Adaptive & Versatile Paid Search Strategies
Posted: August 4th, 2008
Many long hours can go into the research, development, and implementation of a paid search campaign, but for a pay per click strategy to stay successful, it must be both versatile and adaptive. Change is an inevitable circumstance when it comes to the Internet, and as search marketers we need to embrace it with an open mind and agile tactics. Now, how can we embody these ideals into our paid search campaigns?
(I was considering using a picture of a chameleon for this post, but have opted to go with a Team Canada reversible basketball jersey instead.)
Redefining Goals & Objectives
Our initial set of goals and objectives may have been perfect during their conceptions, but the precarious nature of the web and its users encourages us to redefine these goals from time to time. Surely our overall objectives will remain the same, however, there’s room for slight adaptations or clearer definitions of our objectives.
As an example, perhaps the growth in rich media content has led SEP to publish video posts on SearchEnginePanel.com to replace textual content. Our metric for defining success should then shift from “average time spent on a page” to “video impressions.” The average time spent would undoubtedly decrease since less time is required to watch a video than to read an entire post. In contrast, the number of times our video is played more accurately measures our success.
Pay Per Click Experimentation
It is also important to remain adaptive and versatile by experimenting and analyzing the trade-off between PPC ad position and ROI. Being listed first for a given keyword might seem great at first, but how much more are we being charged per click, and how is it affecting our paid search campaigns as a whole? Test with different keyword budgets and measure the quantity and quality of search traffic being received. You might even find that a second page listing has the increasing returns to scale you’re looking for.
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