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Keyword Zoom from ClickEquations

July 30, 2010 By Alex Cohen Leave a Comment

This is a guest post from Alex Cohen, Senior Marketing Manager at ClickEquations.

People tend to think of paid search through the lens of keywords: You pick keywords, bid on keywords and figure out which keywords are good and bad.

Searchers, the people you’re trying to reach, don’t type in keywords. They type in search queries. The keywords you purchase and match types you choose, along with your bids and Quality Score, determine how many search queries you get exposed to. The relevance of your text ad determines how many click.

That relationship between search queries, keywords and text ads is one of the truths of paid search. But, analyzing that relationship is actually very cumbersome with most paid search tools. There’s one report for keywords, another for search queries and yet another for text ads. You, the analyst or paid search manager, are left to do the heavy lifting to stitch the pieces together in order to target the right queries with the right message.

Connecting these pieces is a technology problem and one that we at ClickEquations have solved with our latest feature, Keyword Zoom.

Keyword Zoom makes it possible look inside the performance of any keyword and directly manipulate the queries that have driven up cost or lifted revenue and tune the relationship between those queries and specific ad copy.

Keyword Zoom allows you to see:

The search queries that the keyword attracted and how each performed
The ad copy that was shown to the people who entered these queries
Complete performance statistics and metrics for that keyword

You can easily:

Turn a search query into a new negative keyword so don’t waste money on irrelevant search queries
Add a search query as a new keyword of any match type to attract more searches like that, boosting sales
Edit existing ad copy or create new ads or variations to improve the alignment of queries to text ads

“Paid search advertisers bid on keywords but money is actually spent and earned on search queries.” said Craig Danuloff, President. “Keyword management is no longer enough. Only by looking inside the performance of any keyword, and mining search queries to stop ineffective clicks and increase targeting can accounts truly be optimized in today’s competitive and expensive PPC marketplace. Keyword Zoom is the first and only tool that brings keywords, search queries, text ads and detailed analytics data into one screen with editing tools. It’s the best way to target the best prospects with the most relevant message.”

Keyword Zoom is integrated directly into the ClickEquations paid search platform, which enables full reporting, editing, optimization and automation of PPC campaigns.

Watch this video to see Keyword Zoom in action:

Filed Under: paid, Paid Search Strategy, ppc, Search Keywords, SEM

Wordstream Launches Attractive Affiliate Program

February 16, 2010 By Manoj Jasra Leave a Comment

Keword Research Tool provider, Wordstream, announced today that it is launching a new affiliate marketing program.

Wordstream affiliate’s can earn quite a generous income of:

$5 per lead for WordStream Keyword Management for PPC Software free trial signups
Up to $300 commission on sales of WordStream Keyword Management for SEO software subscriptions

To assist with the promotion of its products, WordStream provides affiliates with a host of custom marketing collateral, which includes banner advertisements, email copy, product brochures, case studies and designated landing pages. Additionally, all affiliates will receive links to add to their websites, which will track referrals on all leads and sales for a period of 90 days.

To join or get more information, go to: http://www.affiliate.wordstream.com

Filed Under: ppc, SEO

Keyword Research + Analytics Together in WordStream

November 11, 2009 By Manoj Jasra Leave a Comment

Advanced keyword research platform: WordStream, recently added 2 new features to its service offering: Google Analytics API integration and multi-source keyword .

WordStream is the first keyword tool provider to integrate their software with Google Analytics, layering on tools to help search marketers take action on top of the data provided by the popular analytics service. Multi-source keyword analytics enables user to aggregate not only paid and natural search data, but also keyword tool estimates and brainstormed keyword ideas into one integrated dashboard. This means more efficient and more comprehensive keyword targeting, which will lead to more and better targeted Web traffic.

This video shows how these new features work and why they’re important.

Filed Under: Google Analytics, ppc, SEO

Who's Taking Credit for Your Sales Leads?

October 1, 2009 By Ezra Silverton Leave a Comment

There used to be a time when website owners didn’t bother keeping track of where all their leads or sales came from. This caused much angst in the Internet marketing industry as hard working marketers were not receiving the acknowledgment they deserved.

If you asked clients where their leads came from or which marketing initiatives provided the best return on investment, many would have no idea. Even those who had set up website analytics, or asked prospective callers how they found their contact, the information was mostly incomplete. No one could provide an accurate measure of detailed lead or sale generation metrics.

If someone contacted you by phone instead of through your online contact form, you would logically assume that the caller was not a referral from your website. Failing to recognize the potentially effective web lead or more specifically SEO, SEM/PPC Advertising, email, etc., credit would likely go to another marketing initiative.

After years of working on many Internet marketing projects and running into this particular issue, the Toronto based web design and SEO company, 9th sphere, decide to find a solution that would help their clients get a better sense of where to spend their marketing budgets.

So here’s a sample scenario. A prospect reads an online news article about you, clicks onto your website link in the article, then visits your site briefly. Since you are also optimizing your website for search engine ranking, a few days later the prospect searches on Google for your keywords and sees your company name again. They read a few pages of your website and then call you to learn more about your services. The sales representative asks the prospect where they heard about the company. The prospect may mention the initial article or the search on Google. As a marketer you’d want to know every touch point the prospect had with your brand. This would include the article, web pages on your site and why they decided to call instead of filling out a web form or purchasing your product online. Because the prospect decided to make the call by phone instead of fill out a web form, the tracking of their encounter with your brand becomes much more challenging.

What 9th sphere did to resolve this challenge is build a system that tracks the entire experience of the prospect caller; from first finding you in the article, to making the call, as well as any interaction with the website thereafter. 9th sphere’s solution is REF:CODE Analytics, which works similarly to Google Analytics in the background. When a prospect calls, the sale representative simply asks them for the reference code that is found next to the company phone number on the website. This reference code has been tracking the entire online experience of the prospect caller. Once the unique code is referenced by the caller the sales representative can connect the action to that particular lead. In this way you can keep track of your leads as well as the effectiveness of your website and Internet marketing initiatives, like SEO and PPC campaigns.

If your lead comes from an online source, next time you will know. And you’ll be able to confidently give your hard working online marketer the credit they’ve no doubt earned.

Filed Under: ppc, SEM, SEO, Web Analytics

Interview of Adam Goldberg, Co-Founder of ClearSaleing Inc.

August 18, 2009 By Manoj Jasra Leave a Comment

Last week at Search Engine Strategies in San Jose, I sat down with Adam Goldberg, the Co-Founder and Chief Innovation Officer at ClearSaleing, Inc., a technology provider of advertising analytics. Adam started ClearSaleing after working at Google for 3 years, where he started their Inside Sales organization. In our discussion, Adam gave me a thorough run down of ClearSaleing’s technology, check out our chat below:

[Manoj]: Please provide us with a quick background on ClearSaleing and the benefits of your product?

[Adam Goldberg]: Founded in 2006, ClearSaleing, Inc. provides advertising portfolio management technology that helps marketers identify ways to more effectively and profitably allocate ad spend across a complex mix of online advertising investments.

ClearSaleing’s platform enables true attribution management through our patent-pending Purchase Path technology. Purchase Path accurately attributes profit and ROI across the multiple marketing touch points that contribute to and influence a sale.

In addition, ClearSaleing is a thought leader in the growing scientific field of attribution management and founder of the Attribution Management Forum, the profession’s e-community for interactive marketers.

ClearSaleing’s unique ability to give marketers telescopic insight into their online ad investment is attracting major brand customers, such as American Greetings and Nationwide Insurance.

[Manoj]: Can you discuss Attribution and the lack of attribution reporting in most marketers’ strategies?

[Adam Goldberg]: Due to a lack of tracking technology that shows online marketers the entire Purchase Path (chronological sequencing of ad clicks, ad impressions, organic visits, and direct visits to a site that led to conversion or abandonment) online marketers have been forced to credit conversions to the last ad click because that is all they have been able to see. This technology problem has caused online marketers to significantly over-value the last ad clicked and to completely ignore all of the other ads in the Purchase Path that help to earn the conversion.

ClearSaleing solves the technology issue with its attribution management platform which enables marketers to view the entire Purchase Path. After we reveal the Purchase Path we then can attribute credit for the conversion across all of the ads involved in the conversion. At ClearSaleing we attribute the profit and revenue on each conversion to the ads involved. There are several levels of attribution.

Last Click – give all the credit to the last ad clicked
Even – divide the profit and revenue evenly over all of the ads involved in conversion
Even with Exclusions – divide profit evenly across all ads but exclude giving credit to certain ads. One example is excluding credit to brand keywords that occur at the end of a Purchase Path because these types of terms at the end of a path are almost always used for navigation. Some call these terms ‘order takers.’ Would eliminate this sentence.
Rules Based – This is where you set weights based on the type of path used. For example if a consumer used two search ads to convert you may give that a 50/50 split, but if a consumer saw a banner impression then did a search and converted you may have a different weighting for that scenario
Mathematical – This is the most sophisticated attribution model. This uses high-end statistical analysis to determine the best weighting of ads in a path. This takes into account things such as the influence potential of different ad vehicles and the decay rate of different ad vehicles just to name a few of the elements involved.

[Manoj]: How do you differentiate yourselves from bid management solutions?

[Adam Goldberg]: ClearSaleing is very unique because we have built an automated bid management system on top of our attribution management platform, thereby providing the most accurate valuation of ads regardless of where they appear in the buying cycle. This platform then allows our customers to optimize their campaigns based on any business objective they have. Our automated, attribution based bid management system lets marketers optimize their bids by:

Collecting the most accurate data possible using true profit and attribution
Integrating conversion information from back-end data feeds to the decision-making process
Using data on conversion latency, the cycle of time from first to last click along a purchase path
Predicting conversion latencies day-by-day to make the best bids possible

[Manoj]: Clearsaleing requires an analytics code insertion, please explain the need for this and the reasons why this method provides more insight

[Adam Goldberg]: Only companies who use their own tracking can perform real attribution analysis. ClearSaleing is able to keep track of visitors no matter what search engine they come from and eliminate any double counting caused by relying on the tracking pixels of the ad servers. ClearSaleing can also keep track of the sequence of ads for each individual conversion and tracks very detailed information about conversions, down to the products sold, so that detailed analysis of the data can be performed. Without our own tracking, we would not have the level of data needed to do the in depth analysis we are capable of.

[Manoj]: ClearSaleing allows you to intelligently determine the keywords and landing pages which contribute to your bottom line profit – please expand on this.

[Adam Goldberg]: ClearSaleing tracks the search phrase a consumer types into a search engine in addition to the keyword that gets triggered from that search. In many cases what the consumer searches for is not exactly the same as the keyword that gets triggered due to the use of phrase, broad, and advanced match options on keywords. When we identify a search phrase that is different from the keyword triggered and that resulted in a profitable conversion we then recommend our clients add that search phrase to their keyword list as a exact term. This addition of profitable search terms can be done automatically through the use of APIs in ClearSaleing. This is a great way to build a keyword list based on recommendations that have proven to produce profit at least once.

When it comes to measuring landing pages we use the same metric to determine profit. Many companies test new landing pages and believe success may mean more time spent on the page or more conversions etc. The best measure of a landing page’s effectiveness is the profit it is able to generate. We allow our clients to test many variations of their landing pages at a time by rotating them. We measure the amount of profit each page generates so our clients can choose the page that is best for their bottom line.

[Manoj]: What are the costs of ClearSaleing?

[Adam Goldberg]: ClearSaleing uses a percentage of ad spend model for our pricing. We only charge for ad spend tra
cked on our platform. For additional features such as phone tracking, back office integration, display/banner impression tracking, and point of sale (POS) system tracking there are one-time set up fees.

Filed Under: ppc

WordStream: Keyword Research & Organization Software

August 12, 2009 By Manoj Jasra Leave a Comment

Yesterday at Search Engine Strategies in San Jose we caught up with Larry Kim and got his insight on his new keyword research product, WordStream. Larry is the VP of WordStream and he provided a lot of the early vision behind the technology. Read our conversation below:

[Manoj]: What was the inspiration behind developing WordStream? Was there a ‘pain’ in the industry you were trying to solve?

[Larry Kim]: I spent about ten years marketing software products, both in-house and as an independent consultant, primarily through search. What I found was that at the heart of every successful search marketing endeavor was a set of highly relevant, well-organized keywords. The way that you discovered, organized, and continually analyzed keywords would have a tremendous impact on how successful your campaigns were: ten times out of ten.

And for me, a combination of traditional keyword tools and Microsoft Excel simply fell short. I wanted a tool that leveraged keyword suggestion, but placed an emphasis on actual traffic and activity on my Websites, and I wanted something that would allow me to dynamically integrate and manipulate keywords for paid and natural search. So I designed it, and started hiring engineers who could make it a reality.

[Manoj]: How does WordStream differentiate itself from Analytics (Omniture/Google Analytics), Keyword Research (WordTracker) or Bid Management Tools?

[Larry Kim]: WordStream focuses on an area that none of those tools really touch. Here’s a quick visual (some of these tools have pieces that flow into different areas, but I think this gives you a good idea of the gap we feel we’re filling):

The general idea is that while the software offers keyword research tools and features a type of Web analytics, we’re really the only tool focusing on helping marketers aggregate keyword data and then effectively organize it. WordStream offers powerful keyword grouping and organization, and allows you to continually discover and group keywords.

First we create a database of all your keywords (in this instance, an online pet store):

Next we offer a series of suggestions for how you might want to segment that database:

Finally, you’ll end with a very tightly related, intelligently segmented taxonomy that you can leverage for either paid or natural search:

From there, the software dynamically tracks each new search query that comes to the site, along with the visits and actions (goals or conversions) associated with all of your keywords. Even better: new search queries are automatically funneled into the appropriate “buckets”. So in the above example, if someone searched on “fish aquariums for first time fish owners” and we had never seen that keyword before, it would be added to the fish aquarium group (users can either allow this to happen automatically, or make this process subject to review).

So basically the idea is:

Web analytics looks at what’s happened
Keyword research gives you a really rough guess of what could happen
Bid and campaign management tools help you tweak and manage around existing campaign structures

WordStream takes numbers one and two, and leverages them to help you build a strong campaign structure from the start, and then focuses on dynamically maintaining a really high-performance keyword infrustructure.

[Manoj]: Can you discuss the process of how an organization would use WordStream on a regular basis?

[Larry Kim]: Sure. Really it’s three things:

One is continual keyword discovery and analysis. Our customers install a snippet of java script on their websites and are able to track and integrate new search queries and new visits from search.
A second is continual segmentation and discovery of negative keywords. WordStream users create an initial hierarchy, like the one above, but then proceed to segment even further and to use our negative keyword tool to discover irrelevant keywords, making their Ad Groups or organic search segmentations more and more relevant (and effective) over time.
A third thing WordStream customers leverage the tool for is workflow prioritization. There’s really no end to the things you can do to a search marketing account to improve it. WordStream lets you quickly look at all of your keyword groups to determine which are driving the most traffic, the most conversions, or are the largest in terms of number of queries in a group; really anything a user may want to look at. They can then apply their work in creating Ad Groups, assigning negatives, etc. to the most important areas of their accounts.

[Manoj]: You have an analytics-like component to WordStream, can you discuss the importance for it?

[Larry Kim]: Really any tool that has anything to do with marketing online should have some sort of analytics component, particularly a search marketing tool, and particularly a keyword-related tool. The power of keyword research and organization is that you’re discovering the keywords that work best for your site, and then implementing those keywords. By being analytics driven, we can help people to structure their campaigns and prioritize their daily tasks so that they can drive more traffic and grow their business.

[Manoj]: I personally saw some benefits of WordStream from an SEO perspective, do any of your clients leverage WordStream for SEO?

[Larry Kim]: They do. Currently most of our clients are primarily leveraging the tool for paid search, but there are also some powerful applications surrounding content creation, information architecture, and SEO workflow prioritization. We recently put together a white paper outlining how WordStream helps with SEO (PDF).

[Manoj]: What kind of process do you have in place for providing consistent updates to your product?

[Larry Kim]: We have an “agile” development environment, so we ship product updates frequently. We push updates based on a set of features. After a round of testing by our engineer
s we issue an “internal” release and test all of the new features on our own WordStream paid search account (one of many advantages of using your own tools in your marketing) and for our employees to play with (though not on client accounts). We then issue a feature update to clients and push the changes into the wild.

Thus far I think our customers would agree we’ve been able to respond very quickly to feedback and feature requests.

[Manoj]: What is the cost of WordStream?

[Larry Kim]: WordStream offers a variety of pricing options ranging from $100 a month up to about a thousand a month. We charge a flat monthly fee and don’t ask for a percent of spend. If you look at some of the other paid search management solutions ours is a very low price point. We’re hoping to delight power users with what they consider a remarkably low price, while offering really powerful software that’s accessible to small and medium size businesses who are shut out of some of the higher-end pricing structures but are still interested in doing expert-quality work.

To get in touch with Larry, you can send him an Email at lkim at wordstream dot com, check out the WordStream Blog, or follow him on Twitter (@larrykim).

Filed Under: ppc, SEO

SMX East: Enquisite Enhances Search Analytics Product

October 6, 2008 By Manoj Jasra Leave a Comment

Enquisite, Inc., a developer and provider of the next generation of search analytics solutions, announced today at SMX East that it has a new weapon for online marketers to use in their quest to monetize search: the ability to find out when one search engine is sending a stream of qualified traffic not duplicated by any other search engine.

The company’s industry award-winning platform, Enquisite Pro, already lets marketers compare campaign performance across all search engines. “Enquisite Pro lets you compare how keywords fare in the search engine results pages (SERPs) across multiple search engines,” explains Enquisite Vice President of Marketing Dan S. Robbins. “The new Opportunities functionality takes Enquisite Pro’s Search Engine Comparison Report to the next level. It instantly highlights for search marketers the keywords that are bringing qualified visitors in one search engine like Yahoo! but doesn’t even show up in another, like Google—pinpointing paid opportunities on the engine where the keywords don’t generate a result.”

“Armed with this valuable data, a marketer can go out and buy pay-per-click (PPC) ads for that keyword or phrase on the other engines with the expectation that they will perform well,” Robbins explains. “It is all about Enquisite’s value to the marketer—everything we do is a step toward helping marketers further monetize their search campaigns.”

“Considering the current state of the economy, if you can move a campaign from so-so qualified traffic to one that is humming with sales conversions, you are a platinum performer in your department,” says Robbins.

Enquisite Participates in SMX Track

On Day Two of the conference, October 7th, Enquisite Founder and President Richard Zwicky will be a speaker on “Paid Search Analytics,” beginning at 4:45 PM. This session looks at the types of analytics you want to perform in terms of paid search, in order to increase ROI and conversions.

All About the Longtail

Enquisite recognizes that, in the past, online marketers haven’t optimized the power of the longtail because it was extremely hard to get to the data. The company has designed its technology to let marketers visualize the longtail of keywords, and analyze which keywords lead to eventual sales conversion. The platform gives marketers a digestible snapshot of longtail-related behavior so they can build campaigns and optimize as needed.