• by Lynn Russo , November 28, 2006

In theory, optimizing keywords doesn’t sound complicated. Keyword “A” is working better than Keyword “B,” so take some money out of “B” and put it into “A” to increase performance. Simple, right? The problem is, most companies are managing an average of 250,000 keywords on which the bidding price is constantly changing.

Isobar is offering some relief with the launch of its new tool iSEBA (iProspect Search Engine Bidding Agent). Available to agencies in the Isobar global network, which includes iProspect, Freestyle, and Carat, iSEBA predicts the most productive keyword, position, price, time-of-day, and day-of-week combinations to bid on for the best possible results, recalculating 24 hours a day, resulting in “reduced cost and maximization of clicks and conversions,” according to CTO Bob Maher.

iSEBA employs both predictive modeling to anticipate future prices and mathematical models to produce bid plans. As it collects more and more data, performance improves. The tool can also import historical data, which reduces the time between campaign launch and full campaign optimization.

One U.K. financial client has seen a 64 percent increase in incremental conversion volume and almost a 100 percent decrease in the cost of conversions, according to Sam Der-Kazaryan, Isobar’s director of technology. Agencies in the Isobar network have used iSEBA to track more than 5.5 million clicks to date.