ses chicago 2010 advanced paid search - by andrew goodman
DESCRIPTION
SES Chicago 2010: Andrew Goodman's slide deck from the ADVANCED PAID SEARCH TACTICS session. This session covered campaign expansion techniques, advanced ad testing, advanced auction theory, the proper use of relevant analytics reports, ideas for bid rules and campaign automation including automating the detection of PPC scam campaigns that can divert traffic away from the legitimate brand site and increase campaign costs.TRANSCRIPT
“You’re underthinking, dude”:Getting beyond the basics inPPC
SES Chicago OCTOBER 2010ANDREW GOODMAN
Outline:
1. Brain stuff2. Advanced ad testing3. New features4. New formats
Smart vs. rational
Why Smart People Can HaveStupid AdWords Accounts
“In effect, all animals are under stringent selection pressure to be as stupid as they can get away with.”Richerson & Boyd, Not by Genes Alone, 2005
Dysrationalia – term coined by Keith Stanovich, What Intelligence Tests Miss
The “wisdom of crowds” is just a popular way of expressing a pretty old idea in organization
science: RATIONAL OUTCOMES don’t immediately flow from the aptitudes of one
or two seemingly bright folks
Rules, or random? Transformyour routines.
Define “actionable”?
I have a dream
Your rules, your way: note 6 separate custom settings
Google AdWords Conversion Optimizer
The tight leash problem
What if you could program your Analytics software to look for high CPA’s on every conceivable segment, & scale back bids?
The bias would be against volumeYou’d punish randomly bad behaviorWouldn’t be patient enough to benefit from random goodness
Quality Score: Bare bones
Quality Score Promotes Relevance
Ad Position determined by AdRankAdRank = QS X Max Bid, by keywordQuality Scores recomputed each query,
each auctionMakes money for GoogleMakes search users happyNew accounts need to establish history
Dead Simple Takeaways (QS)
Many thorny problems with low Quality Score result from adding keywords that are “just off” the searcher’s true intent
Keyword tools can be misused like any other toolA real pro shapes and moulds keyword selection and account structure to maximize QS
Once the account is mature and generating healthy ROI, feel free to broaden out, seeking volume & trading off (some) relevancy
At this point Google’s “confidence level” in account is high
Ad testing for a prosperous future
© 2010, The Goodman Institute
What makes ads “work”? Multiple drivers of clickthrough and the art of “why”
Beautiful, wonderful ad (and how we got there)
Managing ads to ROI: CTR or CPO?
GENETIC FREAKS
Ad testing: finding the “double winner”
What is the “double winner”? The rare ad that pulls higher CTR’s without hurting ROI
In landing page testing, one of the only ways to hit on the “killer permutation” is to test many variations using multivariate testing
The same goes for ad copy testingMake the big wins firstMove to MV testingHighest possible CTR’s on ads are
paramount; affects all keyword CTR’s; and thus affects account-wide QS
Key steps towards better ads
Better campaign organization = tighter targeting (info scent)
A better ad is a higher-ROI ad? Or not!?Tests must be statistically significantFind initial triggers through A/B/C testsRecord hypotheses & results
Second stage: refinement (multivariate testing)
Keep focused on “double win” genetic freaksMaster the art of “why”
Multivariate Ad Testing SetupFor high volume accounts (manual version)
Quality Score BoosterCreate a micro promotion that boosts QS
Ordinary words like “plumber reviews” get pretty good QSSuper targeted event promos like “Toronto home show”
discounted tickets get very high CTR’s
Even if only a break-even proposition, do more of these to inexpensively “greenlight” entire account (no downside!)--
Account refinement musts
Networks – placements & exclusions
Search query report: exclusions & ideas
New features-Bid Simulator-Campaign Experiments-Remarketing
Understanding the Impact of Ad Position: Bid Simulator
AdWords Campaign ExperimentsYowza!
AdWords Campaign Experimentscont’d
Scenario: Pretty interested… but wandered off…
Remarketing drove the highest conversion rate and the lowest CPA for Nexus One Display Campaign
• Conversion rate for remarketing was 2.3x higher than the account average and CPA was 2.4x lower
• Display ads performed the best. Remarketing display had 3.2x higher conversion rate than the account average for display.
• Due to high performance, the team roughly tripled the remarketing budget in 3 months
Remarketing Case Study
Keepin’ em honest: PZ’s own studyClient in retail food productsInitial test: cautious; brand queries; 5 month testResult:
Conversion rate about half the conversion rate in that search ad group, which is *very high*Conversion rate much higher than avg. for display
Second test on more granular ad groupsConversion rate: 9%. Much higher than typical for display!CPA 80% lower than allowables for those groups!
Conclusion: “nagging effect” works for cart abandoners who still have medium-high intent – remarketing rocks!!
Thanks!@andrew_goodman