A very wise friend, ok Craig, once said this to me: "Paid Search is like playing chess with a Supercomputer."
At that moment I think my reaction was something like "meh!". Of course Craig was right.
Search Engine Marketing (Organic + PPC) continues to be a huge part of any company's acquisition strategy on the web. Like other online channels it is targeted, it is effective and it is accountable. Perhaps its most unique asset being the ability to hyper-target relevant customer intent.
It would be fair to say that Paid Search it has also gotten very complex (Search Long Tail anyone?).
Your campaigns and ads are impacted by the many shiny buttons and pretty dials provided by search engines, complex algorithms that determine if your ad shows up (or not), and a bunch of cool things that search engines are doing (like Universal Search).
Given that context measuring impressions and clicks and click thru rates (CTR) and cost per click (CPC) and conversions are now merely price of entry, in fact you focus on those in the first couple days and then very quickly have to elevate your game.
Yet with our tools like Omniture or WebTrends or Google Analytics etc that is kind of all we end up focusing on as Analytics Professionals. Partly because of the limitations of the data available in the tools, partly because most Web Analysts don't have the required deep understanding of what Paid Search is all about.
In this post I wanted to share five cool, "non-normal", analyses that you can do to get a much better understanding of your Paid Search performance. The reports are all inspired from analytical principles I have advocated for quite some time on this blog.
All the analyses been created using the ClickEquations PPC Platform's ability to do impressive deep analysis with its ClickEquations Analyst tool. [Disclosure: I am on the ClickEquations board of advisers.]
Here's how I think of CQ Analyst: Take one part data from all search engines, one part unique custom metrics, one part custom database front end integrated into excel and the resulting ménage à trois combines to produce incredibly powerful insights.
Here are five that we'll cover here:
#1: Identify Keyword "Arbitrage" Opportunities.
#2: Rock Your World, Focus on "What's Changed".
#3: Analyze Visual Impression Share, Compute Lost Revenue.
#4: Embrace the ROI Distribution Report [Identify: Lovers, Friends, Losers].
#5: Zero in on the Actual User Search Query (and Match Type).
Let's go rock it!
#1: Identify Keyword "Arbitrage" Opportunities.
Most web analytics tools dutifully report on search engine data, which ones sending how many visits and what not. They also have a report for keywords. And surely by now you know that you can drill down from the search engine report to look at keywords for that search engine.
Now here is the reality : The ranking of search engines by traffic to your site is fairly well settled. Has been for a long time. It does not change month over month, or changes very little.
What does exist in your data is a different how one keyword performs across search engines! Thanks to the difference in algorithms for both organic and paid search in each engine.
Lookie here, my ClickTracks report….
See what I mean? The heatmap shows you how even my humble blog is optimized for different keywords in different engines. This allows me to look for "arbitrage" opportunities (focus on selective keywords for each search engine).
You can do this exactly same thing for your paid search keywords with ClickEquations Analyst, i.e. look at side-by-side performance rankings by clicks or conversions.
In this example, we see that the keyword dog boots is generating huge traffic on Google (1,309 clicks) but almost nothing on MSN or Yahoo. Why? Are we not buying this delightful keyword on those engines? Is our bid too low or our ad copy ineffective?
Questions you want to answer quickly before your once a year annual huge sale is over and you are left with tons of extra dog boots (heaven forbid!).
Sorting by clicks-per-keyword in another engine, Yahoo in this case, we see that our top traffic terms there are ones where Google is under-performing.
More opportunity!
Let's bring this puppy home, switch to conversions for the same keywords across different search engines. . . .
It is pretty clear now where immediate opportunities exist (in case you did not notice, the frowny faces : ) and where you are doing ok.
In our case the keyword that is our second highest performer in terms of bringing home the bacon (conversions!) is doing great on Google but is we are getting eggs on AdCenter (or is it Bing now?) and YSM.
It highlights a possible Sales / Revenue opportunity and gives you marching orders to investigate. Remember you already know that this is working on Google, why not on the other engines?
#2: Rock Your World, Focus on "What's Changed".
While we obsess about our brand terms and our top ten key phrases the reality is that the long tail of search means that our organic and search campaigns focus on tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of keywords.
One effective strategy to deal with this purely data problem is to focus on what's changed.
No more data pukes. Just looking at things that need attention.
[imagine whip being cracked, politely] You must do this to stand a decent chance of making ROI on your Search Campaigns. [/imagine whip being cracked, politely]
The focus of your What's Changed reports is to show campaigns, ad groups, keywords that are gaining more impressions, getting more clicks, producing more revenue (or not!) compared to a prior relevant time period.
Here's the report:
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Here's your schedule: Wake up. Take shower. Review major "rises" and "drops" in Gross Profit. Press buttons. Take action. Get coffee. Drive to work to receive praise for a job well done!
Notice the focus is not on Clicks or Visits (not that there's anything wrong with that), its on money baby!
Here's one more very useful example, focusing on Avg CPC's, as you figure out what dials to move. . .
Every line in these reports begs a simple question: Why?
What is causing that ad-group's revenue to soar 498% above what it did last month?
How come that keyword is down 74% in the number of impressions yesterday vs the day before?
Why did the cost per click for doghouse pets boulder suddenly shift that much?
The biggest problem with paid search, or web, analytics is that you don't have starting points. These reports, and metrics, give you that. You can then go investigate the hot leads. Perhaps your competitors have sprung into action. Maybe your quality score has taken a dive. Who knows, the boys in the warehouse may have run out of stock.
The nice thing about the ClickEquations Analyst is that you can easily use the delta feature to set the am out of change between two time periods for any paid search metric.
You can create customized Top X modules of what's changed and literally you have a living breathing dashboard that highlights the most important, and it never gets auto deleted by the HiPPO's!
#3: Analyze Visual Impression Share, Compute Lost Revenue.
Did you read my post about Google's Search Based Keyword Tool ?
One of the really cool things that SbKT offers is Ad/Search Share (8th picture in that post). It tells you how often your ad shows up when someone searches using a specific search query (for both paid and organic).
It is very useful in understanding what share of shelf you have (think shampoos in walmart). It is surprising that only the most hard core PPC folks seem to focus on this metric.
You can also get Impression share for your own keywords portfolio from the Adwords Campaign reports. You want to know how many people who are searching for a keyword that you are bidding on are not seeing your text ads (no see = no click = no honey!).
The CQ Analyst helps you visualize the impression share metric very efficiently, even your HiPPO will understand the story!
The impression share, Exact, report showing "share of voice" for queries matching your keywords. . . .
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Orange = Yea! Green = Ouch!
Need more motivation to work harder to improve your impression share? Here you go, missed clicks and revenue. . .
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Orange: Cause (ouch!). Green: Effect (ouch! ouch!).
The ClickEquations Analyst report is showing above the lost revenue in green, and the orange line shows why that is lost revenue (lost impressions).
It takes the average revenue per click from the impressions you are getting from your campaigns (so the real conversion data from your site) and extrapolating it out to show how much revenue the lost impressions represent.
In the above real customer example the lost impressions alone (without doing anything else) represents revenue growth opportunity of 30%.
Remember this is using your actual current clicks from ads when you do show up (impressions) and your actual current conversions.
Winning those missing impressions would require either a budget increase, or more likely some significant improvement in bids or quality score – but knowing that potential exists offers a clearer view of specific expansion opportunity than paid searcher usually see.
This is a superior understanding of the opportunity then what you'll get out of standard web analytics reports. Superior because you are truly bringing deep AdWords data together with your site's outcomes data.
#4: Embrace the ROI Distribution Report [Identify: Lovers, Friends, Losers].
If you are a Analysis Ninja prepare yourself for a minor orgasm. This is so cool.
Remember the 80/20 rule?
80% of ROI comes from 20% of your Campaigns. Replace ROI with revenue, profit, your favorite metric.
Step One: Specify your ROI goal and your minimum acceptable ROI.
Step Two: Run Report. :)
The report tells you how many of your campaigns, adgroups and keywords fall into three performance bands: Great (exceeds expectations), Good (meets expectations), Poor (sucks!). Or: Lovers, Friends, Losers.
[Click on the image for a higher resolution version.]
You'll see the raw numbers, the cost vs revenue breakdowns, and the comparative percentage contributions.
So what's happening here?
8% of the AdGroups are responsible for 54% of the revenue (!). Checkout the Avg ROI contrast.
Or more visual. . .
Its not even 80/20, more like 90/10!
It's a ruthless way to determine which elements are hurting you, and which are actually helping.
This type of analysis allows you to take a very close / critical look at exactly how many of your keywords are really profitable, and which ones are sucking wind.
It should lead to a complete reevaluation of your keyword selections, match type settings, bid choices, ad copy, and campaign organization. Or in other words, the baby and the bath water.
This analysis is super cool because you end up with a prioritized to-do list of campaigns or keywords that require your full attention.
#5: Zero in on the Actual User Search Query (and Match Type).
While the entire business of Paid Search revolves around keywords, often there is not enough attention being paid to the role Match Types play in determining which search queries (the words the search engine user actually types) trigger your paid search ad.
We sadly make far too many decisions based on keywords we bid on.
In our campaigns we use Broad, Phrase and Exact match types to ensure we are showing up for relevant user searches. Hence most of our campaigns include key words which use all or some of these Match Types.
One of the simplest report you can create using the ClickEquations analytics platform helps you analyze the impact of these different match types on performance. . . search query by key word by match type. . . .
Column 1 is what was typed into the search engine. Column 2 is the keyword that was in your paid search campaign. Column 3 was the Match Type used.
And here is a report that will really solidify the Match Type concept in your mind: The match type report is for the keyword wellness cat food and the actual user search query. . . .
Impressed at the creativity of users who search?
The analysis you should do right away is to understand the performance of individual match types with the user search query for a clump of specific keywords you have bid on.
This analysis will instantly spark ideas for:
1. Match Type promotions (keywords and search queries that you are now buying in Phrase or Broad Match but could and should be in Exact Match)
2. Search queries that are matching your Broad Match keywords but should themselves by Phrase Match keywords
3. (of course) A list of negative keywords that you should add to efficiently stop buying unqualified traffic
If you pause and think about it for a moment this search query report is perhaps the ultimate keyword research tool you could get your hands on. And it is free! Use it!!
The Analysis Ninjas amongst you won't stop there.
No sirree, bob!
You will want to understand performance of various Match Types across your entire account! You'll take three steps up and try to understand the forest view first.
A typical expectation would be that Exact Match keywords, which are very precise targets carefully chosen, will perform better than Precise and certainly Broad Match.
So is it?
The first report in ClickEquations Reporting gives you the top level analysis of your Match Type distributions.
It answers fundamental questions such as: What is the result of all your hard work in finding and promoting keywords to Exact Match? What about your plan to conquer the earth and moon and pluto to increase the % of revenue you get through Broad Match?
Here you go. . . . Happy Fathers Day. . . .
[Click on the image for a higher resolution version.]
In one nice view (come on you can't argue with a pie and a bar chart on the same page!) the information you need at a glance to understand performance, all the way down to Revenue / KW.
Let's drill down on that to look at it more clearly. . . .
Revenue Per Keyword from Exact Match is much higher than Broad and much much higher than Phrase. That validates our hypothesis and it provides nice support for all the effort we have put into creating highly targeted Exact Match keywords
Do even more of that, while you shift to leveraging Phrase and Broad more strategically.
My favorite view is perhaps to look at the bang for the buck of keywords based on match type. Outcomes sweetie, outcomes!!
The complete picture, Cost -> Revenue -> Gross Profit -> Net Profit by each match type. . . .
Niiiice?
For this specific client it turns out that every dollar spent on Broad Match is yielding a much lower return when compared to Phrase or Exact Match types.
Immediate work needs to be done on negative keyword expansions to further optimize spend.
Each company is unique, your picture might look like this. . . .
By focusing on Cost in addition to the four layers of Outcomes (revenue, gross profit, net profit) you are able to see a multi dimensional picture.
Digging deeper, as in the first part of recommendation #5, will help you then make changes to your match types and campaigns to optimally utilize the opportunity in front of you.
Happy?
Five sweet recommendations you can follow tomorrow, or today!
Paid Search has changed dramatically over the last few years. Yet we tend to report and analyze like we did during the days when hotmail was cool (!).
The stories we have shared today show that taking a different approach to the data already available gives you super awesome insights that lead to immediate cost savings / revenue improvements.
And it is not that hard is it? You need a bid management software like ClickEquations with built in advanced analytical capabilities, you need some awareness of AdWords / YSM / AdCenter and you are on your way.
Ok now your turn.
What do you think overall of this approach? Have you done any of the above five types of analyses? Got any other favorites that you would care to share? What do you use to do your Paid Search Campaigns analysis? Any tips or horror stories you want to share?
I would love to hear from you. Thanks.
PS: Couple other related posts you might find interesting:
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