Managing Search Terms and Listings
Search terms and listings are the building blocks of a pay per click campaign. When performing a search, they are the words, terms or phrases that an Internet user types in to find a specific product or service. And, the right keywords make a product easier to find and can help an advertiser’s site get noticed on the net.
It is important to keep a competitive edge and focus on two main steps when running a search-based advertising campaign. The first step includes creating a campaign by effectively selecting search terms and creating powerful listings. (View complete articles on Selecting Search Terms and Creating Powerful Listings located on the Searchfeed.com website.) The second step is efficiently managing those search terms and listings to receive maximum ROI (Return on Investment) and high sales conversions from a search advertising campaign. When managing search your search campaign, consider placement, campaign components and maintenance, including the monitoring of the bid process for search terms.
Placement
An advertiser’s bid for a particular term determines the placement of sponsored search results in relation to competitors’ ads (i.e. first, second or third position). The placement can determine how many Internet visitors are exposed to an advertisement. Industry statistics indicate that listings near the top of the sponsored search results are more visible within search results. Therefore, search terms that are the most specific to your campaign should be placed within the top five bid positions. This includes all terms that are most relevant to your business, because terms with lower positions may not receive as much exposure.
Case in point, if a business sells green rubber pens, then they should bid for the top position on the term “green rubber pens.” For general terms, like “pens,” a top listing is not necessary because the term is too general. The business might receive traffic from Internet visitors performing general searches, not focused on a specific product to buy.
Advertisers should also aim to be in the top positions for their business’s branded terms. When a potential customer searches for a term related to the company and other product results are returned, a customer can loose trust in that brand. Specifically, if the term is the exact name of a company’s brand, ideally that company should be in the first position, and then distributors and dealers should be listed in the next positions. For example, if the company’s name is Mom and Pop’s Pens, the keywords should include the brand name “Mom and Pop’s Pens.” Bidding on branded terms can help you to sustain control of your brand and boost ROT (Return on Trust).
Analyzing Campaigns
Once keywords have been chosen and bids have been set, it is important to analyze a search-based advertising campaign frequently, and to gather information from industry trends to give you a competitive edge. A tracking URL can be used by advertisers to track and analyze campaigns to ensure the campaign has been properly estimated. For instance, a tracking URL can be used to track conversions and show how long an Internet user was on an advertiser’s site. Tracking URLs are also extremely beneficial because they allow advertisers to analyze logs, determine lead origination and determine conversion rates. They can also help to answer more elementary questions such as, “Am I using the right terms to advertise my website?” and “Are my current search terms directing traffic to my site?”
Some pay per click advertising firms do not provide tracking URLs, but recommend that the advertiser use a third party tracking URL. Some examples of a third party URL tracking company are GO TOAST, which offers exclusive conversion tracking tools and Rules Based Bidding™, and BidRank, which offers BidRank Analytics, a service that can be used to track clicks and analyze ROI across different search engines.
Campaign Maintenance
It is also important to monitor industry trends, constantly update bids, and refresh the actual URL and the listing. If possible, updating bids should be a daily task, but if that is not possible, aim for at least once a week. Many pay per click advertising firms have free bid manager tools, which automate the bid updating process providing an added campaign service.
For example, Searchfeed.com offers advertisers a bid maintenance tool that allows for multiple keyword bids to be changed simultaneously, helping ensure the best ranking. The search advertising firm’s Position Maintenance Tool ensures top position for campaign listings and helps to eliminate bid gaps. By using the tool, an advertiser's listing will always remain $0.01 above the second position regardless of whether the bid value increases or decreases. For example, if an advertiser selects a maximum bid of $0.25 and the current bid value is $0.14, his or her listing will be posted at $0.15. FindWhat.com, another pay per click search-advertising firm offers a similar BidOptimizer™ tool. This tool allows advertisers to optimize keyword bid prices to the position of their choice as long as obtaining the position doesn’t exceed the maximum bid value. Using these tools and automating the bidding process can help advertisers to avoid overspending.
Conclusion and Quick Tips
In conclusion, it is important to efficiently manage pay per click campaigns and consider a search term’s placement, campaign components and maintenance. This includes monitoring ranking, using a tracking URL and updating bid amounts.
For a brief point of reference, use the following tips as a guideline for a more successful search advertising campaign:
Search Term Quick Tips
Managing Terms
1. Top ranking for important search terms
2. Tracking URLs to help analyze the campaign
3. Update your bids daily
Tiffany Guarnaccia
Searchfeed.com Corporate Communications
http://www.searchfeed.com/
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