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RSSJust this week, I was having this conversation. Twice, in fact. One of my pet peeves is an arbitrary allocation of budget to search, with no regard for the objectives of a cross-channel campaign. "We'll take this pile and give it to television. We'll take this slightly smaller pile and give it to print. Here's a small pile for online, and, oh, make sure you take a little bit of that and set it aside for search, because everyone's telling us we should be doing search." I guess I shouldn't be complaining. At least there's now a little bit left over for search, which is a vast improvement from where we were just a few years ago.
But what this approach does is force your search campaign to be managed to budget, rather than to overall objectives. So we see more restrictive targeting, movement down the tail into longer and more specific key phrases, day parting and flighting, geo targeting and other ways to slice and dice the campaign to get the best quality clicks from the budget available.
Now, there's nothing wrong with this. It's called campaign optimization. But it's often done to keep within an arbitrary budget cap that has no logical reason to exist. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Search dollars should be the first ones in, not the last. Take as much search inventory as you can get. Judge your costs per acquisition not against your top performing keywords, but against your other channels, both online and offline. If even the marginal search traffic is generating a lower CPA, beg, borrow and steal as much budget as you can and top up search. Only then should you move from "pull" (prospects holding up their hands to purchase through search) to "push" (trying to persuade latent prospects to purchase). Only put restrictions on your search campaign if you're absolutely certain that another channel can exceed its effectiveness.
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The Classic Brand Building Gambit
Sure, you say, but what about 'branding"? That's TV's domain. Well, I disagree. I think there's no better branding opportunity than deep engagement with a Web site from a qualified prospect. Again, this is someone well down the funnel who is considering his or her purchase options. And search drives these opportunities. Sure, TV, print and other channels can build brands, but I challenge anyone to prove to me that they build brands as cost-effectively as search driving Web site engagement. I've yet to see a study that shows that. I've seen several that show search blowing away other channels, including the CPG study I wrote about last week. Brand-build with prospects that are ready to buy first, then build with the "maybe, someday" crowd with what's left over.
So, why is it such a struggle to get search on the horizon of big agencies and advertisers? I've come to the conclusion that search is being held back by four things:
Search is small. Advertisers and agencies like to think big. They like big, bold ideas. Killer campaigns. Knock-your-socks-off creative. Search is none of those things. Search is thousands of micro-niche campaigns. Search is granular and gritty. Search is turning a whole bunch of dials and pulling a lot of levers, to squeeze out new customers a few at a time. You can't "unveil" a new search campaign, like snatching a sheet off a sculpture. Launching a search campaign is more like putting a million grains of sand into a bucket, one spoonful at a time. That's not a concept that "brilliant" advertising minds can get fired up about.
Search is measurable. You can measure the hell out of search. You can hold everyone accountable. You can demand to know who screwed up the campaign because your ROI dropped 10 points. That can cause a lot of red faces round the ol' agency conference table.
Search is hard. Because search is granular, search is hard. It takes a lot of work to squeeze out an impressive bottom line. And the harder you work, the more impressive that bottom line will be. You'll never hit a search home run with one inspired brainstorm. There is no golden concept. You just keep plugging away, tweaking keywords and pulling in prospects. Agencies and big advertisers are looking for that single perfect run down the mountain, with fresh powder and the sun shining. Search is more like cross-country skiing up the mountain.
Search is utilitarian. Search is constantly accused of not being sexy. That drives me nuts. The irony is that in pigeonholing search as being boring and utilitarian, all these brilliant advertising minds are missing the biggest idea of all: search works because it's the customer driving the process, not the advertiser. All you have to do is a half decent job of meeting them halfway. Some say it's that lack of control that scares the bejeebers out of agencies and brand marketers. To be fair, I don't think that's always true. I just think that search just doesn't get the juices going in the average marketer. It may not be that they're scared; it may just be that they're bored.
And for all these reasons, I don't think big agencies will ever truly get search. It's too much of a cultural mismatch for them. They'll bring search in-house, but they'll silo it off, in a back room, far from the playground which is really where everyone wants to be, cranking out killer creative for the next TV campaign.
It's just too bad that those TV ads won't work very well. At least, not when you compare them to search
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Thanks also for your comments about our own agency web site - I'm a bit embarrassed to say that we often pay much more attention to our clients' Web assets than our own. Such is common in my industry, but it really shouldn't be and we plan on doing a better job of merchandising the good work that we do for our clients by doing just as good work on our own site in '08.
Cheers...
I mean, for goodness sake, type "laptop" into Google . . . where is Dell, Apple and the rest of the gang in the search results. I think you'd almost have to TRY to make one of those sites NOT show up for "laptop". I can understand, i guess, Michael Dell not "getting" search. He's smart, but more of an old school business guy . . . but Steve Jobs, really?
Sadly, I think one of the most telling examples is that our hometown "big agency", GSD&M, has a search impenetrable flash site (even our interns know better), and recently posted a job listing for a head online creative that required an incredible amount of experience, paid search included, but not a SINGLE mention of organic search.
Mike, at least you guys have some text nav in the footer, but would you PLEASE put in some relevant anchor text, a deep link or even a link to a sitemap? How about name your pages relevantly and double up the press releases in more a searchable format than pdf? Oh, and there's a couple things you guys are doing that you should seriously reconsider. I'm not going to throw you under the bus here because I'm sure it's just an oversight, but even inadvertent TOS violations such as yours can get you banned from search engines. I'm truly sorry, I don't mean to pick on you. You seem very sharp, and the website is very pretty, it's just that these are some very blatant examples of "not getting search".
Walmart.com, Target.com and all other huge.com's should easily show up for every SKU they carry in organic search results. They have the content, they have the page rank, I'm sure they could acquire the knowledge . . . I think maybe they just, as this article suggests, don't get search.
- Nick http://nsaconsult.com/
I wanted to take 5 minutes to comment on your article. I would like to say that I think most of it is spot on! I think you have summarised all the issues that are preventing traditional media agencies to "get" Search.
What you absolutely get right for me is the fact that Search is not seen as Sexy - this exact sentence, "Search IS sexy!" is exactly what I am trying to convey to my non-Search colleagues on a daily basis.
Unlike you, however, I am a little more positive and I think there is hope for agencies to get it. Several reasons for my optimism:
1. From what I have seen, Media planners in agencies are keen to learn and really use whatever channels is the most likely to deliver the best results for their clients. It is only a question of proving to them that Search can do the job.
2. Most often than not, planners know that DR and Brand campaigns can be approached very differently. They know that online and Search in particular are the most effective channels for DR. From a DR perspective, I think it is already quite easy for Search to get the lion's share of budget since it is so accountable and therefore it is quite easy to prove it works better than anything else.
3. Media agencies having access to all cross channel data (online, Search and offline), they are in a better position than anyone to analyse how Search contributes or complement other channels to build brand. Eventually, they will learn how to systematically look at cross channel optimisation and the role of Search will come more obvious to them.
In my views, the key issue to progress is the fact that Search marketeers (myself first!) are not talking the same language as offline specialists. Where we talk about impression, clicks, CTR, sales, ROI and CPA and monitor those on a daily basis, our offline counterparts are talking Brand Index, Reach, frequency, demographic, etc..
How can Search marketeers talk and convince planners, more often coming from an offline background, without talking in a language and with KPIs they understand? Especially when it comes to using Search for Branding..
As it matures, I think this is the -key- issue the Search industry needs to tackle. Finding a common language that can link Search to planning other channels effectively. Especially if we want to make sure that large mostly offline advertisers -from the FMCG sector in particular- finally put Search on the plan.
Laurent Boninfante
Looking forward to picking this up again in person...take care
Absolutely let's continue the discussion, and I think that's the important key here..by posting your comment, you've made this a discussion (I'm not too worried about offending, but I do try to be open minded (double wink))..
I'm sure there are a few agencies out there that are trying to get search, but you're the exception, not the rule. I love that you're passionate enough about it to include a comment that appears to be longer than my original column.
Absolutely TV and other media are needed to introduce prospects to new products. But come on, let's be honest. How many TV dollars are budgeted for that purpose? The vast majority are budgeted not to introduce and inform, but to wear us down into consumer surrender. Look at 24 hours of TV and tell me how many ads you see for a product you were unaware of.
I'm not saying TV is bad, I'm saying there's a hugely disproportionate share of budget going to it (and other traditional channels) that could be more effectively spent on search and other customer initiated channels. Spend on TV, but make sure you maximize search first.
By your post, it's obvious you've taken a sophisticated approach to search. Congratulations. And you've fought against the inflexibility of a system that usually doesn't accommodate search. This isn't the agencies problem alone. There are a lot of accomplices in this, including clients and media sales teams.
The intention of this column was to point out an unfortunate and unsustainable situation that's hindering the effectiveness of many ad campaigns. Unfortunately, broad statements are usually the reality in columns of limited length. I have to go with the majority. I leave it to posters like yourself who call my bluff to color in the details about the exceptions. Thanks for doing so.
You also made a couple points in your post which aren’t entirely accurate. You complain about the allocation of firm budgets to search as a systemic flaw and blame it on the ad agencies. But that’s wrong – ad agencies get their budgets from clients, who typically set spend allocations on fiscal years (or at best, on a quarterly or campaign-basis). For most big businesses (many of whom have shareholders), there’s always a finite budget. And unlike search, other media channels require upfront budget allocations. We love the flexibility of search budgets – we use that to our advantage to constantly reallocate budget between the networks, between geographic segments, between keywords, etc. But just about every other media channel (save DRTV and some new, unproven auction-based media buying outlets) requires that IOs which are essentially written in stone, which means that giving your first budgets to search and sending the scraps elsewhere (as you suggest) isn’t just impractical – it’s impossible. Smart advertisers take the time to measure the effect of each channel and the effect of a mix of channels and set future budgets fluidly, based on prior campaign learnings. We’ve proven search marketing out at pretty high budget levels for both branding and lead-generation efforts within larger campaigns. But very few businesses are set up to just keep spending marketing dollars until they cease to turn a profit on their spending (and those which are do so with performance/DR-focused campaigns, not branding).
Secondly, while few will argue the value of deep interaction with a client’s web site as valuable for branding, you haven’t quite pegged the role of many large branding-focused campaigns, which is very often to introduce new products. Yes, it’s foolish to ignore a brand’s loyalist core – the people who champion your brand. And search should absolutely channel those loyalists (as should e-mail and other CRM channels). But other media channels are crucial in generating awareness and driving just the search activity that we most value. When we launched the Honda Ridgeline several years ago, search volumes went up 1000% for the week following a big media push. Sure, we could’ve conceivably re-routed more of the media budget toward general auto/truck category search terms, but we would’ve suffered in blended auctions due to virtually no built-in awareness of the product (low CTRs; high CPCs). Instead, we used a cross-media effort to drive up awareness and then capitalize on that increased awareness and interest by closing the loop with search (as well as other online marketing). You wrote “Brand-build with prospects that are ready to buy first, then build with the "maybe, someday" crowd with what's left over.� But if they’re ready to buy, you’re not really talking about a branding campaign anyway – that’s getting into sales-focused lead-generation.
And for what it’s worth, our clients do feel like search is sexy. It’s sort of a fresh face in town, it’s driving great results on objectives (at higher budgets each time around) and it’s almost always a star of our campaign summary reports. Our clients feel like they’re smart in spending good portions of their marketing budgets there and we consider that a success. Sometimes sexy is just in the packaging.
Finally, I found it interesting to see a post from an MSN rep applauding your comments on ad agencies just not getting it. We’ve tried (hard) since the launch of AdCenter to get anywhere near the type of communication and support from MSN that we’ve grown accustomed to receive from Google and Yahoo! over the years. But whether it’s been understaffing a large set of clients, not impressing on their staff the importance of face-to-face with large advertisers to discuss campaign strategy or just plain ‘ol Microsoft-y reliance on just technology, they’ve missed out big time on building their business through budget gatekeepers. And I don’t see that as just the fault of agencies.
I don’t think that you’re being entirely fair in saying that advertising agencies just don’t get it, Gord – it’s sort of like stereotyping all Canadians as being open-minded and careful not to offend (wink). Some, yes. Probably many. But certainly not all.
See you in Park City – maybe we can continue the discussion over a drink. Mike Margolin RPA
Their last refuge will be "brand" -- which is a wonderful thing, but something that many companies realize you can't buy anymore. You have to earn the brand value. It's poignant that Google, one of the world's great brands, spends essentially nothing on brand advertising per se.
We have a winner! This absolutely knocks it out of the park. I wish that we could blow this up... put it on the front door of the HQ of the major ad "conglomerates" so that when they walk in every day... they'd have to read it. Kind of like a Martin Luther thing you know?
Well written... well done. Cheers! .bb