by Laura Thieme
I’ve been reviewing our retail Bizwatch client annual web traffic reports. I’ve written recently on Google’s move to “not provided”, which is another way of saying that they’ve chosen to REMOVE keyword detail on a portion of your organic SEO keyword referrals in your analytics reports.
I’m looking at the companies that have potential to suffer the most from Google choosing to no longer provide SEO keyword detail on a growing percentage of non-paid organic traffic. Retailers or Ecommerce companies.
Tonight, I looked at a company that had 126,000 visits that have NO keyword detail
in their organic reports. Over one hundred thousand visits, and we have absolutely
NO idea what keyword sent them – since they came in from organic listings, and since they came in from a user who was logged into their Google account while searching.
Most likely, anybody in search, advertising or online marketing, or using their
Mobile phone, especially a Droid, is logged into Google or Gmail at all times.
That means their online searches in Google that result in a click to a website
are no longer identifiable by keyword.
So, this is bad, right? But it gets worse. Check out the next graph. Not provided by Goals or Conversions.
Over 71,000 conversions – and no keyword detail. This was just in November & December 2011.
For SEO managers, for online marketing managers, the inability to measure what is working for an ecommerce retailer is a growing problem or worse than
that. It means that SEO professionals can’t prove specific keywords converted. That keyword could be a brand keyword, or not. It could represent a number of keywords.
It could represent keywords that are converting, represent revenue and
thus, should be expanded upon in paid search. I’ve seen this for another client. A top converting previously unrealized keyword in organic search is uncovered in Bizwatch. The client added that keyword to paid search, and look at the results.
In the graph above, here is a perfect reason why Google should not limit SEO keyword detail. Smart, savvy marketers will use top converting, high traffic SEO keyword
detail in Google Analytics and / or above using Bizwatch, to uncover missed opportunities that should be in paid search advertising but were previously not. In the case above, the client realized after reviewing their Bizwatch reports (which pulls from Google Analytics API data and filters, sorts, and has layered algorithms on top) that they had forgotten a match type in their keyword phrase for this top converting keyword. They added that keyword, and it sent 43 conversions to the client, as well as over $1,000 for one keyword match type to Google. Both client and Google won in this case.
What type of revenue is this worth to a large retail client below, who no longer can see this type of information on SEO keywords if the user is logged into a Google account while searching? Just how valuable is this keyword, if visits and goals/conversions shown above isn’t enough representation? Look at the revenue associated with “not provided” in Google for this retailer.
3,800+ transactions. How much revenue you ask? Over $300,000 in revenue. Average order value above average for the site.
And none of this information is available by keyword anymore.
It’s clearly a way for Google to make SEO’s and analytics professionals’ jobs harder .
Let’s see, maybe Google can choose to offer this data to retailers in its paid version of Google Analytics? Nah, they wouldn’t do that, because then they would be monetizing SEO, right? Something they said they would never do.
by Laura Thieme
So it’s been a few weeks since Google came out and said they were going to disable the ability for any website/search marketing/SEO analytics user to determine the keywords that send traffic for logged in users.
Or, in plain English, if you click on the G+ icon above, and are logged into your Google profile, or if you go to Google on your Droid, iPhone, or from your computer, and you happen to be logged in to Gmail, Adwords, Analytics, which is the majority of us who do search marketing or for that matter anything on the Web, well, then your Google keyword search data will no longer be passed onto the websites that you visit.
Google sheepishly said it would affect less than 10% of your traffic data. I wrote a blog entry on this indicating my concerns and reasoning as to why I think Google chose to disable keyword referral data on organic SEO traffic.
December traffic reports are being analyzed. We are reviewing Bizwatch top converting high traffic keyword reports, and are beginning to see “NOT PROVIDED” as the top referring, top converting, high traffic keyword. In fact, in some scenarios, it is the #1 top converting keyword.
Only, we don’t really know what the heck (previously had a different word here) that keyword is, now do we, Google?
What do you do with top converting, high traffic keyword data?
Throw it in the trashcan?
No! You make sure that you show up EVERYWHERE for that keyword. In fact, I advise clients to make sure they show up in Adwords, yep, PAID SEARCH, PAID ADVERTISING for those top converting, high traffic keywords.
So, today as I’m reviewing Bizwatch traffic reports with one of our long-term clients, and we’re seeing 82 goals reported on a top converting keyword, only it says NOT PROVIDED.
Here’s another client who is spending $15k this month in Google Adwords. This time next year, when it’s retail advertising time, and when we’ll want to ensure we’re advertising on our TOP CONVERTING/PERFORMING keyword phrases, well, we’ll look back on our Bizwatch reports that pull data from Google Analytics keyword referral reports, and we’ll see this report -
424 top converting keywords will remain a mystery – so we can’t add
that into our Google Adwords campaign.
I can’t do ANYTHING with this information. Nothing.
NOT PROVIDED is like Google got us all excited with delivering all this great information, teased us, courted us, and then dumped us right before the well, peak or good part.
But not only does the customer lose, SEOs lose, but Google loses. Because if we can’t take that top converting keyword data and turn it into actionable ideas, or PAID SEARCH GOOGLE ADWORDS & yes, more SEO task items, then we all lose. We have the potential to begin losing top converting keyword data in more places, like in Adwords, or in Google Product Search, where I’m also beginning to see lack of converting keyword data. And that’s evil, Google. Didn’t you say repeatedly, Google, that your goal was to “not be evil”. Well, exactly what is this?
Google, do the right thing. Get rid of your crazy concept of NOT PROVIDED. You are turning down the wrong road here. It’s not a good direction for anyone. And it can’t be more of a good thing to come, if you keep going down this road.
Google Analytics Keyword Referral Report To No Longer Show Organic Keyword Referral Data Due to Data Encryption
by Laura Thieme (I’ve done SEO for 14 years, and PPC for 5 years, and spoken at over 35 SES & SMX conferences on measuring success since 2001) Note: Sorry for formatting issues – I wrote this in MS Word.
Go to Google.com. Look in the upper right hand corner. Do you see your name or email address? Then you are logged in to a Google account. If you are logged into a Google account, or use Google’s secure browsing feature (https://www.google.com), search Google, and click thru to a website, your keyword referral data will not be passed on, in the organic SEO keyword portion of the reports. Google says this only affects 10% of online searches, according to Matt Cutts and SearchEngineLand.com.
According to Google’s Official Blog, here are the reasons behind this keyword encryption initiative:
1. Encourage stronger data encryption standards. Signed-in users will be redirected to https://google.com
2. Encrypt search results & search queries
3. Protect personalized search results
For website owners, here is the change you will note in your Google reports:
1. Websites won’t receive information about the individual query using Google Analytics or ANY OTHER analytics tool.
2. Websites can log into their Google Webmaster Tools and see the top 1,000 search queries in their reports, but not see specific data about each query.
Why do I think Google is doing this?
1) Monetization, Revenue
a) SEO does not earn Google money, never has
b) I’ve seen a huge shift from PPC to SEO at the conferences and amongst old/new clients. People want SEO now, more than ever, and yes, more than Google Adwords or Pay Per Click (PPC). That’s unfortunate, because we show PPC sends more traffic, faster, and easier than SEO hands-down. Not that SEO isn’t important, but it’s not the best or only game in town. Despite Google’s best efforts, people who are new to search, seem to try SEO before PPC, despite the err in this way of thinking. SEO takes longer than PPC to show results. Few companies really do SEO right to earn top three rankings.
c) If more companies shift advertising efforts / resources / budget from Google Adwords to SEO, the more revenue Google loses.
d) Yesterday I talked with a company that decided in order to afford an SEO audit and strategy, they paused their Adwords campaign, two weeks before the holiday shopping season officially begin. This was the wrong thing to do, but unfortunately the SEM company has to prove that.
e) How will the SEM company prove that keywords ranked send traffic? Through Google Analytics, right? Through the keyword referral report. But not if the SEM company can’t track keyword results based on the direction in which Google is headed.
2) To disrupt SEO (search engine optimization) efforts
a) The more companies that invest in SEO, the more we clamour for the top five rankings for all keywords, the more competition we face. The harder it is to rank. With tight budgets, SEOs get squeezed, and yet the amount of work they have to do for a top three search engine ranking outweighs any PPC work (I speak from 14 years of experience, so trust me on this).
b) Link building schemes were rightfully disabled in part by Google although I continue to see some of these efforts not get penalized by Google
c) Panda updates and other things Google puts in place, understandably attempt to defeat content farms – Yet another understandable attempt to disrupt those who game the SEO system
d) With respect to tracking results, regardless of whether SEOs achieved them rightfully or not, SEOs and their clients have finally progressed to wanting to see more than just rankings, but to see that a keyword > visibility > traffic >lead/order >conversion rate — I speak for the progressive in our industry, not the new to search, nor those who think that all that matters is a keyword ranking on the first page
e) Google Analytics shows educated SEOs & clients the results by showing the keyword that attracted traffic, leads, orders & conversion rate (amongst that you would know the company name (if on a static IP address) and other interesting information). Well, at least they used to for all search results but now, this will be limited to those users who are not using Google in a logged-in state.
f) Google is attempting to show you ranking information in Google Webmaster Tools – I have personally found that the only ones looking at Google Webmaster Tools are highly technical SEOs and webmasters. In my experience, no company exec is going to sign off on an SEO renewal contract by seeing the SEO data as it’s illustrated in Google Webmaster Tools.
3) To disrupt SEO reporting tools (the next in a long line of anti-SEO initiatives)
a) SEO reporting APIs are very restricted in the amount of keywords, how often you can query the data. For companies wanting to see top five rankings in Google, they’re going to run search engine ranking (SEO) ranking reports, and perhaps for large number of keywords, and yes, perhaps often (or more often than Google would ever want). For those not conforming to the restrictive API service requirements, major SEO tools scrape, or require APIs to be installed on customer computer desktops. In short, SEO ranking reports hurt Google servers. I think they’re trying to do something to understandably avert this effort.
b) Please note that Bizwatch has pulled client rankings using APIs since 2008, and integrated this data with Google Analytics for the past three years. Rankings mean nothing to the informed user, without knowing if it resulted in traffic, leads, orders, revenue.
4) To promote Google Adwords
a) You can see your keyword data in Analytics or Google Adwords, regardless of logged in status, however, Bizwatch has noticed that keyword referral data is not getting passed on Product Extensions (Google Ads – Product Extensions – those image ads that have synched up with Google Merchant Center and show product, price, image in the ads).
5) Potentially to promote Google Analytics Premium, at some point?
a) Perhaps you’d get organic keyword referral data in Google Analytics Premium, but not elsewhere? Sorry if I just gave Google a monetization idea. Google Analytics Premium sent me an email quote for $12,500 a month. Nothing like getting a quote for $12k a month without even a phone call or fancy proposal.
6) To promote Google Webmaster Tools
a) Their data is lacking for anyone really interested in measuring visibility > traffic >bounce rate > time on site > pages viewed > leads/orders >conversion rate by keyword/bucket
7) Understand that organic brings Google NOTHING, or at least no direct revenue. Indirectly, yes, but if SEOs can’t track when organic / SEO sends traffic, they are the ones getting squeezed the most. Clients ultimately care about whether or not revenue increased, and how much it cost them. They actually don’t really care about the keywords that sent them. That’s putting the client or marketing exec in the weeds. It’s the big picture that clients ultimately care about. It’s only SEOs that have to figure this stuff out, because if they know which keywords send revenue, they can do more to focus on that type of traffic, and they can focus less on the keywords that fail to send measurable results.
I am not one bit convinced this is to enhance the searcher’s online experience. In fact, if Google wanted to improve the online searcher’s experience, then I have the following questions for Google, as it relates to the PPC side of the business (or Google Adwords Paid Ads):
Why do you have session-based broad match? How many times have you made money off of keywords where you displayed ads for keywords that are not relevant to companies?
Why do you show adult-related keywords for non-related keywords? How much money have you made off of this action?
How many times have companies asked for refunds for this?
I digress, sorry.
Why can’t advertisers opt out of broad-session based keywords? Digression again.
You say you rate company’s ad campaigns for keyword relevancy, in terms of quality score, and can read the landing page content. Then why do you show keywords that don’t match my client’s landing page in any way, in broad match terms, that are not relevant?
I may be talking about Pay Per Click advertising in Google Adwords, but since Google says they’re king of relevancy, and they’re enhancing the searcher’s experience, I’m wondering why I keep seeing pay per click costs in my client’s campaigns for keywords that are not relevant. That’s how Google makes money, so, I have a hard time understanding why Google is saying this is about protecting the online searcher’s interests.
 Google & Privacy: A few years ago when Google Analytics first came out, I read the fine print in the agreement. I remember talking about what I read at a Webmaster World (PubCon Las Vegas) conference. I actually put the snippet into my presentation. There were lots of surprised people in the audience. Google made changes to their privacy statements after that. Not saying it had anything to do with me, just glad they made the changes.
Since then, we have allowed Google to crawl into every aspect of our lives. Admit it, they know your conversations, your friends, your business, possibly even your finances, your daytime, nighttime life, everyday life because Google has made search, email, phones, and documents free. They’ve captured your advertising interests, your SEO interests. They know the keywords you want to show up for. Google knows just about every stinking detail about your life, where you live, what your streets look like, and yes, we go with it. We embrace it. Well, we had a problem with it for a while, but we gave into it.
Sidenote: I can remember four years ago, clients not wanting to have Google Analytics on their website, because they didn’t want Google having access to that data, or perhaps owning it. But they eventually caved. We all did. Because it was free.
Google isn’t just worried about protecting your data, they just don’t want to share everything they know about you (and your website keywords) with anyone else now including you, and the latter is a direction that seriously concerns me. We need access to our own data. Nuff said.
9) The Free World:
Google Docs is free. Browsing is free. SEO is free, right? That’s what people think, although there is err in that way of thinking. Google makes information available to you for free, but has to monetize this. The more who divert budget away from PPC or Google Adwords, or premium products, or to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter — the less Google earns.
10) The Facebook Factor, or Social Media Factor:
We all loved Google because they said they would do no evil. Remember that? All of us old-search-timers remember when Google would say this often in the early days. Google was and still is the main search engine, but we’re spending a lot of time on Facebook. I can remember reading that Google saw Facebook as a major competitor before I realized it. We spend most of our day on Facebook, logged in if not actually checking it on mobile devices or computers, so much that some of us admit or claim it’s an addiction. This has diverted attention away from Google.
So what happens when Google who has knowledge of everything single thing you do, begins to lose your interest, and surely sees traffic decreases, and perhaps yes, even revenue decreases due to:
Diversion of revenue to Facebook
Diversion of users to Facebook
Diversion of overall traffic & time spent on Google
Theory of the “free” traffic concept, or nearly free
How much revenue does Google lose to Facebook, social media and SEO?
11) Is there Convenient Timing in Google’s Algorithmic Changes: Years ago, I spoke at an SES conference, about why Google changed organic search results right before the holidays, in fact on Black Friday. I think they called that one the Florida update. What did that make retailers do? Switch to PPC? It was after that major algorithm change during the holidays, that we changed our focus too. We chose to focus more on PPC than SEO, because it was easier to track, faster results, and yes, you could just control so much more, without necessarily making huge changes to the website infrastructure (as you have to these days with SEO).
12) Closing Comments: In closing, all of us can do something about this. We can refuse to use https://www.google.com. We can refuse to stay logged in when we search keywords. For example, since I’ve seen my search results change if I’m logged in, I choose to view my Adwords client center in Firefox, but do my searches in Safari and make sure I’m logged out when I do this.
Second, even though Google is doing this to perhaps discourage SEO tracking tools, or SEO efforts, the impact affects companies from knowing which keywords perform best. Telling companies that they can get this kind of data if they’re advertising, or wait, if they’re using Google Webmaster in Aggregate form is a real step backwards in analytics. It’s hard enough to track whether SEO makes a difference for the average company. Since you need top four search results to prove that a particular keyword is delivering rankings, traffic, leads/orders at a reasonable conversion rate, the likelihood that the average company or SEO expert is going to be able to track which keywords convert to revenue, further hurts the client and the SEO expert.
Whether or not this will achieve Google’s real goals is questionable. Will companies switch to Google Adwords, to track the data? Will SEOs start pushing Google Adwords, so they can track efforts? Will SEO tools no longer try to integrate with Google Analytics data because you can no longer measure results?
Aggregate data is not useful, unless you simply want to know how you stack up against your competitors for industry standard percentage rates, or conversion rates.
Search is granular. Tracking success is painful already yet Google just made tracking harder. They didn’t improve the searcher’s experience because now companies will no longer know which keyword sent the lead versus the ones that fail to convert in SEO, that is. Since this data will be available in Adwords & Analytics, it becomes more obvious that SEOs are hurt the most. They’ll be forced back into proving rankings resulted from their hard efforts, because that’s all they will have to show for. This is not a good day for SEOs, and proving that specific keywords drive more business than others. Knowing that 45% of your traffic comes from SEO doesn’t help when what companies really need to know is which keywords convert. It’s from that information, that they should be investing in PPC.
This is a true step backwards in Analytics, but remember, we have the ability to affect this by not staying logged in at Google when we perform keyword searches, or using secure search, for now, at least. Regardless of whether Google makes money off of Google or not, not knowing which keywords convert is a detriment to everyone.
by Laura Thieme
When I review Google Analytics & Bizwatch data with clients, we always review the company names that visit the website, from various ad campaigns, or from other online marketing methods such as SEO & social media. In Google Analytics, it will tell you the company name, provided they have a static IP address are not using an ISP with dynamic IP info. Google Analytics puts this information under Visitors / Service Provider (which could also be an IP). If you view this information, once a month, you’re likely to see some companies that visited your site, for relevant keyword phrases, but that did not fill out your contact form or contact you by phone or email.
That presents multiple questions:
- How long did they stay? More than 2 minutes? That’s good.
- How many pages did they visit? More than 2 pages? That’s good.
- Are they a new visitor or repeat? Both offer good opportunities here.
- Is the keyword referral, relevant, if a new visitor? Yes? Good.
- Why do you think they didn’t contact you? Is the keyword likely to have driven a lead? If so, then what about ways to continue to engagement AFTER they leave your website, in essence extending the life of your online ad campaigns & SEO work just a little longer?
This is called remarketing or retargeting in Google. Direct mail does this. It’s similar to this online. A person visits your website, then leaves. If they visited a particular page, you can install a cookie on their computer for 30 days, 60 – 90 days, however long you want. Of course, the person could refuse cookies, or they could in fact delete them after 30 days. That’s okay, because you still have 30 days to reach out to this company or visitor for up to 30 days, or whenever their cookie is deleted.
You can setup remarketing as a separate ad campaign in Google Adwords. You will need to do the following:
Create new campaign (various settings will be applied here)
Create new ad group (can create ad group for each type of remarketing you want to do, you can make them product specific or type of product/service specific, or generic).
You might add extensions, phone number, sitelinks. You do not need to add more than one keyword, as this is going to be setup through display network. It works differently than a regular search campaign.
The remarketing ad can be text, image or product listing. Let’s start with the simplest, text ads.
You can create your text ad. Make it worthwhile for someone who has already visited your site, to want to click. For example, if a retailer, you might say:
Order Now & Save 15%
Retailer Name Has New Product Name
Check Out our Fall Line of Shoes
www.retailername.com
Now you’re ready to add Audiences, from the Tab called “Audiences” in Google Adwords.
You can create a new list, preferred, or you can buy one of their lists. I prefer it’s your remarketing list that you create here.
Create new remarketing list – and then name it by product name or special offer.
Then you will need to determine number of days for the cookie, then get the code to send to your webmaster.
Let’s say you’re going to do a special offer for the holidays for red shoes. You would put this on the red shoes pages, if they visited those red shoes. The message would fit that in the advertisement.
Have your webmaster put this special code on your red shoe pages, then you just need 100 visitors to hit these pages, pick up the cookie, and then your remarketing ad will be displayed to them when they visit websites that have Google Adsense running (content websites).
More details to follow.
by Laura Thieme
 What's Your Holiday Offer Online? Who Doesn‘t Like a Coupon? We all want to take advantage of discounts online. Let me know on Twitter how much you like them to be? I expect 10% for business, and want 15% or more for personal. Anything less seems like well, not worth wasting the paper or electronic media it’s printed on. Retailers can take advantage of alerting their holiday online shoppers of discounts through a variety of online methods including but not limited to:
- Google Adwords
- Social Media
- QR Codes
What are the best practices for advertising special offers through Google Adwords?
- Create new Google Ads that reference special offers in the title or 1st description line -
Requires maintenance but great way to increase click-thru & conversion rates. Simply pause the ad when special offer expires.
- Set up Google Adwords Retargeting
Retargeting gives your Google Adwords extra shelf life. It requires a small amount of code added to key pages, and 100 users before ads start showing up. The code will be added to your website, and specific landing pages. You can create topic-centric remarketing campaigns based on the product type, or the special offer you want to advertise.
Recommend creating retargeting ads using both image and text ads, and all image sizes.
Google Adwords has an image builder, but we recommend using a graphic designer for improved professional quality and click-thru.
Retargeting should be run year round, but is especially helpful throughout the holiday season. You can quickly push out holiday offers to people who’ve already been to your site and picked up the cookie. If you’ve ever been to TOMS Shoes, you might have seen one of their skyscraper ads following you around on other websites. TOMS does an excellent job of retargeting, and we’ve seen their conversion results! Wow!
- Google Mobile - are you advertising on Mobile, Pandora or other mobile apps? I am always amazed at the local advertisers taking advantage of Pandora. Now both text and audio ads are common on Pandora. What mobile ad strategies are you trying?
- We can help with setting up Google Ads, Retargeting & Mobile (877-609-7027 or contact us – see coupon code below for ordering some of our services).
Best practices for distributing special offers through social media?
- Facebook – mention coupon codes, expiration dates
- Twitter – mention coupon codes, expiration dates
- Both should be tracked with URL shorteners like bit.ly or Hootsuite
- Remember people will follow your pages for coupons – it’s one of the top expectations of social media users – and why they will like your page. Remind users to visit your Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, and sign up for emails to get updated.
We’re going to show you how to set up Retargeting, step by step, in our next article. We will be offering more information, and instructional videos you can watch and learn from. We will be offering weekly tips throughout the holiday season just for online retailers. If you are not already part of our online retail educational email list, sign up here.
We are offering 10% coupon codes* for:
*Must order through Google Checkout and order online by 10/12/2011 (Columbus Day) to receive 10% discount.
by Laura Thieme
I’m often asked how long will it take to see results? This applies to any company, regardless of what industry they are in. The owners & execs still have the same question.
My answer is somewhat dependent on what you’re doing now, how much you plan to invest. It’s kind of like going on a diet, or revising your intake/output daily regimen. For some people, it takes a lot of “dieting and exercising” to see results, but for some it takes very little. That might depend on age, metabolism and a few other things that I’m not an expert to talk about here, but in general, there is only one way to quickly increase online business and that is:
I’m going to reference a typical retail scenario. Advertiser/retailer comes to me and believes in SEO. Thinks it’s the WAY and perhaps the ONLY way to get online business. They have Google Analytics to prove it. They have an Adwords campaign, but it’s on auto-pilot and limping along. Problem? Lack of skilled management, time and resources.
I review their online retail data, and I see the orders pouring in from SEO, and hardly anything from Adwords. But their SEO? They dieted, exercised, and did everything they were supposed to do by the books for how long? Months, years, it’s become a way of living.
Google Adwords, on the other hand is like a crash diet with amazing results. It has the potential to become a lifestyle business improvement, but it delivers the best results in the smallest amount of time.
The retailer allows me to see their Adwords account. I see not only mismanagement, but it’s out of control. The advertiser knows it, admits to it, and asks for help. They get they need help. That’s the first step, right? We review and discuss poor heirarchy, the same keywords in different campaigns & ad groups, lack of negatives, and pretty much every keyword on broad match. It obviously needs bid management, or bid increases for nearly 60% of their keywords.
I choose items that are above $50 sale items, and items I know will work, for my first work. I verify these items with the advertiser/retailer. He agrees. I begin to work on restructuring the Adwords campaign. It takes a few days to do this.
Over the weekend, I see orders start pouring in for the new campaigns I set up. It’s been less than a month, and I’m still seeing the same campaigns doing well. They are sending a lot of conversions. The campaigns that the client wanted to see, due to top converting online sales in general, are not yet doing well in Adwords, but the original campaigns that I set up, are doing very well.
Here are the results thus far:
89 online orders that received attribution in August (1.28% CTR & 1.3% Conversion Rate)
99 online orders thus far in September (1.26% CTR & 1.45% Conversion Rate)
His previous average online orders were 50 per month. September orders are already a 98% increase in online orders.
Our second goal, after increasing online orders?
Lowering cost per conversion or acquisition of each new customer
First you have to increase orders, and test your keywords, products, pricing, etc. Then, you can start work on improving conversion rates, and lowering cost per conversion.
I’ve blogged about this topic a lot, but I’m going to add some more tactics on how to do this in our next blog entry.
Now, if we had try to quickly double online orders, and attract 50 new customers a month, we could NOT have done this with SEO OR Social Media. Google Adwords really is the fastest way to double your business from 50 to 100 online orders each month, if done right.
You will increase your online advertising costs to do this, but look at cost per order, or cost per acquisition or conversion. Look at the average order value. Look at lifetime value. Then you can determine what you need to fix.
Remember this: cost per conversion can be lowered by adding negatives for keywords that you are showing up for, but that you don’t sell. See last blog entries on tactics for how to do this. If you don’t have someone qualified to do this for you, someone who is not business minded, management oriented, then contact us at 614-846-7584.
by Laura Thieme
Here’s another way to substantially lower cost per acquisition (CPA) or cost per conversion/lead in Google Adwords – add a new match type called +broad +match +modifier in your keyword match types.
 Use +Broad +Match +Modifier to Lower Cost Per Conversion in Google Adwords Few search marketers and advertisers know about +broad +match +modifier in Google Adwords, but this is one way to ensure that certain words must be included in an online searcher’s keyword query.
The typical Adwords match type setup that we see in most Google Adwords is:
broad match
If you log in to Google, view your keywords, and if they LACK:
“quotation marks”
+plus +signs, or
[brackets], then
you have keywords on broad match. Broad match is supposed to mean that either of those keywords must exist, but it’s also possible that with broad session based you could show up for keywords that Google believes to be contextual or related. I guarantee you one thing – you will never agree with Google 100% regarding the keywords they’ve chosen to be contextual. I often find adult-terms…. that you won’t believe you’re paying top dollar for here.
Don’t get me wrong – I believe in broad match. I don’t think broad match is evil, as some paid search marketers say in our industry.
It’s evil not to consistently manage broad match with negatives, each month by reviewing KPI analytics data in Adwords (using See Search Terms) and Google Analytics (or your 3rd party analytics package for keywords that send traffic that don’t convert). Broad match negatives are also evil without knowledge of negative match types and how they affect whether they’re working or not – but that was in my last blog entry. Read that after you finish reading this one.
So, what’s the big improvement that +broad +match +modifier gives you?
It requires the keywords that you add with the +plus +sign in front of the keyword to be required in the searcher’s online query. It’s great for adding qualifier keywords that you know increase conversion rates, but you also want to be added to the query.
Here are some examples:
+buy +cheesecake
+order +cheesecake
Check that out in Google right now. Put in the keywords
buy cheesecake
now type in
cheesecake recipes
or just
cheesecake
Do the same advertisers come up? How are they different?
The advertisers you see (Cheesecake Factory, Harry & David) may not have negatives on the keyword recipes, recipe. Or, they might – just depends on what you see.
They might not have the +broad +match +modifier match type in place, and properly positioned for
+buy +cheesecake
So go to your Adwords campaigns. Pull your keyword KPIs. Look to see if your keywords have
+plus +signs in front of any of them.
Warning:
Do not have every single keyword added in, automatically, with +plus +signs
If you have four match types on every single keyword, you might find some of them don’t get any impression share at all. There are reasons for that, but that’s another blog entry.
Which keywords should you try +broad +match +modifier on?
1) Popular keywords with qualifier terms
Example: +cheesecake +sampler
Example: +red +leather +shoes
Example: +ppc +management +software
2) Rarely, do we recommend more than 3 keywords to try out on broad match modifier. Limit to 2-3 keywords to try this out on. Otherwise, you could be limiting your keywords too much.
3) Try out on the highest impression volume keywords, with the highest clicks, but where you want to lower CPA or CPL or cost per conversion, increase CTR and CVR.
Want more secret sauce tips on increasing CTR, CVR & lowering CPA/CPL, cost per conversion? Read our last blog entry on the topic.
by Laura Thieme
 SMX NYC September 13-15, 2011 I just got back from presenting at SMX in NYC this past Tuesday-Thursday. What a great event, as always by Danny Sullivan & Chris Sherman.
I talked about Lowering Cost Per Acquisition (CPA), also known as Cost Per Conversion in my session from Wednesday afternoon in Retail Ecommerce Marketing Tactics. I told the group about a little known tactic in Google Adwords to significantly lower CPA. I’m going to take you through a step-by-step visual instruction of this for you to use.
- Log in to Google Adwords
- Select a Campaign & Ad Group that you need to improve cost per conversion, by lowering it to an acceptable level.
- Drill down within this campaign and ad group to the keyword tab
- Sort on the Clicks column if you’re not sure of specific keyword to review yet, in descending order
- I chose in this example shown below, our Cheesecake campaign, and the specific keyword phrase order cheesecake (broad match). We would rarely suggesting advertising on the single keyword cheesecake this far out of season. Closer to Christmas and it might make a lot of sense, if conversion volume, Conversion Rates and cost of acquisition/conversion are acceptable.
 Select One Keyword to Optimize - then See Search Terms
- Next, click on the box to the far left of the keyword you want to review. Click on only one keyword at a time to get accurate information.
- For time range, I suggest having a long enough time frame to analyze 100 clicks to make it worth your time, or close to that number.
- Up above the column headings, above (in my image shown “Status”), you will see some buttons. Click on the button that says See Search Terms.
- In Dropdown window, click on “See Selected”.
- You may choose to sort in descending order by clicks. You might also want to see the keywords that converted, and their actual search terms.
- Begin to click on keywords on the box to the left of the keyword that you don’t want.
- Click on the button that says “add as negative keyword”.
 Choose keywords you want to add in Negative Keyword List – Change to Broad for the offending Root Term Only, or Phrase Match for 2-Keyword Phrases”]  Pop-Up Window Displays for Your Keywords to Add to Negatives - By Default They are [Exact Match ![Rework negatives from [Exact Match] to root term only, broad match or 2 keywords "phrase match"](http://bizwatchsearchanalytics.com/reporting/components/com_wordpress/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/cheesecake-negatives-step-2-adwords.jpg "cheesecake-negatives-step-2-adwords") Edited Negative Keyword List with new Match Types (broad for root term and phrase match for 2-keywords) Tips on Negatives & Negative Match Types for Google Adwords
- In Screenshots above – When you add as negative keyword, in this particular interface window, Google makes everything negative [exact match] by default. That is not a good thing.
- You want only the root term, or the keyword phrase that is consistently the problem.
- For example, you might add just the negative root term of your competitors, or cheesecake (in this example) flavors you don’t sell, or types of cheesecake you don’t sell. We added:
-baby
-gluten (for gluten free – since people could type this different ways)
-cupcake
-carrot
-cupcakes (added both singular, plural)
-chocolate
-”caramel apple” – you could also do a separate one just for caramel
-caramel
-cheap
-fudge
-elis (competitor)
- Note that each one above is either broad match (root term only) or “phrase match” if two keywords. We never take a keyword phrase longer than 2 words, and we never negative [exact match] the term. It creates too long a list, if you tried to exact match every single instance.
- While somewhat tedious to do this, you really get to know the keywords that you’re paying for. It can be downright shocking to see the cost associated with some of these keywords.
- Watch for “session-based” broad match keywords that are not relevant to your product/service in this interface as well. Sometimes, you’ll see contextual keywords that Google chose for your campaign that make sense, but you will often see keywords that you don’t like here, and don’t want showing up.
Task Duration:
- 1st time – Approximately one hour for first-time per campaign, depending on the number of clicks and keywords
- Maintenance – Approximately 15 minutes if you do this each month
Task Frequency:
- Recommend monthly, or as often as 100 clicks occur, and if your cost per conversion is still too high
How long before you see results:
- Within one month, you should see cost per conversion decrease
Side benefits:
- Click-thru rate increases (CTR)
- Conversion rate increases (CVR)
13 Month Bizwatch Trend Analysis Reports on Google Adwords are available:
- 30 day free trial, then $499 per month
- Historical data for up to 13 months can be pulled for one-time setup fee of $499 (charged separately)
- Integrated with Google Analytics
- Includes SEO Ranking & Trend Reports (Integrated with Analytics)
- Includes traffic projection data
- Order Online or call 614-846-7584
by Laura Thieme
Addie Conner, VP of Advertising of SocialCode, presented first without a format Powerpoint presentation. I must be tired, getting old and unable to take notes without a formal presentation, but Addie, can you send me that presentation link from SMX West? @SocialCodeInc – perhaps put it on Slideshare or send me a link, and I’ll update it here. Addie has an amazing background and so much to offer. I guess I just want that preso.
Next up was the amazingly energetic, and super smart, Marty Weintraub (@aimclear) who quickly launched into some CPA metrics. Marty is clearly not a fan of Adwords, Bing or Facebook Advertising CPAs until they are significantly lowered (cost per acquisition). I’m in agreement. The second half of his presentation regarding writing ads, and targeting was not only entertaining but helpful. Marty is clearly the best type of person to write ads for Facebook. That’s the hard part for corporate advertisers – is to find creative writers to talk and write like Marty does, if it’s appropriate for their audience. Few of us are that cool, just face it. We don’t all say catchy things like Marty does. So, the one main takeaway from his presentation – is hire someone that not only gets your business audience, objectives and consumers, but find someone that knows how to write hip, catchy ads, use compelling images, and understands how to utilize Facebook targeting.
Best Practices by Marin Software, Matt Lawson
- Always Start advertising with friends; for better ROI.
- Use Keyword Stemming to find interests. Lateral stemming – actually going through letter by letter, a – z.
- Contrasting color image ads, link images to audience to increase relevance
- Keep Facebook user experience – if you are going to cause a person to leave your Facebook page, then remember that people on Facebook are looking for a much more social experience, so don’t send them to your homepage or a static page.
Q&A:
What type of API tools exist for Facebook development, ads?
- Many are privately developed
- Facebook’s tool itself is pretty good, according to @AimClear
- Facebook has approved API vendors – check the list
- You can measure with Google Analytics
How do you get Likes?
- Interact
- Target right people to begin with
- Extend genuine friendship
- Offer something of value
- Would something you write or offer, be something that your friend would want to forward to someone else
by Laura Thieme
Wishing you could be at SMX East NYC this Tuesday through Thursday, the 13-15th?
Don’t worry. I’ve got you covered.
I’ll be at the conference, speaking on Tuesday & Wednesday on Google Adwords, Common PPC Mistakes, and Integrating SEO & PPC Tactics for Holiday Season Retailers. When I’m not speaking, I’ll be attending other sessions and covering the topics.
If you want to tune in remotely, here are ways to do it:
For quick updates, the easiest way is to see our Twitter feed:
1) @bizwatchsearch – will update through my phone at conference
2) on Google + - for longer updates, pictures from conference. If you are still not on G+, but need an invite, send me a DM on Twitter (follow me on Twitter) with your email address and I will send you an invite. You can also request this from us on our Facebook page.
3) for more prepared blog entries, recapping when time permits – see this blog, see SMX East NYC tag
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