Best Practices for Search Engine Marketing

 

Search Ads Vs. Display Ads

How About Search Ads AND Display Ads

Many online advertisers continue to struggle with the decision to use either Search Engine Marketing or Display Advertising. Otherwise use Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing, Bing's Microsoft Ad Center and the like, or good old fashioned Banner or Display Advertising. Both offer valid reasons, and each outperforms the other in different areas.

Why Not Use Both?

Perhaps you should consider using a combination of the two to truly get the most out of you campaign. There is a common belief that search engine advertising delivers a better return-on-investment, but according to Matt Lillig of the Yahoo Analytics Team, a combination is more likely to do so. He says that advertisers just aren't measuring display ads in the best fashion. He writes on the Yahoo Search Marketing Blog:

Specifically, many advertisers primarily use conversion percentage to measure the success of their display ads and search keywords. For example, if a display ad converts poorly (it has a low conversion percentage) then the advertiser typically lowers the budget for the ad, shifts the budget to another channel like search, or pulls the budget entirely.

The problem with only using the conversion metric method is that it is a “last click” metric. “Last click” means that the ad only gets credit for the last click the visitor made before they converted. For display ad and search keyword purposes, a last-click model doesn’t reveal the true value of the ad. For example, a display or search ad wouldn’t get the credit for driving conversions to other campaigns. This can be a major issue, as advertisers might end up cutting the budget on an effective display campaign that is driving additional conversions, brand awareness and increased visitor traffic to your web site.

He then goes on to discuss the "assist" metric in Yahoo Full Analytics, which measures the number of times that display ads or search keywords contribute to the conversion of another ad or keyword.

Things Have Changed

There is no question that Pay-Per-Click search engine advertising has gained tremendous popularity over the years with the rise of the services mentioned in the introductory paragraph. In their early stages, they appeared to be a fresh alternative to banner ads that seemed to be attracting less and less attention. Perhaps more importantly, they brought a relevancy to ads that were not really present in older display ad campaigns.

The fact that they were based on searches assured a targeted audience that was more likely to be interested in the products being advertised. This concept was and continues to be a very attractive one to advertisers.

However, display advertising platforms are now offering such a concept, which combines not only relevancy and targeting, but the branding power of eye-catching visuals. In addition, platforms like the Google AdWords Display Ad Builder, MySpace's MyAds, and others allow the advertisers themselves to easily create professional looking ads without having to go through designers or ad agencies.

Google AdWords Display Ad Builder

And let's not forget the well-targeted method of email advertising, which happens to be the preferred method of small businesses for the holidays according to Constant Contact.

Tips

Think about your call-to-action. Would you click your ad?  What would it take to make you want to do so?  Think about Google's advice with the Google Checkout Icon. 

Think about combo-campaigns and let your search ads and display ads complement each other if your product or services needs display advertising.

Compared to search marketing, online display advertising has largely been perceived by many marketers as costly and difficult to do well.  It used to be that acquiring and utilizing the creative expertise to create a graphically appealing set of display ads that perform well could cost several thousand dollars. Add the time, money and creative resources needed to create multiple different versions for A/B testing, and it's easy to understand why many mid-size companies that can't justify the costs associated with a digital agency are discouraged when trying to optimize display advertising on their own.

The accessibility for display advertising is starting to change, with several publishers and platforms now offering self service portals that enable marketers to create, run and optimize display campaigns, all without speaking with a salesperson. These systems allow anyone, including those who are completely new to interactive media, to target the right users with an engaging display advertisement that can be optimized to improve ROI.

Examples of some of these forward-thinking advertising networks include AdBrite, Add it All, Adify, Reader's Digest and Tribal Fusion, to name a few. There are even rumblings of self service media purchase options becoming available from social networking companies and portals. MySpace, for example, announced "SelfServe by MySpace," which is focused on small businesses, musicians and politicians, enabling them to create customized banner advertising.

Never before has the display advertising process been easier and more cost-effective, but buyer beware: Display Advertising is not for every business.

With self service media purchasing systems now available, businesses that have relied solely on search will be able to easily utilize advertising budgets to capitalize on the reach and engagement of targeted, optimized display campaigns. The question now is how to go about it.

Naturally, we recommend that you use the expertise of Advantix Marketing Professionals, but if you want to do it yourself, here are a few simple guidelines for working with a self service vendor to get the best results.

·    Don't be afraid to test your creative.  Self service media platforms enable you to set up campaigns and make campaign optimization decisions on your own time. You are no longer confined to business hours when you have to reach your sales representative. This is one of the bigger benefits, so take advantage of the rapid-testing paradigm that is available through self service providers. Constant iteration on your winning creative is one of the secrets to improving your display marketing ROI. This is one area where many sophisticated marketers, both large and small, have a huge opportunity for performance gains by taking advantage of self service media options.

·    Insist that your self service publishing partners are built for speed. How fast can your self service partner implement your campaigns?  In minutes, hours or days?  How fast can they pause a creative?  How fast can they approve and traffic new ads?  Truly effective self service vendors link your campaign management interface directly to their ad server; so that you can test multiple campaign parameters quickly, and when it is convenient for you.

·   Look for bided inventory options available from self service vendors. The best self service companies sell media in a "bided" environment so that you can optimize your pricing and delivery based on market parameters. With the rise of display media exchanges, all of the best practices and advantages that you have learned from using self service search marketing tools from Google and Yahoo apply to the brave new world of performance display.

·    Build a performance-focused creative library and keep track of the results. In general, you will need to bring your own creative, (or creative ideas) to the table, or you can leverage the assets provided by the self service publisher. Some self service solutions, like Ad it All, provide a library of customizable creative assets, where you just have to bring your logo. As you build out display as an acquisition channel, a catalog of creative broken out by performance metrics will help you understand what works for your business. By tracking the performance of your creative by publisher, and by campaign, you will start to understand which creatives (or even better, which creative attributes) work best in which marketing situation.

·   Comb the web for new creative ideas to test. What are your competitors doing?  What ads catch your eye?  Make sure that you become a student of the medium so that you are constantly trying new creative treatments for your business.  Keep in mind that extensive libraries exist, such as AdRelevance that contain historical performance data that sheds light on proven performance combinations. 

All of these ideas should hopefully give you insight into the many new options available for do-it-yourself display advertising. A key thing to remember is that you know your business better than anyone, and taking advantage of do-it-yourself display marketing has never been easier to increase business as well as to allow Google and Yahoo to vacuum your wallet; so remember Advantix Marketing is just a phone call away.