Last week was the 14th annual SES conference in London. I was delighted to host two round-table sessions focusing on paid search tactics and want to share some of the topics that were discussed. A variety of search marketers from around Europe attended the round table sessions, representing almost every vertical from retail to travel; education to automotive; finance to entertainment, and everything in-between.
Enhanced Campaigns: Google’s recent announcement has created a lot of buzz in the industry; Marin’s recent blog post on the topic highlights the benefits and concerns that advertisers should consider. Many advertisers are planning to augment their geo-targeting strategy with the new location based bid multipliers removing the need to create separate campaigns with bespoke targeting and bids. Budget control across devices is causing concern; however, the general outlook is positive. Marin is advising users to leverage as much data as possible to inform their bid multiplier strategy and embark on a test and learn cycle of optimisation.
Attribution: In-channel, cross-channel, on- and off-line attribution all came up. Opinions varied as to how much time to dedicate to analysing and testing attribution models. StylistPick reaped rewards following the integration of Marin’s easy-to-deploy multi-click, multi-channel attribution model. For more information, take a moment to read the case study.
Tracking attribution and optimizing for mobile were growing concerns for many advertisers; who are worried about under-valuing the importance of mobile due to the inability to quantify users’ mobile research—e.g. linking a mobile search to an offline conversion, or a conversion made on a different device. We anticipate that over the course of 2013 many advertisers will look to address this challenge through the use of voucher codes. AMF bowling is one advertiser who has already put this in place, read more here.
Ad Text Best Practice: Copy writing seems to have taken a bit of a backseat in the world of big data with many advertisers neglecting to regularly refresh their copy in favour of number crunching, bid optimization, and attribution. However, advertisers who regularly refresh copy see ongoing benefits through reduced CPCs and increased CTRs.
Here are some tips that were shared during the round-table sessions:
- Spend time with creative teams responsible for TV, radio and press advertising, these people are specialists in coming up with messaging and many of the ideas generated in brain storming exercises can make great text ads.
- Run competitions to get the creative juices flowing in your search team. Have each person create two text ad variants, set them live and use an automated AB testing tool to judge the winner!
The turnout and feedback provided during these round-table sessions were phenomenal. Marin would like to send a big thank you to everyone who attended and imparted their knowledge and opinions. If you have any thoughts regarding the topics above, please feel free to leave your comment below.