Structuring Your SEM Accounts

11.23.09

Who We Are

Clickable is a platform that makes online advertising simple, instant and profitable. Our purpose is to help businesses survive and thrive by simplifying online advertising success.

Hanny HindiClickable Search Marketing Guru

Matt MackClickable Search Marketing Guru &

Assist Account Manager

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Agenda

Our Goal Today: To describe how to organize your SEM campaign for simpler management and greater profitability.

1. The distinction between campaigns and ad groups.

2. Campaign-level settings: targeting, revenue optimization, risk management.

3. Ad group-level settings: precise offerings, high Quality Scores, low costs.

4. Network-specific issues.

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A Sample Business

To keep things simple, we’ll stick with a concrete example: Sal’s Pizza.

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•Sal’s Pizza operates in two locations: Brooklyn, NY and Newark, NJ.

•Besides delivery, Sal’s sells calzones, soups, salads, and desserts. In addition to retail business, Sal’s offers catering.

What is Search Engine Marketing?

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What are campaigns and ad groups?

Campaigns are the highest-level entities in your account.• Campaigns allow you to manage targeting,

revenue goals, and risk.• A well-structured account won’t have too many

campaigns.

Ad Groups correspond to each of your specific products or offers.• For the purposes of organizing ad groups, you will

need to define your offerings very specifically.

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The Structure of an SEM Account

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(from SEMSunday)

Campaign Settings: Geo-Targeting

By setting “geo-targets,” you avoid expenses associated with ads in irrelevant locations.

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Targeting levels:• Entire Market• Continent• Country• State/Province• Metro Region• City• Radius, and more

Campaign Settings: Revenue GoalsProduct types with different revenue potentials should be in their own campaigns.

• In the case of Sal’s, the retail and catering businesses are fundamentally different.

• The retail business is directly related to revenues generated online, for single orders. (Because of the direct revenue, this would be tracked with a “Return on Ad Spend,” or “ROAS” goal.)

• The catering business is generating leads for larger sales. (Lead generation uses a “Cost Per Acquisition,” or “CPA” goal.)

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Campaign Settings: Mitigating RiskHigh-Traffic keywords allow you to cast a

wider net, but they introduce two risks:• High Cost-Per-Click (CPC)

• Heavily trafficked terms (such as “restaurant”) have significant competition, and higher cost-per-click.

• Low Click-Through Rates• High-Traffic terms are often very generic, and

therefore less likely to drive clicks.• Fewer clicks means a lower Quality Score, and,

therefore, higher overall costs.

High-Risk terms should be in there own campaigns, with lower daily budgets.

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Best Practice: Search and Content

Search and Content ads are different.• Search ads have

significantly higher CTRs than content.

• Content ads have significantly higher impressions than search.

They should always be managed separately.

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Ad Groups : Keeping Offers Specific

For the purposes of your ad groups — the repositories of your keywords, ads, and landing pages — your offers should be described very specifically.

• “Pizza” would be too-broad a category for Sal’s.• Keyword groups could include …

• pepperoni, pepperoni pizza, pizza with pepperoni, meat pizza

• veggie pizza, vegetable pizza, pizza with vegetables

… and each of those keyword groups should have specifically targeted ad creatives.

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Ad Group Settings: Quality Score

Tighter alignment between keywords, ads, and landing pages means more clicks, higher Quality Scores, and lower costs.

• A major determining factor in your Quality Score is the “Click-Through Rate”

• Driving up your Quality Score will drive down your actual bid.

• More relevant ads are not just cheaper, they’re more likely to convert and drive bottom-line revenues to your site.

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Summing up…

Recap: Proper structure simplifies management and increases profitability.

1. Set your audience targets at the campaign level.

2. You can use separate campaigns to meet revenue goals and mitigate risks.

3. Separate Search and Content campaigns.

4. Ad group-level offerings should be extremely precise: 5-keyword ad groups are OK.

5. Improving your Quality Score drives up conversions and drives down costs.

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Network-specific Complexities

Every network has its own taxonomy:• Geo-Targeting can be set at the ad group or

campaign level in Yahoo Search Marketing, or the ad group and campaign level in Microsoft.

• Daily budgets are set at the campaign level in Google and Yahoo, but the ad group level in Microsoft adCenter.

• And so on…

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Using Clickable Pro to Simplify SEM

Clickable Pro is an online tool that makes search advertising Simple, Instant and Profitable.

• Manage all of your campaigns, across all search networks, in a single, intuitive interface.

• Take action based on recommendations generated by Clickable’s ActEngine (for everything from best practices to bids and budgets).

• Create white-label, customized reports.

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Using Clickable Pro to Simplify SEM

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How to Sign Up for Clickable

Simply go to www.clickable.com/signup and try the product free for 15 days.

If you want more support getting started with search marketing, consider Clickable

Assist, our fully-managed solution:

www.clickable.com/assist

Or email us: editor@clickable.com

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