Category Archives: Search Marketing

SEO Success: Sign of a Healthy Corporate Culture

First published July 9, 2009 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

I’ve been working with companies on SEO for over a decade now, and there’s one thing I’ve noticed: all things being equal, healthy companies with great cultures seem to do much better in organic search results. And by organic success, I mean the good, white-hat, Matt Cutts-approved kind of success. I bet that if you found the companies that do well in organic search, you’d also find companies that Jim Collins (author of “Built to Last” and “Good to Great”) would be proud of. This correlation can’t be coincidence, so I’ve outlined some reasons why this might be so:

Flatter and more-responsive organizations. Working on SEO is like taking your Web site to the doctor: a good SEO consultant will tell you what you have to do, but the hard work is up to you. Companies that listen and respond will do better than companies that justify, finger-point and go on the defensive. Healthy companies look for ways to improve; dysfunctional companies offer reasons why improvement is impossible. Companies that refuse to do the heavy lifting required to whip their site into shape generally are equally negligent in other areas of their business.

Better communication channels. SEO is by nature a cross-functional exercise. It involves many different departments, all working together toward a common goal. This approach is well within the comfort zone of healthy organizations, but totally foreign to dysfunctional ones. An SEO initiative severely tests the communication and cooperative capabilities of an organization. It requires marketing, IT, product managers and often legal to all work together, and the faster they can do this, the more positive the results will be. SEO is not a one-shot tactic. In the most competitive categories, it’s a full-out and ongoing war. The companies that can respond and adapt quickly will win that war. The ones mired in bureaucracy and butt-covering will inevitably sink in the rankings.

Healthy community connections. The new era of digital communications requires companies to be engaged in an ongoing dialogue with their community of customers. Great companies do this instinctively. Bad companies put up huge corporate communication barricades, keeping the angry hordes at bay. Because much of this dialogue happens online, these dialogues tend to generate reams of content and links. Raving customers generate link love; angry customers generate link hate and reputation management problems. A company that can effectively engage in conversations with customers will find a natural lift in organic rankings is often the result.

Efficient execution habits. Companies that keep a clean house do better organically than companies that keep skeletons in the closet. Both approaches are symptomatic of the company’s overall approach to business. Highly effective companies constantly upgrade systems and infrastructure, both in their organizations and their online presence. They invest in best of breed tools and technology. And they are able to quickly prioritize and executive as the landscape shifts. Again, a clean technical online infrastructure makes SEO much, much easier.

Executives that “get it.” C-level executives who make SEO a priority realize that the marketing landscape is shifting quickly. They’ve been paying attention to customer behavioral trends and have committed to being proactive rather than reactive. This usually indicates well-placed intelligence gathering “antennae” and feedback loops. It also indicates an executive who isn’t hopelessly mired in “old-boy” thinking and outdated command and control management models.

Corporate pride. Content might not be the sole king anymore (SEO is more of an oligarchy now) but it’s still part of the ruling class. Great cultures tend to engender pride that naturally precipitates an explosion of content. People blog about where they work, people tweet and product managers enthuse verbosely about what they’re working on. All of this generates great, searchable content online.

Companies get the SEO rankings they deserve. I’m guessing that if you asked any SEO consultant in the world, they’ll tell you their favorite clients are the ones that are the easiest to work with: clients who listen, are proactive and for whom continual improvement is a religion. Based on what I’ve seen in the past decade, this attitude extends beyond the SEO team (indeed, it has to) and permeates the entire culture. There are those who game the system and gain undeserved rankings, but more and more, “organic” rankings are just that: rankings that come from the very nature of the company and how they conduct themselves in the marketplace.

A Tale of Two Houses

First published May 21, 2009 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

I have a difference of opinion with Gian Fulgoni, chairman of comScore. Actually, it’s not so much a difference as a question of context. He believes there’s room for more visual branding on the search results page. I believe this is a potentially dangerous area that has to be handled very carefully on the part of the engines.

This issue came up during the opening session of day two at the recent Search Insider Summit, when I posed a question  two different ways to the audience. First, I asked them, as marketers,  how many would like to see richer branding opportunities on the results page. Almost every hand went up. Then I asked them the same question, but this time as users. Some hands went down immediately. Many others wavered noticeably, as the paradigm shift exposed underlying hypocrisy. Others remained resolutely high on the idea.

The reason for the mixed reaction was that, for users, the ideal search experience depends on the context of the situation. Visually richer is not always better. There’s some subtle psychology at play here. So let’s explore it in a story.

It’s a Wonderful Day in the Neighborhood

Imagine we both live on the same street. In fact, we’re next-door neighbors. I travel a lot. I happen to know you might be thinking of taking a vacation this summer. So begins the story of My House and Your House:

Your House

In this story, the reason I travel a lot is because I’m a commissioned travel agent. I get paid if I book you on a trip somewhere. And you don’t know it, but I get paid a lot more if you go to Disney World. So every morning, I come over to your house and knock on your door wearing my Mickey Mouse ears, carrying in one hand a portable stereo blasting “When You Wish Upon a Star” and in the other a fistful of Disney travel brochures. Each day, I visit with a determination to book you on the next flight to Orlando.  Now, if Disney is in your travel plans, perhaps this isn’t as obnoxious as it sounds. But if two weeks in the Magic Kingdom sounds as appealing as the Bataan Death March, my neighborly welcome will wear a little thin. Sure, I got your attention, but you also listed your house for sale shortly after my visit.

My House

Now forget all of the above. This time, I travel a lot because I’m worldly, adventurous and wise. I’m also wonderfully informative. Over the backyard fence, you mentioned that you might be thinking of taking a vacation this summer. In neighborly fashion, I invited you over for a coffee and to ask me any questions about past trips I’ve taken, in case any of my previous destinations might be appealing. You take me up on the offer and ring my doorbell. We sit down and I ask, “So, any particular areas you’re thinking of visiting?”

“Hmmm, I’ve always dreamed of the Mediterranean. Perhaps the French or Italian Riviera?”

“Cinque Terra is wonderful, so is Nice, Cannes and Monaco, but don’t rule out Spain or Portugal. I’ve been to them all.”

A House Divided…

Think of your reaction, first in your house, then in mine. As you no doubt realized, your house represents typical advertising; my house is search.

And the context is different in subtle but important ways. That’s why it becomes dangerous when we start trying to combine the two. In my house, you’re engaged and curious. You’ll ask me what I love about Portugal, or why I didn’t recommend Cannes more enthusiastically.  And you’ll trust me more if you know you’re getting my objective opinion. After I know a little about your preferred destinations, you might be interested if I introduce you to my friend, the travel agent.  You would even find that helpful. You’re open to a sponsored message, as long as it’s relevant to your interests and fits into the rules of the overall experience.

All this gets to the context of my difference of opinion with Gian. Visual richness is appropriate if it’s relevant and welcome. It’s annoying if it’s intrusive. And that line would be in the control of the engines and the advertisers.

If I come to your house uninvited, my job is to convince you to open the door. But if you come to my house, my job is to inform and help. You came through the door on your own. The house we live in is a great place, but there are rules we have to live by. Otherwise, no one will come to visit us.

The Search Insider RFP Panel: Truer than You Know

First published May 14, 2009 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

Another Search Insider Summit is in the can. And one of the most interesting panels we had was the one put together by Aaron Goldman about the RFP process in search. Aaron picked up from where he, Steve Baldwin and Janel Landis left off in a string of columns talking about the frustration of RFPs and RFQs. Aaron posed the question of whether the RFP process was fundamentally broken to a balanced panel of clients (represented by  Olivier Lemaignen from Intuit and Tom Bombacino from Restaurant.com) and agencies (represented by Tom Kuthy from Resolution Media and Janel from SendTec).

It was a fascinating session. We heard from both sides about the challenge of finding the right search partner. Panel members said the RFP process was overly rigid and bureaucratic, an attempt to avoid risk that ended up putting agencies and marketers into an adversarial relationship right from the start. Tom Kuthy said he often refuses to play the game, either trying to change the rules to a more mutually enjoyable alternative or just picking up his ball and going home. On the client side, Olivier was sure that RFP stood for “Request for Pain.”  Surely, the panel agreed, there has to be a better way.

Where Have I Heard This Before?

I found the panel so enjoyable not because of Aaron’s able “steermanship” — although he was his usually engaging self — but because the stories of pain we heard rang so true to my past experience.

As luck would have it, Enquiro is midway through an extensive webinar and white paper series on organizational buying behavior. It caps off several months of research that involved talking to hundreds of B2B buyers about how they make purchase decisions. And what I heard on Friday afternoon at Captiva was exactly what we heard time after time from these people. B2B buying is a huge pain in the butt.

There’s a sales maxim that is often quoted: “People want to buy, but they don’t want to be sold.” While this is generally true, there’s an interesting variation in the B2B world, which, as vendors, we all live in: “B2B buyers definitely don’t want to be sold, they’re ambivalent about buying, and the only thing that really matters is covering their ass.”

Here’s the Rub

When we buy things for ourselves, there’s usually an element of risk, but also one of reward. Human decision-making balances the two against each other. And we do it by gut instinct. There’s often a degree of rational deliberation, but the engine that drives consumerism is emotion: the thrill of possession vs. the fear of loss. There is a yin and yang to most purchases that carry an element of pleasure. That is why we love to buy. But some purchases, like life insurance, carry no inherent reward. There’s only risk to consider. Buying life insurance is no one’s idea of fun.

Most B2B buying is like life insurance. There’s no reward side to the equation, only risk. If we make the wrong decision, we can lose our job. If we make the right decision, we don’t get a new car, or a TV, or even a new pair of shoes. We just get 10 tons of ball bearings, or a new search agency. Where the hell is the fun in that?  Avoiding risk is all there is to most B2B buying.

Buyers and Doers

Now, some people are occasionally thrilled about B2B purchases. These are the people that get to use the new equipment, or software. They’re the ones that get to work with the new search agency (fully staffed by exceptionally fun people), taking a huge burden off their shoulders. Surely there’s an element of reward in it for these people? Yes, and that’s why they almost never give the final OK to a purchase. They’re too highly motivated to buy, so somebody needs to apply the brakes. In our research, we call the people wanting to buy the “Doers” and the people applying the brakes the “Buyers.” It’s the Buyers who insist on the RFP process. As far as the Doers are concerned, RFPs are a waste of time.

Tom and Olivier were “Doers.” They had little time for the ass-covering pretense of RFPs. On the vendor side, no one likes an RFP. But what we were missing on Aaron’s panel was a “Buyer.” I’m pretty sure the procurement people at Intuit are in no great rush to scrap their RFP process.

Live from Captiva: The Digital Divide

First published May 7, 2009 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

Gian Fulgoni has a better view of the online landscape than most of us. As the chairman of comScore, he has access to a massive database that captures every click of online activity from over 2,000,000 panel members. So when it comes to spotting trends, Gian’s got a pretty good vantage point.

Online Branding for CPG

As you’re reading this, Gian’s probably giving the opening keynote at the Search Insider Summit  on Captiva Island in Florida. I’m not sure what Gian will be covering, but he did share a few slides with me and I’m sure they’ll make their way into his keynote.  They’re the results of a study that showed the relative effectiveness of online and television advertising in driving purchases of consumer packaged goods ranging from cookie mixes and pizza to toothpaste and deodorant.

Eighty-two percent of the online campaigns showed positive sales or unit lift, with an average lift of 18%. Further, short-term online campaigns matched the effective lift of long-term TV campaigns (9% lift with online, 8% with TV).

Consumers Don’t Differentiate, So Why Do Marketers?

What is interesting about the study to me is the artificial line we still tend to draw between online and offline marketing.  And when I say “we,”  I mean “we” the marketers, not “we” the people. The chasm between online and offline is slightly narrower than it was before, but I find true integrated marketing only exists in the sales hyperbole of agencies, with little evidence of it in the real world.  With the advertisers I’m familiar with, the online marketing department barely talks with the offline Marcom folks, let alone sits down with them to plan out an integrated strategy.

Consumers don’t do this. If a consumer is considering a purchase, she pursues the most effective means necessary to research the purchase. Offline awareness leads to online consideration. Online consideration leads to offline visits to a retail location. Offline visits can lead to online price checking. We as consumers jump back and forth across the digital divide with ease, yet for marketers, the chasm seems unbridgeable. Why is this?

Part of it is attitude. Traditional marketers ignored online until it was too late. Their tardiness left us digital folks free reign to set up shop, thinking it would be, at best, an incremental channel that would never threaten the main event. But now, just a few short years later, you’ve got studies like Gian’s coming out saying that online might just be as effective as TV in driving sales of potato chips and pop. Hard to fathom, but true.

Branding: One Search at a Time

Even more startling, lowly search seems to have some brand-building chops of its own, at least when measured at one critical consumer intersection, active consideration of a purchase. My company has done a number of studies for Google, in seven different product categories and markets from Australia to North America showing the brand lift of search. Guess what? Lowly search, described by some as the ValPak of online, consistently delivered brand lift numbers averaging in the double digits. And that was before consumers even got to where the real brand building happens, the manufacturer’s Web site. Just a search ad alone lifted brand awareness, brand affinity and likelihood to purchase. Not bad for a handful of words showing up somewhere on a results page.

I have no idea what the “buzz” of Captiva will be, but I suspect we’ll spend at least some time talking about this ridiculous divorce between online and offline. Ironically, it seems like the recession is finally bringing the two sides a little closer together. I don’t understand why we marketers are taking so long to get it. Buyers seemed to figure it out a long time ago.

Measuring Success After The Click

First published April 23, 2009 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

Avinash Kaushik speculates that Bounce Rate might be the sexiest Web metric ever. Scott Brinker has a whole blog dedicated to post-click marketing.  I believe it was Craig MacDonald at Covario who said bad landing pages are where good leads go to die. And I’ve been quoted as saying (categorically, no less) that the single most important thing we can do for the client happens after the search click.

Start Swimming Downstream

It always amazes me that search marketers spend huge amounts of time tweaking everything to do with the search page and very little time worrying about what happens downstream from it. It’s symptomatic of the siloed nature of search, a marketing practice that sits apart from other channels and the online user experience itself. Yet, what’s the point of a good search campaign if we end up dumping all those leads onto a poor Web site?

Perhaps the reason we don’t spend more time worrying about user experience is that it forces us to learn something about the user. You have to take responsibility for connecting the dots between intent and content, reading the user’s mind and trying to deliver what it is he or she is looking for. When it’s all said and done, maybe it’s easier just to worry about maximum costs per click or generating more link love.

But everything that matters starts with the search click rather than ends with it. That’s the first introduction to the prospect, the first opportunity to make a good impression. And from that moment on, the success of that blossoming relationship depends on the success of the user experience.

Post-Click Live at Captiva

 At the Captiva Island Search Insider Summit in a few weeks, we’ll actually be talking about the world of opportunity downstream from the click in a panel I’m very excited about. “After the Search Click” will be a live, clinical look at the success of the onsite experience. Enquiro is even bringing our eye tracking lab down so we can do some on-site testing and share the results with the group. The aforementioned Scott Brinker from Ion Interactive and Lance Loveday from Closed Loop Marketing join me. I’ve had the pleasure of sharing a stage with both of these gentlemen multiple times in the past.

Students of Human Nature

 To me, the immense gray area of the onsite experience has always been infinitely more interesting than the more black and white tactics of search marketing. For me, the latter is simply the means to an end, and the end requires you to be a student of human nature. For example, I’m fascinated by the subtle but distinct differences between how males scan a page and how females scan it.  Or the difference in behavior between those who grew up in the online world versus those who have adopted it and adapted to it as adults.  And if I showed you the heat map of a visitor who went to a Web site with one specific task in mind, as opposed to those who are just there to browse, the difference would astound you. But how often do we stop to think of these things as we put our search campaigns together? All too often, those leads are dumped on a generic home page or an anemic landing page with nary a scrap of relevance to be seen anywhere. Of course, even a good landing page is no guarantee of success. It’s just one more step to the end goal, a journey that could be cut short by poor site search tools, bad navigation or an overly inquisitive form.

I could make a blanket statement saying I see far more bad sites than good sites out there. But really, that’s not for me to say. The success of a site depends on the people using it and what their goals are. It should be a clean, well-lighted, well-labeled path.  I can say, as a frequent online user, it’s very rare that I’m impressed by a web experience. So in that regard, there’s much to be said still about improving the post-click experience. Join us for the discussion in a few weeks in Florida.

Google: Bad Behavior?

It seems that every time I’m getting ready to go on a family holiday, Google decides to up the game with personalization. Two years ago on the cusp of a spring getaway they announced default opt ins for search and web history. This time, they’re siddling up to behavioral targeting, courtesy of that same personal information. In the process, they’ve recanted much of what they’ve said about behavioral targeting over the past 2 years. I have always said that of course Google was going to go down the behavioral targeting road. Why else would they be collecting the data? The official line of making your search experience better didn’t hold much water.

I’m torn on the whole question of behavioral targeting. As a marketer, I appreciate the potential. BT was the tactic that marketers were most interested in according to the latest SEMPO Search Market Survey. But as a user, I’m profoundly disappointed in Google’s tip toeing around the issue. I think it shows a more fundamental issue at the heart of Google’s culture, which has been rearing it’s head more often as of late.

The disastrous economy has created a split personality within Google.It seems that Google, once the brash, idealistic young university student out to change the world is now being severely schooled in the more pragmatic ways of that world. Google is growing up, and I’m not sure we’ll like what it turns into. It’s double talking, pulling the bait and switch, sacrificing ideals for cash and sometimes outright lying. In short, it’s becoming just like every other company in the world. The company John Battelle wrote about in The Search is rapidly disappearing. In it’s place is an online juggernaut that seems intent on keeping advertisers happy. The one thing that always set Google apart was it’s respect for the user. If you read the official Google press release on this, the carrot for the user is more relevant ads. Okay,that’s a stretch of epic proportions. You’re tracking everything I do, based on a promise to make my search experience more useful. You know what? My search experience hasn’t changed too much in the last 2 years. I haven’t noticed a huge increase in relevancy. But now you’re using the information I volunteered, giving it to marketers so they can serve me more ads? That wasn’t part of the original bargain Google. You violated my trust. And you did it to keep more revenue rolling in.

Behavioral targeting of ads was inevitable. Everyone knew Google was going there. So why were they so righteous (and so dismissive of other BT providers) in saying that it just wasn’t a targeting approach they were going to take? Not cool, Google, not cool.

No Search is an Island

First published February 12, 2009 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

Today I am plagued by ambiguity. I’m happy and scared. Relieved and cautious. Excited and apprehensive. And it all has to do with search and how we use it. On one hand, I’m relieved that search seems to be the sole marketing channel that’s actually benefiting from the crushing economic pressure. On the other hand, I’m worried that we may be short-sighted in grabbing onto search as a life preserver in raging marketing waters.

Search: The Connector

My ambiguity comes from the unique nature of search. We consider search a marketing channel, and in recent times we’re treating it as such. But it’s not. Search is glue. Search is intent expressed. Search is a mirror of our dreams, objectives and fears. To treat search as a channel divorces it from its real role as an integral connector. And, as such, search is inextricable from not just the online world, but the offline one as well. Whatever happens, whenever it happens, it shows up in the search trends.

And therein lies the source of my internal turmoil. If you look at search as a marketing channel, the current move by advertisers down the funnel, driving towards more and more accountable advertising, is predictable and a good thing. Search is certainly effective and measurable. But if we look at search as the connecter between demand and fulfillment, there’s an inherent problem looming. As budgets dry up in creating awareness and eventually demand, search inventories will ultimately dry up as well.

Obsessive Optimization

I’ve talked to a few search marketers here at SMX West who are saying their clients are pushing them to drop generic terms and stick to branded ones because they convert better. Even as effective as search is, we can’t resist trying to pump conversion numbers even higher.

If advertisers are this obsessive about cutting all the fat from their marketing, it seems they’ve backed themselves to the very brink of a dangerous precipice. One more step and they’ll have reduced their marketing efforts to managing a paid search campaign for “I want to buy an Acme Widget online today and I have my credit card out.”

Everyone is focused on the thinnest possible slice at the bottom of the funnel, without worrying about priming the pump at the top. While it may bolster search revenues in the short term as budgets migrate in from all other channels, in the long term this shortsightedness will prove disastrous.

I believe there is a tremendous amount of optimization that has to happen across all marketing channels. I’m not saying that all budgets should stay put where they are. But I do worry about an obsessive focus on capturing late-stage demand, even if it is through search.

You have to develop your market and create awareness. Search doesn’t work if nothing is creating awareness. Those branded queries won’t suddenly materialize out of the ether. Marketers seem inclined to take huge pendulum swings in their approach, one minute tossing branding money around by the bucketful, and the next clamping down on anything that isn’t a sure conversion. There has to be a happy medium.

For Every Action…

Search is the last half of a cause-and-effect chain. If you just focus on the effect, sooner or later the cause will cease to exist. As search marketers, much as we gleefully accept the new budget flowing in from other channels, we have to understand the inherent integrated nature of search. If we accept the windfall in the short term, we’ll end up paying in the long term.

I’m personally thankful that search is the boat I’ve chosen to ride out this particular economic storm. There’s no place I’d rather be. But I think it’s naïve to ignore the macro effects that will impact search behavior. As I said before, whatever happens, wherever it happens, whenever it happens, it will be reflected in search. And as all other marketing channels begin to run dry because of budgeting cutbacks, that too will show in search trends.

Search Insider Summit: Day One

Good kick off to the Search Insider Summit in Park City, Utah..my killer head cold aside.

We started with a great conversation around the Obama campaign and it’s use of online. We had Ben Seslija from Clickable and Corina Constantin from Didit as informed observers, with Emily Williams, who worked on the campaign as director of online marketing. One of the recurring themes was that the campaign was really a ground swell movement, that was effectively captured because the Obama campaign had the foresight to provide the right tools. The brand that was Obama was not a top down strategy, but rather a cooperative effort that largely played itself out online.

From there, conversations at the summit progressed through analytics and engagement mapping, advanced SEO tactics and best practices at PPC. When I retreated to my room to down a few decongestants and catch up on email, several were already planning on meeting at the bar (Todd Friesen and Rand Fishkin planted a seed that needed little in the way of nurturing) to pick up several discussion threads. Richard Zwicky from Enquisite wrapped up the day with a somewhat radical suggestion that the SEO monetization model was badly broken and promised an answer was coming.

So..the official part of Day One is over. But I’m sure the conversations are still going on.

David vs. Goliath Brands on the Search Results Page

First published December 4, 2008 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

Last week, I talked about branding on the search page, effectively intercepting the user during consideration. Certainly if you’re a household brand name, you have to be at or near the top of searches for your product category if you want to defend your position in the prospect’s consideration scent. But what if you’re a new entry into the market or a relatively unknown brand. Can you still effectively play in the category? Yes, but you have to be smarter than your behemoth competitors. Fortunately, in most cases, that’s not too hard to do when it comes to search.

The Strategy: Play Broad, but Think Niche

First, it’s important to know the common behaviors of the searcher. We start at the top left and scan the results in the “Golden Triangle” first. Only after this will we look at the ads on the right. We look for relevance, based not just on the query we used, but the implicit labels we carry in our mind. We will start with the simplest query that we feel will yield acceptable results with the least amount of investment. And, we will click through on two or three results to compare the information scent on the landing pages. So, given this behavioral pattern, what can you do to catch the attention of prospects with broad generic queries?

First of all, you have to target your messaging with exquisite precision in the title of your ad. This is no mean feat, because the limit is 25 characters, including spaces. Each one of these characters is precious, because this is the part of your ad that will get read. At best, you’ll get spot scanning of your description (bonus hint, move your most important “hot button” words in your description so they’re in the line right under the title and near the front. And don’t be afraid to put prices in. They’re a disruption in the text-based pattern and so stand out to the eye).

Rule of thumb, start with the query (hit bolding of the query is an important relevancy cue) and then laser focus on the primary hot button for your niche target. Don’t be afraid to identify the target. If you’re on a broad category, but your target is B2B buyers, say so. If the differentiator is benefit, move it into the title. One example, laptops that are durable enough to stand the rigors of road warrior treatment: The query you’re bidding for could be “laptops,” but your title should be: “Rugged Laptops.” Because your brand is unknown to the prospect, don’t worry about putting it in the title.

Pick Your Spot

Secondly, in a broad category, you want to avoid unqualified clicks. So you’re going to have to move down the right rail, preferably targeting the #4 or #5 spot. Eye-tracking studies show that this spot gets decent visibility (because of how we move over to the right rail when we reach the bottom of the golden triangle) relative to the rest of the ads, yet doesn’t pull a lot of unqualified clicking. This position, together with your targeted message, stands a decent chance of catching the prospect’s eye without capturing ROI-deflating gratuitous clicking. The challenge will be fighting the tendency of Google’s quality score to push you off the first page of results.

Plan Your Tactics in Context

All too often in search, we plan our messaging without paying attention to the user context that leads to engagement. Your ad will be appearing together with a number of other ads and organic results on a search page. Users will be scanning through those ads and making their choice based on not just what your ad says, but what all the others do as well. Additionally, there will be at least a few clicks through to competitive landing pages. You’re going to have to plan your messaging relative to what your competition is doing. Do a query yourself and see what the landscape looks like, through the eyes of your prospect. What other choices are available? How effective is the landing page experience, again, with your prospect’s potential intent firmly in mind? If you adopt this mindset, you’ll be amazed at how the biggest brands in the business (any business, yours included) routinely fumble the ball when it comes to delivering what the prospect is looking for on the search page. Unfortunately, non-targeted messaging and irrelevant landing page experiences seem to be the rule rather than the exception. There’s plenty of room for smart search marketers on the average results page.

Measure, Test, Optimize and Repeat

If you’re playing in the high traffic but generic keyword space, devote a lot of time to testing and tweaking. Find optimum positions and wording. Carefully watch your ROAS metrics. Capture the micro-conversions. Be smarter than the competition and you’ll find that search page where you can pull off a victory, even when you’re faced with David vs. Goliath odds.

Brands on Search: Connecting during Consideration

First published November 20, 2008 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

Last week, I talked about what brand can’t do on the search results page. Today, I’d like to talk about one of the many things that brand can do on search.

If brands can’t build an emotional appeal on the results page, they can certainly reinforce their presence at just the right time. This was at the heart of our brand lift studies. Remember, we use search when our intent is squarely aligned with researching a purchase. We’re actively looking for information. And the appearance of brands can be a powerful influencer in these types of searches. Here are some of the surprising and not so surprising things we’ve found in our many brand lift studies:

There is brand lift that comes from dominating the top of page. The biggest question for our first study was, how valuable are those top-of-page slots? If you own the organic position, do you need to buy the top sponsored spot? Is there lift by owning both spots? The answer is yes, to both. The lift we saw in most metrics was well into double digits, significant for marketers. You gain a bigger share of mind when you own more top-of-page real estate. But that’s not all…

You lose brand awareness when you’re not there. For generic keywords, even if you have a strong brand in a category, if you’re not in a result set and your competitors are, your position of dominance will start to erode. In fact, we’ve seen people looking for dominant brands in a result set when they weren’t present, and their confidence in both the quality of the search results and the brand position started to erode. Often, it’s the biggest and strongest brands that are the least concerned about their search visibility. This arrogance could wipe them from the consideration set of many prospective buyers.

Competition on the results page is a good thing. If domination of a results page is good, total domination must be better, right? Well, no, actually. We found more engagement with the top-of-page results when there were a couple of well-known competitors, and engagement led to an overall lift in brand awareness for the test brand. The reason has to do with the intent of the user. If a user is launching a search looking for alternatives to consider in a purchase decision, a results set with only one brand isn’t a very good match to that intent. The user will spend less time considering it, because their confidence is lower. But a results set that brings back two or three well-known brands is a better match, resulting in more engagement. Of course, you’re now competing with those brands, so effective messaging, positioning and landing page strategies become more important. But you already knew that, right?

Top sponsored ads are read more. Top organic placement is a beautiful thing to have, but our studies have shown that people actually spend more time reading the top sponsored ad. This doesn’t make the top organic placement any less important. It’s a default choice for many users. But the fact is, people take the time to read the title of the top ad, just because it is an ad and people will spend more time deliberating before they click. People are less wary with an organic listing, so a quick glance is all that’s needed to click. Marketers can use this to their advantage to reinforce their marketing message in a top sponsored ad (often not an option with organic placement) and drive clicks to a tailored experience.

This covers the brand benefits of search for the well-known brands, the ones that jump out at you in a results set. But what if you aren’t fortunate enough to be a category killer brand? Can search still work for branding? The short answer is yes. The longer answer will have to wait until my next column.