Expert: Big Brands Have Big Search Challenges

Chris Sherman Large brands have unique challenges managing paid search advertising campaigns, according to Chris Sherman, executive editor at Search Engine Land, who shared insights into tactical, technical, and organizational issues that come up when managing paid search for huge Web sites.

These behemoths--with hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions of pages--bid on far more keywords in multiple countries, and have many more employees spearheading processes in numerous departments and locations around the world, Sherman said. They are also likely to have separate departments that manage search engine optimization (SEO) and paid search campaigns, he said during the Third Door Media Webinar "Paid Search for Big Sites, Big Brands" sponsored by iProspect.

Paid search is best used for sites supporting continually changing content, promotions, or in the beginning stages of a search marketing campaign where "you haven't had time for the Web site to build up the depth of content or link juice," Sherman said--explaining that the site might not be old enough to grab clicks organically. Paid search provides near-instant visibility, as long as you are willing to bid the right amount and have quality content, so your quality scores look good, he said.

Sherman suggests starting paid search campaigns by determining roles and responsibilities with key players. It's a classic situation where every group in the company thinks their ad should appear at the top of sponsored results and finds themselves battling it out for the position. "You clearly don't want to get into a bidding war against someone in the same organization," Sherman said. "It's not only self- defeating, but could be economically suicidal."

Intelligent bidding should focus almost solely on the return on investment and not what competitors do, Sherman said. Running a paid search campaign for a large site means more than managing keywords, bids and budgets to succeed. Think of your keywords as a portfolio. Similar to a financial investment portfolio, some keywords will come out winners, while others will be losers. All provide a vital function. Losers may not lead to direct conversions, but are just as important as the winners. Sherman suggests periodically rebalancing the portfolio to maintain proper exposure to achieve goals.

Companies also need metrics for success, and array of tools to automate manual tasks that can offer feedback to help you fine-tune the strategy you create. Automate the bid management. This allows companies to quickly increase the volume. Good bid management systems learn from testing the system and can adjust the campaign in real time.

Having an automated tool is similar to having a team of experts focused on nothing other than "squeezing the absolute best performance" out of the search marketing campaign, Sherman said. But an online survey geared toward those participating in the Webcast reveals that 40% manage paid search marketing efforts in-house using manual methods.

A recent Jupiter Research study sponsored by Marin Software suggests that one-third of all companies spending more than $50,000 a month on paid search are not confident in the systems--or the lack of technology--used to manage budgets. More than 90% of these companies would like to increase budgets, but they first need to resolve the roadblocks to properly manage PPC campaigns.

The data reveals 92% of large search marketers would increase spending 22% on average if major technology and management impediments were resolved. Since large search marketers account for the lion's share of industry spend projections, this equates to billions of dollars during the next five years.

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