A Primer Into The World Of Paid Search Marketing
Author: Craig A Smith
Article source: http://www.selfseo.com/. Used with author's permission.
Paid search seems like an easy nut to crack. Target the keywords that make sense for your business, write a compelling ad, manage the bidding process, and see the sales come in.
Unfortunately, due to the swarm of advertisers that have now embraced the medium as a quick alternative to gaining natural rankings, the market has become much more competitive and retailers need to consistently monitor paid search metrics to not spend marketing dollars unwisely. For a company to receive maximum ROI within paid search platforms, clickthroughs must be monitored for performance and various variables need to be tested to optimize the campaigns.
Although paid search ad platforms are technological marvels and one of the most advanced advertising mediums that have ever been invented, the reality is that paid search follows direct marketing rules that catalogers have been following for 100+ years. In the early days of catalogs, retailers realized that people in unique segments responded to different messaging in various ways.
To ensure that a catalog business would continue to grow, catalogers would take their learnings from a previous campaign and leverage them within subsequent mailings. They would change the ad copy, change the products etc - continually trying to exceed previous successes. Sometimes the changes would work - sometimes it wouldn't - but catalogers were always trying increase their previous metrics.
The lessons of the past still hold true today in search marketing. Even though the level of variables may be less than an average print catalog, online retailers still need to consistently monitor the performance of their paid search advertising and recreate new ads with changes that better speak to consumers.
For those who may be new to paid search marketing - below are the variables that retailers can control within paid search:
1.