Search Strategy for a Struggling Economy

Search Engine Marketing – for all of the hype (and rightfully so) – is finally being affected by the economy. Although we still consider it the best converting online platform, we are definitely seeing the indirect results of clients pulling back budgets. We’re seeing it easier to spend a lot of money. We’re seeing conversion rates slipping a little. And best of all – we’re seeing clients moving more money to search in hopes of a strong end to the year.

Without going into a long explanation about how search is not a stand-alone medium, I wanted to simply explain a changing strategy that we’re implementing here at Media Two that could save a lot of others money and headaches. Get back to the basics.

We’re getting back to manually changing ads out in the engines. Regrouping keywords into appropriate ad groups that have ads that match the content . Lowering our bids on keywords. Limiting the keywords we’re bidding on. And most importantly, turning off the bid managers. Why? Because we’re after the short-tail conversion.

The value in the long-tail conversion goes without saying, but in a time where clients are cutting back Broadcast, Print and everything that doesn’t answer to the bottom line, search engines can start to jumpstart a clients marketing again when focusing on the short-tail. Think of it in these terms… The long tail terms are still being bid on because of the eventual value. But with overall marketing budgets being cut, if an agency or client doesn’t scale back on these, then they’ll start to be short on budgets. This shortfall on budgets is the perfect supply and demand equation for a client that focuses their time and effort on the here and now.

I’m not saying that cutting off your conversion funnel is the right thing to do, but let’s face it – these are tough economic times and when the client dictates that you spend less and convert more – you need to focus on what will give the client the biggest bang for the buck right now. Once you’ve proven that this philosophy works, there will then be more marketing dollars to expand on your strategy. But right now – stay focused on cutting your costs, and maximizing your conversions.

Interactive Media Buying Tips

As I sat on the IAB’s search committee meeting the other day, I started to think about all of the little things that REALLY need to be involved in an interactive media buy that seem to get overlooked. The bottom line I think is that agencies still don’t have enough bodies to do them all as interactive takes a lot more time and effort than a print or traditional campaign – so that being said, I thought I’d point out some of the top things that buyers should be looking to do, starting with incorporating search:

1.Incorporate Search into Everything (AND incorporate Marketing into Search). Agencies still are outsourcing their search to contractors, and although those contractors know how to do search engine architecture, they don’t often understand the basic marketing principles. This is where a traditional agency should be able to accelerate, as they’ve always known marketing – but just couldn’t wrap their arms around interactive. Yet what seems to happen is they follow what their search person tells them to do. Let go of your auto bid optimizers and start analyzing the data. Don’t silo search, and just as important – don’t silo marketing to everything but search.

2. Negotiate your media buy. Sorry sales reps, but right now – we’re pretty sure we have the upper hand. If a client has money to spend, just know that there are 100’s if not 1,000’s of websites that meet your demographic data. Negotiate your media buy to meet your clients objectives. And oh yeah…

3. Know your clients objectives! It’s great to negotiate and get a better deal, but make it a win-win relationship. Publisher reps and vendors want fair value just as much as your client does. Negotiate a deal that hits your client objective and satisfies your publisher. If you can find the sweet spot, then both client and publisher will be happy and continue to grow. In order for that to happen – the media buyer needs to know the publishers metrics, how the clients ads will respond, how they’ll convert and more. So educate yourself before you negotiate. If you don’t know how your clients ads will perform, then you probably need more coordinator experience before taking on a senior media buyer title (Don’t even get me started on agencies that throw around senior level titles so a client feels all warm and fuzzy. Your media buyer either gets it, or they don’t – and yes, it’s that black and white.)

4. Get Flexible. Ask for flexible terms on the media buy. I totally understand that if you cancel the buy outright, you’ll have to find more placements – but if that’s what it takes to meet the objectives, then put the elbow grease into it. We move media buys around several times within the websites before canceling them outright – but you need to have the flexibility from the publishers to make that work, and if it still doesn’t, you need to be able to move on. In the long run, you’ll save the publisher time and money as well – as they’re after the long term relationship just as much as you are.

If you can incorporate from a very high level these four items into your interactive media buy, then when you get into the details and the optimization standards and objectives, you’re going to have at least a leg to stand on.

{Insert Agency Value Here} (again)

With the interactive marketing news release this week that MySpace has started their own “do-it-yourself-interactive-media” platform, and Google’s subsequent Beta of the Display Ad Builder Tool, it’s right about now that agencies are doing one of two things: Saying it won’t change them, or reassuring their clients of their value and that these tools are not needed.

Chances are though – most of them aren’t getting into the applications and trying to figure out if it’s an actual tool they can use and master in order to save their clients some time and money. If you’re one of those people who IS interested – take a look at the product tutorial below.

But why is it that agencies are constantly shunning the new tools that make it easier for advertisers? Have you not learned anything by Google Ad Words (apparently not as most of them don’t even use it themselves). If we’ve learned anything at all, it’s to embrace Google and it’s technology, and then apply marketing principles to it to make it better and meet client objectives. Yes there are 100’s of tools that help you to optimize your campaigns and manage your bids, but in the long run, the success of the campaign still comes down the agency’s ability to apply sound marketing principles and execute strategic plan objectives flawlessly – regardless of whether you use a new tool by Google or your charge your client 10 times that amount by doing it the old-fashioned way. In this economy, don’t you at least owe it to your client to know all of the tools available to you?