4 SEM Tips to Help eCommerce Sites Boost ROI This Holiday Season

With the holiday season here once again a lot of you eCommerce companies are probably trying to figure out the most effective way to spend your marketing dollars. Well for those of you that are using paid search in your online marketing mix, rest assured you are in the right place. According to the 2008 Google Holiday Shopping Intentions Study, search will play a key role in helping consumers do research and make purchases this holiday season. The study stated that consumers started doing research way before Halloween and plan to do the majority of their shopping in early - mid December. If you are a eCommerce company who uses paid search to drive traffic to your site, then you are in the right place to engage consumers throughout the whole buying process. To help you succeed this holiday season I have put together a few tips that will help you maximize your search marketing campaigns, and hopefully increase your ROI. These tips will help you spend your budget effectively, research trends in search volume, write compelling ads, and close the deal with engaging landing pages.


Google Insights can help maximize your budget
Google has a cool tool called Google Insights for Search that allows you to compare search volume over a specific time period. This can be a useful way to figure out the optimal time to increase your spend on a specific keyword or ad group. If you sell computers you can look at the search volume for the keyword "computers" over various time periods to compare trends in search volume.



In the above example you can see that for the past 2 years there have been a major spike in search volume on Black Friday, and the day after Christmas. With that knowledge you can make sure that you have a high position & strong ads running on those days.

You can also make good use of your budget with dayparting and geo targeting. If you find that you get higher conversions midweek during the day then you might want to consider running hotter during those times and pulling back during times where you have lower conversions.

Group keywords according to the consumer's intent
When you group your keywords according to the consumer's intent you will be able to write ads that are aligned with that the consumer is looking for. If a consumer is searching on a research related term like "best computer gifts", you want to make sure your ad copy encourages them to click through to gather more information. Likewise if a user is searching on a purchase related term like "computer deals online", you want to make sure that your ad copy has a strong call to action that urges them to make a purchase.


Write compelling ads that offer value and savings
Just because consumers are cutting back doesn't mean that they are not buying. They are looking for the best possible deal. According to Google's holiday study 86% of the respondents said that they are more likely to take an offer if there was some sort of price discount or sale. Free shipping came in second with 75%. So consider testing as that offer price discounts, sales, free upgrades, or free shipping. Also a search on Google for your top performing keywords to see what type of ads your competitors are running. If you see that a majority of your competitors are running discount or percentage based ads you may want to try a different approach like No money down, or Interest free financing so that you stand out in the sea of online sales. Finally if you are running a sale on the last day run ads like "Final Day to Save" or "Last Day Act Now" to create a sense of urgency. We just recently ran a 48 hour sale for a client, and on the last day we saw a higher CTR on our urgent messaging. This also lead to higher conversion rates.


Close the deal with engaging landing pages
You did all that hard work to get the user to click your ad, you can't let them down by sending them all to the same product page with a million different offers. When it comes to paid search on size does not fit all. You need to take the time to create a specific landing page for each of your holiday ad groups that is relevant to the offer. The landing pages should be simple with not too many choices. If you leave it up to the consumer to figure out what to do you will fail. If your ad is offering 45% off & free shipping the landing page should reelect that. For your ad groups that are geared around product research consider a gift guide landing page. Finally spend time variations to see what converts best. Im a big fan of A/B testing. Test different call to actions, headlines, or imagery. When you find out what works best document it so that you can use for campaigns.

4 Important Lessons In Landing Page Optimization

For those of you that were unable to make it out to Boston to hear me speak at the MarketingSherpa B2B Lead Gen Summit; here is a segment of my presentation that a lot of people found very valuable, and for those that will be attending the San Fransisco version of the summit, consider this a sneak peak.

4 BIG takeaways/lessons that we learned from our paid search optimization program.

1. More Specific Landing Pages
When we first launched our paid search program we would send users to deep links within the site. This was a problem for many reasons:

• Hard to convert: A deep link within a site is not geared towards getting a user to convert and therefore is filled with distractions. A user will end up not following the path that you want them to, and ultimately end up leaving the site and not converting at all.
• Hard to track: Deep links made it difficult for us to accurately know which keywords and landing experiences were driving results.

Because of the challenges that we faced with sending users to deep links within the site we turned to landing pages.

We currently use ion interactive's LiveBall SaaS to easily create, test, & optimize our landing pages.

2. Match the experience to the search.
Now that we are using unique landing pages, we made sure that the pages were VERY relevant to the terms/intentions that the user was searching on. We also were able to keep the pages focused on conversion and distraction free.

3. Self-segmentation after the click
Our landing pages aren't the traditional pages that you may find in the space that have the standard headline, subhead, bullets, and form. We use multi-step landing page experiences that with start with a preconversion question. The question can be as simple as "What is your capacity size?" The user has 2 options to choose from, and based on their choice they are sent to a page that is relevant to their need. This simple question not only helps us provide a more relevant experience to the user, but it also helps us learn more about the user and what they are looking for. Finally it increases our odds of getting that user to convert even more.

Scott Brinker from ion recently posted an excellent article on this topic Why 2 clicks are better than 1.

4. Keep on testing
We were always testing. Monthly we would review the results from previous tests combined stats from google, and our omniture analytics; decide what's was working and what needed improvement. We used A/B tests to test elements like messages, images, and whole experiences to see what would move the needle. Our mantra was "Just Keep Testing."

Bonus: Analytics is key!
If it wasn't for the analytics that came with the LiveBall Software, and our implementation of Omniture SiteCatalyst we would just taking shots in the dark. They allowed us to easily measure the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that were key to moving the needle, and optimizing our campaign.

Just remember you don't need to have high-end analytics to be successful, you just need something that will allow you to measure the important KPIs for your business. If you don't have analytics, start with a solution like google analytics. It's free and easy to implement.

If I had to choose the 2 most important items from this list, I would have to say Testing & Analysis. In today's economy you cannot afford to not test, and optimize your landing pages. Also on the flip side testing without analytics is like taking a shots in the dark.

If you are going to the west coast version of the MarketingSherpa B2B Lead Gen Summit make sure you check out my session titled Optimizing SEM Strategies from Keyword to Conversion. It's on Monday Oct 27 at 11:15am. Hope to see you there!

5 Strategies to Improve Your Online Marketing

I was in Chicago for my company's partner summit where I led a session give our partners tips to help them improve their web marketing, and to get feedback on some upcoming web programs that we are launching. The focus group was held at 7am on day two of the summit, so we weren't expecting a large turnout. The partners that did show up really enjoyed the tips, and provided us with excellent feedback. Our product syndication program was well received. We learned that one of their major issues with the web is maintaining their website. A lot of our partners don't have an in-house web person, so any changes that come up can be a long costly process. The content syndication program will allow them to focus on what they do best, and not have worry about maintaining our product info on their websites.

Below you can view the presentation & the takeaway doc that I passed out. The partners aren't web guys, so I kept everything as high-level as possible. Even though the presentation was designed for a storage reseller the concepts can translate to any industry.

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5 Simple Strategies to Improve Your Online Marketing Results

Purchasing Fact:92% of all technical buyers go online FIRST to research a possible purchase*

*According to Forrester Research

Is your website portraying the right impression of your company? With the customer now in control of the experience, they are able to gather information without interacting with you directly. Thus, your web presence is the digital representation of your company, and a poor web presence can lower the amount of online and offline sales. Here are some simple strategies to improve your web presence and increase your conversion rates.

1. Provide Your Users With Fresh, Relevant Content
Because most users stop by your website first to do research, it should always contain fresh, relevant content. This will make an impression when the user is ready to purchase. According to a recent study by Enquiro Search Solutions on technical buyers, the number one influencer of purchase is the vendor's website. Websites that contain inaccurate or fragmented information gives an unprofessional impression of your company which can lead to missed opportunities, loss to competition, and negative impact to the bottom line.

2. Present Simple Website Usability
Poor website usability is another factor that can drive away potential sales. Make it easy for the user to find what they need quickly and effortlessly. The harder it is to use your website, the less people will want to buy from you. You can improve the usability of your site with the following tips:

1. The main navigation should be easy to use.
2. Your users should be able to find what they need in three clicks or less.
3. It should be obvious how to purchase your product.
4. Contact information should be highly visible.
5. Use layman's terms. Stay away from corporate or technical terms that might be hard for your user to understand.

3. Develop and Utilize Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
According to Marketing Sherpa, 98% of B2B buyers search in Google, so if you apply proper Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques you have a better chance of being found in search engines by potential customers. Contrary to popular belief, SEO is not a trick that you play on search engines in order to rank higher. Optimization is defined as organizing your content to provide the most relevant experience. Search Engine Optimization is not an overnight process. It takes time to prove to the search engines that your content is relevant. Here are some techniques to improve your overall SEO:

1. A unique 6-13 word page title that contains important keywords from the page content.
2. Description meta tags that match the body content.
3. Keyword phrases that users apply to search for you.
4. Link important pages throughout your site using a keyword phrase rather than a product name (ex. Disk Based Backup Solution rather than REO® 9100).
5. Stay consistent in the way pages are linked and the phrases used.

4. Increase Conversions with Landing Pages
Whatever the marketing activity might be, landing pages provide users a custom experience and keep them focused on the offer at hand. The goal of the landing page should be to convert users into customers. If you are able to get more conversions with the same amount of marketing spend, then you will deliver more net business and lower your cost per lead. This cannot be achieved by just dumping users to the homepage of your website, they will get distracted and navigate elsewhere. Here are some tips for successful landing pages:

1. Start with a clear call to action.
2. Include document downloads; white papers and case studies are preferred over product literature.*
3. Keep your lead forms short and concise. Only include the fields that are vital to helping your sales team spot qualified leads.

*According to Marketing Sherpa

5. Use Web Analytics to Measure Your Site's Effectiveness
Web Analytics are essential for measuring the success of your web marketing and refining your process. With analytics, you are able to determine which keywords customers use to find your site, what pages customers find valuable, and what online campaigns are successful. There is a variety of web analytic solutions on the market, but if cost is an issue, consider starting with Google Analytics; their solution is free, and easy to use. Web analytics can be a little overwhelming, but it is important to remember to measure what matters. Measure metrics that are going to help improve business. High web traffic may look good on paper, but it doesn't mean anything if your site has low conversion rates. Every company has a different set of metrics that they find valuable, so it is important to sit with your team and decide which metrics are important to your business, and which metrics should be omitted.

Do you have a blog and want more traffic?

Do you have a blog that has cool content, and do you want more traffic? You should submit you blog or feed to MySpace News. Earlier this week MySpace announced that they will be providing a news section on their site. How are they getting the feeds you ask? Well I'm sure they have some sophisticated web crawl tool, but they are also allowing you to submit your blog or feed and choose which category your blog falls in. Submit your blog to mySpace! Once your site is submitted they will review it to see if your blog is right for their site.