Paid Search Secrets: Devious, Dastardly and Downright Daring

This #EcomChat was on the tantalising subject of the secret world of paid search.

The aim of this chat was to go beyond the basics of good practice for paid search and look at the creative ways in which people are using paid search to get ahead of the competition.

A huge amount of tips & tricks were shared over the hour, and as a result @JackSaville1 has kindly written this up including lots of verbatim tips.

This week the topic was divided into 3 questions:

• What are the unusual things that you have done using paid search & what did you learn?
• What interesting things have you seen other brands doing?
• What can be done to gain a competitive advantage in paid search?

The discussion started with the question:

‘Q1: What are the unusual things that you have done using paid search & what did you learn?’

One way in which paid search was being used was as a tool for testing.  As suggested by James Gurd

• @JamesGurd: ‘A1) test impact of switching off exact match brand terms whilst keeping brand + generic running = brand organic down #EcomChat’
• @emmabonar: ‘@JamesGurd Interesting, so you need the exact match for brand then… #ecomchat’
• James Gurd‏@JamesGurd: ‘@emmabonar For this Client but extenuating circumstances – brand name v generic and SEO was poor, so PPC was a protector #EcomChat …’Details
•  ‏@JamesGurd: ‘@emmabonar but had to prove it to the board as they could see 80% revenue via brand only and thought it was wasted money #EcomChat’

Additionally, as suggested by, @danbarker: ‘A1. The most obvious non-standard thing I sometimes use AdWords for is testing demand. Eg. ‘how big is the audience for [x]’’

• @danroche27: ‘@danbarker agree, good for identifying accurate search volumes before putting SEO effort in #ecomchat’

Chatter then focused on the integration of TV ads and paid search ads.  @danbarker drew attention to this topic with: ‘Another PPC experiment: Brand advertising during TV ads to divert responses to campaign landing pages rather than homepage.’.  The topic then went in various directions.

Some of the other areas covered included:

Cheap PPC:

• ‏@searchbeest:. ‘@danbarker back in the day we’d bid on ‘quote me happy’ for Norwich Union. Worked a treat #EcomChat’
• ‏@AndrewGirdwood: ‘@searchbeest @danbarker I think the lack of SEO on ‘Quote Me Happy’ contributed to that! 🙂 #ecomchat’
• ‏@MontseCano: ‘@AndrewGirdwood @searchbeest @danbarker What do you mean? I’m struggling to keep both channels going in parallel #ecomchat’
• ‏@AndrewGirdwood: ‘@MontseCano @searchbeest @danbarker They created a memorable phrase but didn’t naturally rank for it. Result? Easy PPC pickings #ecomchat’

Tablet/mobile problems:

Measurement:

• @AndrewGirdwood: ‘@danbarker And you can use PPC to measure the impact of your TV ads too #ecomchat’
• ‏@danbarker: ‘@AndrewGirdwood indeed! vaguely related – I often now cheat ‘by-minute’ tracking into Google Analytics for that. #ecomchat’
• ‏@JamesGurd: ‘@danbarker @AndrewGirdwood and is that using a regex filter or custom report? Anything you can share Dan? #EcomChat’

Integrated Advertising:

• @IraKates: ‘#EcomChat @danbarker I’ve actually worked with my auto client to embed search terms in all our retail messaging on TV.’
•  @danbarker: ‘@IraKates very interesting! How have things gone results-wise? #EcomChat’
• @emmabonar: ‘@IraKates @danbarker integrated advertising across channels, the Holy Grail! #ecommchat’
• @IraKates: ‘@danbarker amazing. our initial test almost two years ago saw search term lift by almost 800%, mega click and conversion rates’
• @IraKates: ‘@emmabonar @danbarker I’m lucky with Mazda here, they, creative and media are all open to my crazy “what if we did this”’

 Competitor & Own Brand Interaction:

• ‏@doggonwheels: ‘@danbarker I like the idea of looking at how competitors TV campaigns impact our brand. #EcomChat
• @JamesGurd: ‘@doggonwheels @danbarker And do you have campaigns you turn on if you see an ad to try and mop up activity after? #EcomChat’
• ‏@doggonwheels: ‘@JamesGurd @danbarker that’s where I want to take it. I also want to stop paying for add between 1 and 4 am as they never convert.’
• @doggonwheels: ‘@JamesGurd @danbarker I can bit more dynamically then without asking for more budget’

Problems People Encounter:

• ‏@searchbeest: ‘.@danbarker back in the day we’d bid on ‘quote me happy’ for Norwich Union. Worked a treat #EcomChat’
• ‏@JamesGurd: ‘@searchbeest @danbarker yep still one of the best examples of search hooks in advertising. QMH now a separate site for Aviva. #EcomChat’
• ‏@danbarker: ‘@JamesGurd @searchbeest wasn’t there a stat that ‘compare the meerkat’ searches peaked above ‘compare the market’ at some stage? #ecomchat’‏
• @searchbeest: ‘@danbarker @JamesGurd don’t forget the Orange i.am debacle – good example of it all going wrong for TV+search #EcomChat’
• @IraKates: ‘@searchbeest @danbarker @JamesGurd what was this example? I want to avoid it at all costs’
• @searchbeest: ‘@IraKates @danbarker @JamesGurd they used TV to get people to search for ‘i am’, but didn’t do any SEO https://srchb.st/19ngHtJ ‘

Client Education:

• ‏@AndrewGirdwood : ‘A1 You can also use PPC to show non-digital teams that their perception of their brand strength is right or wrong #ecomchat (often too high)’

Broad modified Keywords for Building Out Accounts:

• ‏@danroche27: ‘Same keywords, different campaigns, one for phrase match and one broad modified match – broad modified converted a lot better #ecomchat’
• ‏@JamesGurd: ‘@danroche27 Hi Dan, any surprising keyphrases coming up with broad modified that you would never have thought about? #EcomChat’
• @danroche27: ‘@JamesGurd Good for account build outs and adding long tail keywords which phrase match doesn’t pick up #ecomchat’
• @danroche27: ‘@JamesGurd Also has increased CR of exact match campaigns as I dump variations in that campaign from BMM SQR’s #ecomchat’

Topical Targeting:

• @AndrewBaker72: ‘A1 I guess topical targeting… eg events, news stories, etc… pot luck it can work well or be a disaster #ecomchat’

Jobseeking:

• ‏@ReferralCandy: ‘RT @danbarker: Here was the jobseeker who found a job via AdWords: https://google-job-experiment.blogspot.co.uk/ #EcomChat @jamesgurd @aattias’
• ‏@DanielJAustin: ‘@ReferralCandy @danbarker @jamesgurd @aattias i did this via LinkedIn and secured a few interviews. #ecomchat pic.twitter.com/e3dqLO3Ink’Reply
• @JamesGurd: @DanielJAustin and would you do it again? #EcomChat
• @DanielJAustin: ‘@JamesGurd yes it did and 100% I would do it again. I had so many positive comments. Everyone loved it #EcomChat’

Christmas Advertising:

• @AndrewGirdwood: ‘Look outside of Google for PPC opportunities. How’s that for outlandish? give Outbrain or StumbleUpon a goal for your Xmas viral #EcomChat’DetailsReply
• @danbarker: ‘@AndrewGirdwood a very good tip. how about facebook? especially with their crazy stuff like ‘lookalike’ targeting. #ecomchat’

Mobile:

• @AndrewBaker72: ‘Another, setting mobile only campaigns for brand searches w/ dest url/site links set to opening hours, directions, instore promos #ecomchat’

Geographic Targeting:

• @danbarker: ‘Anyone had any particularly interesting results around geographic targeting/adjustments? #ecomchat’
• @emmabonar: @danbarker For my German website we only target regions around stores, used to do whole country but not enough brand awareness
• ‏@AndrewBaker72: ‘@danbarker yes we used PLAs for a Scottish client so we could benefit from AdWords geo-targeting. At time G Shopping was all UK #ecomchat’

Affiliates:

• ‏@AndrewGirdwood: ‘You can use PPC to work out fair and accurate commission for your affiliates and performance partners #EcomChat’
• ‏@JamesGurd: ‘@AndrewGirdwood Can you expand on that please Andrew, it’s an interesting point. #EcomChat’
• ‏@AndrewGirdwood: ‘@JamesGurd At a most basic level workout your CPA as a percentage of sales value. Allows you to compare and contrast #ecomchat’
• ‏@JamesGurd: ‘@AndrewGirdwood And do you use it to set commission at product level or higher, sub cat/category, or both? #EcomChat’
• ‏@AndrewGirdwood: ‘@JamesGurd I’ve not done that but I suppose you could. ifyou wanted to have that a complex commission structure #ecomchat’
• ‏@JamesGurd: ‘@AndrewGirdwood For some large catalogue retailers/drop shippers, margins vary wildly across product categories #EcomChat
• @AndrewGirdwood: ‘@JamesGurd Yes, certainly. The art of good performance commissions is a tricky one.

Brand Bidding

• ‏@ArianneDonoghue: ‘@danbarker #ecomchat A1 It was probably brand bidding to prove intent and customer perception when searching for said brand.’
• ‏@ChinaShopBull: ‘@ArianneDonoghue Interesting. Did you have a landing page with different routes onward or just vary the advert copy?’
• ‏@ArianneDonoghue: ‘@ChinaShopBull Most of it was conducted via sitelinks, back when they were new. Was v. interesting to compare CTRs and site behaviour.’
• ‏@ArianneDonoghue: ‘@ChinaShopBull It was for a brand who run a very well-known offline meetings side of things, allied to their online business.’

Foreign Language Problems

• ‏@ChinaShopBull: ‘@danbarker unusual? the level of frustration I felt with the character limit due to German language being much longer than English #ecomchat’
• ‏@danbarker: ‘@ChinaShopBull some are shorter! see the note on ‘double-width’ here: https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/175910?hl=en … #ecomchat’DetailReplyRetweetRetweeted
• @ChinaShopBull: ‘@danbarker I will let you know how Japanese PPC goes next year 🙂 Until then I am busy chasing our German colleagues to rephrase ads.’
• @emmabonar: ‘@JamesGurd @danbarker I did a test campaign in German, linking to a site in English. Unsurprisingly the responsible was horrible #ecomchat’

Running Google Display Network Ads.

Andrew Girdwood, Ira Kates and Arianne Donoghue gave their opinions on who should run ‘Display’:

• ‏@AndrewGirdwood: ‘Who’s running your Google Display Network ads? Your Search Agency or Display Agency? Why? #EcomChat’
• ‏@IraKates: ‘We (search agency) run a good chunk of all biddable media. #EcomChat @AndrewGirdwood’
• ‏@AndrewGirdwood: That’s good to see. Lots of search agencies are getting there ahead of old style display agencies. #EcomChat’
• ‏@IraKates: once they see some results it’s not a hard sell! #EcomChat
• ‏@ArianneDonoghue: I think the skillset for something like this is inherently more PPC-centric. No surprise search agencies managing!
• ‏@IraKates:  100% we have the experience, it’s a lot easier to sell through in a big agency though IMO
• @AndrewGirdwood:  It’s one of the few “big agency advantages” to be honest. But an important one. #EcomChat
• ‏@ArianneDonoghue:  Also a very valid point. Not easy to adapt that quickly when you’re at that size and scale.’
• ‏@ArianneDonoghue:  I’ve been at comparatively small agencies which refused to change. Frustrating when the opportunity is huge!’
• @IraKates:  Almost have to take a lump and run a campaign for free or work with one of the traditional folks to show’

Dan Barker then moved the discussion on to other brands and what they have been doing with Paid Search.

• Q2) “What interesting things have you seen other brands doing around PPC?”
• @SEMantiks:A2: Teletext Holidays scored some great PR bidding on David Haye and Carlos Tevez a couple of years back #EcomChat’
• @danbarker: ‘@SEMantiks oh I remember that. I remember you doing something very neat too! #ecomchat’
• ‏@priteshpatel9: ‘@danbarker @SEMantiks – yep, here it is: https://priteshpatel.me/brilliant-black-friday-ppc-ad/ …’

• @SEMantiks: ‘@priteshpatel9 @danbarker Getting to that time of year again. Maybe time for a cheeky rework :)’

• @DanielJAustin: ‘information and case studies here https://www.icrossing.co.uk/ann-summers-case-study … https://www.figarodigital.co.uk/case-study/annsummers.aspx … #ecomchat’
• ‏@DanielJAustin: ‘Ann Summers bidding on high volume, typical keywords ‘election’, ‘budget 2011’ ‘uksnow’ etc. ‘There’s no recession in pleasure’ #EcomChat’
• James Gurd‏@JamesGurd: ‘a2) At Robert Dyas we used to ramp up tactical campaigns for air con when weather forecast was predicting big spikes… #EcomChat’

Finally, we moved on to a discussion of what can be done to gain a competitive advantage in paid search. 

One interesting point was the decision to take advantage of the influence the weather has on paid search:

• @JamesGurd : ‘Amazing how media coverage & TV weather forecasts influence online shopping before the fact #EcomChat’
• @emmabonar: @’JamesGurd The Weather is the go-to excuse or answer for many retail-related woes #EcomChat’
• @MontseCano: ‘@emmabonar @JamesGurd But, is it (almost) always the right answer? #EcomChat’
• @JamesGurd: ‘@MontseCano @emmabonar that depends what the question is! Weather has keen influence on behaviour (inc mood) #EcomChat’
• @MontseCano: ‘@JamesGurd @emmabonar Mood, yes. Important factor to take into account here. #EcomChat’
• @JamesGurd: ‘@MontseCano @emmabonar Yep like today, it’s shitty weather and i’m grumpy therefore i want take away tonight, so local search! #EcomChat’

Another point was the importance of controlling retargeting:

• @searchbeest: ‘A3 Get control of retargeting: stop paying for convs you would have got anyway. Figure out how to go beyond 1st party data too. #EcomChat’
• @danroche27: ‘@searchbeest agree, look at the categories of sites you are retargeting too aswell and exclude inappropriate ones #ecomchat’
• @DanielJAustin: ‘Good analysis a key battle ground. Amazing how many still think position 1 is the best to be in. Analyse conversion vs position #ecomchat’
• @searchbeest: ‘@DanielJAustin interesting, I’ve never seen any data to support different conv rates by position #EcomChat’

And, among this, were a great number of other tips and pointers:

• @KevinWaugh: ‘@danbarker #EcomChat A3)regional targeting for seasonal items or items with different names by region.’
• @DanielJAustin: ‘@danbarker dependens on the brand but the devil is in the detail. Geo targeting, sitelinks etc are the little things some forget ‘
• ‏@danroche27: ‘In industries with high CPC create mobile landing pages and target mobile at a higher % CPC. Cheaper clicks too #ecomchat’
• @AndrewGirdwood: ‘A3: The convergence of Display and PPC. If you’re not doing GDN or even RTB – try!’
• ‏@DanielJAustin: ‘Analyse time of day, day of week etc and up or down weight depending on the results #ecomchat’
• @DanielJAustin: ‘Good analysis a key battle ground. Amazing how many still think position 1 is the best to be in. Analyse conversion vs position #ecomchat’
• ‏@AndrewGirdwood: ‘A3: In the near future look to more multi-device PPC too – beyond mobile to connected TV/console #EcomChat’
• ‏@danroche27: ‘RLSA works really well for us, target how long it takes a user to purchase and increase CPC for returning visitors #ecomchat’
• ‏@DanielJAustin: ‘I love presenting results with a first and last click picture. It always results in an increase of generics #ecomchat’
• ‏@searchbeest: ‘A3 For retail it’s all about PLAs – some larger players now treating that as a separate channel & budget #EcomChat’
• ‏@danbarker: ‘@searchbeest that’s very interesting. I’ve seen them revolutionise a couple of sites. Massively bumped up budgets as a result.
• ‏@AndrewBaker72: ‘A3 Also about cross-device attribution/tracking and understanding how to target the user on their journey to conversion #ecomchat’

Thanks to @JackSaville1 for the excellent writeup.

Join us at 1pm UK time on Monday for the next #EcomChat, and do feel free to share this post either on Twitter or via email with anyone you think would be interested.

Dan & James.

p.s. If you’re wondering “what is this all about?” there is an about page to explain everything.