overall structure
Search marketing is one of the fastest- for your search initiative.
growing media, with advertiser spend rising 2. Ad copy writing. Seed your keywords
29 per cent year-on-year in the first six within copy, along with a call-to-action.
months of 2008 (source: E-consultancy). 3. Campaign site development. Create
To achieve a fixed CPA with a high volume specific campaign landing pages to
of acquisitions, it is imperative to have a deep influence the success of a drive.
This diagram illustrates how campaign
understanding of campaign metrics – how 4. Destination URL allocation. Ensure you
elements interact to affect the price of a click
they interrelate and how they can be offer links to the most relevant part of
positively manipulated to boost efficiency. your site. the volume of acquisitions. For example,
5. Launch bid strategy. Determine initial Jellyfish has developed the Metrics Tree
Value judgment value for brand and generic keywords, and (pictured) to help clients understand how
Any business running a search campaign monitor them to promote the ones that campaigns are run. Know how elements
must think carefully about CPA and perform best. such as keywords in ad copy, landing page
establish the value of leads, users and destinations and keyword bidding strategies
direct sales. Without a clear CPA, campaign Best impressions: Affecting the metrics affect each other, and then it is possible to
metrics such as cost per click (CPC) are There are many campaign elements you manipulate page impression levels, average
meaningless. If you don’t know what an need to monitor to manage the campaign costs per click, click-through rates and
individual is worth to your business, how within the agreed CPA, whilst maximising ultimately optimise conversion.
can you work out what you should be Agencies that first used CPA models
paying an agency every time a searcher
What to watch out for
almost a decade ago have honed this option
clicks on your URL? By knowing the value, for clients and developed sophisticated
clients can set their agency a clear CPA fee Budget burn – it’s easy to spend your techniques to understand the sales funnel,
for closing the deal. budget quickly if you don’t have the discovering what works and what doesn’t.
correct campaign structure and strategy. All business marketers are coming
Keywords are key CPA helps avoid this problem. under increasing pressure from their
With the rise of social networks, links that Underperforming keywords – these can boardrooms to prove the communication
appear on natural search rankings can be affect the overall costs of your campaign. channels they choose offer the best
subjective and unreliable. Conversely, Unnecessary SEO – if you use a dual possible return on investment. There is
because of the rigorous metrics and ranking search strategy, check whether you more to how much a click should cost and
systems involved, paid-for links must work appear as far up the natural listings as what value it brings than initially meets the
hard to be reliable enough to reach the top. you would like. eye. Knowing how to set the correct CPA is
Keyword development tools on their own Additional information – tell your agency the foundation to running successful
are not enough; businesses need to know if any new product, service or web search campaigns, which will ultimately
how their target audiences are likely to redesign needs attention when building deliver customers and boost your
search, and this is where an agency can add keyword ad groups. business’s bottom line.
value. The agency should help create a craig.lister@jellyfish.co.uk
B2BM APRIL 09 – www.b2bm.biz
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