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pIn on By Mary Wagner F rye boots were a hot item among fans of footwear fashion last fall and winter-one CLICK HERE good reason for savvy Internet shoe retailers to bid on that brand name during the season in paid search keyword campaigns. In fact, so many bid on Frye boots that competition was stiff to get shoppers' for a higher keyword position on search attention and stand out from a crowd of engines. In fact, the campaign, newly search listings. managed for the season by search Yet for SimplySoles.com, a small online marketing firm MoreVisibility. com Inc., retailer of designer women's shoes, a paid actually cost SimplySoles less per click search campaign for "Frye boots" was than when it had managed its own search a winner, generating a 50% increase in campaigns, while producing better results. conversions after the company made a critical change to its campaign. � That change? It wasn't more money Internet Retailer. March 2006 .Instead, SimplySoles and MoreVisibility looked to a side of search that some online www.internetretailer.com marketers underestimate: the ad technology to reduce the labor in Other basic best practices copy. Between what can become a managing pay-per-click spending, include loading into the listing as bidding frenzy to secure top position those automated agents tackle only early as possible a brand name and under coveted keywords on Google part of what makes an effective information on pricing, promotions or Yahoo and complaints over the search campaign, says Danielle or anything that underscores a rising cost of keywords, search Leitch, executive vice president of competitive position, says Diane marketing companies say it bears client strategy at MoreVisibility. "It's Rinaldo, director of the retail cat remembering that success is not all a small piece of the pie," she says. "In egory for Yahoo Search Marketing. about the bid. The language in a reality, the creativity behind the cam paid ad listing also critically affects paign can be much more influential." click-through and ROJ. Simple and bold Paid listings operate in a con Finding a copywriter With the ever-increasing popularity strained format: Yahoo in January and competitiveness of search trimmed the 190 characters it marketing, writing for search has MoreVisibility altered the copy in formerly allowed for paid search evolved into a specialty among SimplySoles' paid listing to something listings to 70 characters, or two copywriters-although there aren't shorter, punchier and more directly lines of 35 characters each including many practitioners yet. "Do a search relevant to the targeted audience. spaces and punctuation (though that for copywriters on the Internet, and "Rather than include a lot of details, doesn't apply to ads it distributes to you'll probably find people who have they made a simple and bold state partner sites). Google's paid listings, a lot of experience in doing ad copy ment that caught customers' atten AdWords, allow 25 characters in the for print," says Cliff Koraska, COO tion," says Rebeccah Sensenbrenner, headline and 35 in the second line. of online exercise equipment retailer SimplySoles general manager. "When you are limited to a Under that rationale, the earlier very short amount of space, ad copy became "Boots Shoe of the you have to be very concise Season-The 'Must Have' Boots of in describing what you are the Season From Pucci, Frye, Miss providing, then also offer them Sixty & More." something compelling to make Another product from SimplySoles, the CozyChic robe, Smoothfitness.com. "You probably them want to go to your site and learn more about it," says experienced similar improvements in Charles Chin, senior associate search results when MoreVisibility of Google's vertical operations pumped up its ad copy to for retail. For a retailer, for "CozyChic Robe-Pamper Yourself example, that could take the form won't find 50 that do ad copywriting W ith the Luxurious CozyChic of an ad that says, "Limited-time specifically for the Internet." 15% off offer." Says Chin, "That's a Karon Thackston, whose promotional offer that conveys time company, Marketing Words, has the campaigns by rotating different sensitivity and therefore the idea that a sub-specialty in copywriting for versions of the new ad listings on you want to act now." search engines, uses best practices Robe By Barefoot Dreams." MoreVisbility further optimized the engines for several weeks, and But getting a call to action into then building information on their the listing is only half the battle; it had comparative performance into the better be specific, too. A listing for a She starts creating pay-per-click list campaigns going forward. flower retailer that says "Worldwide ings by trying out the searched term delivery service guaranteed to get in the headline of the listing, a proven to the fact that fewer words often there in time for your event," simply technique for pulling the searcher's have more impact and that I should describes some features of the service. eye into the ad, though sometimes, not be afraid to use bold adjectives in "A more specific message would be, she says, "forcing that in will take up our campaigns," Sensenbrenner says. 'New York flowers, delivered to you more space than you have." "MoreVisibility has educated me from the search engines and has developed insights of her own as well. within 24 hours.' It's a specific geog Thackston says she's also companies and their clients have raphy and a specific time frrune," says learned to look at what a client's focused on automated bidding John McAteer, head of Google Retail. competitors are doing in paid W hile many search marketing www.internetretailer.com March 2006 • Internet Retailer €I) search. If there's a trend, she weighs that would entice the right visitors the desired outcome and offered an example of how that works: going in the other direction. "If the and helps prevent people who were entire column of Coogle AdvVords just looking from clicking your ad A hypothetical online bookstore advertisers is using the search and running up your tab," she says. creates a paid search ad that says, phrase in their headline, then you "Free books, click here" to support balancing act want to do the opposite because you A want to stand out," she says. Beyond basic best practices to who buy 10 books receive one book shorten and clarifY search ad copy, free. W hile that copy will likely writing for paid search is ads that the choice of language used in increase the overall click-through are too broadly written in an effort the creative should depend on rate, once visitors discover they must to snare more clicks. They can end what the objective is, according to buy 10 books to get the free one, the up backfiring because they attract search marketing experts. "Creative conversion rate is likely to go down. too many clicks that won't convert, can impact click-through and unnecessarily burning through the conversion rate, and many times, trum, the online bookstore that wants marketing budget. A better strategy, the two act in opposition to each to pre-qualifY visitors who click says Thackston, is to qualifY clicks other," says Harrison Magun, vice through so as to minimize ineffective with "deal breaker" copy in the president and managing director of paid search spending, limiting them, listing. "If you say, 'Luxury Mexico Avenue NRazorf1sh AR Search. say, to those who are willing to wait A frequent error she sees in Cruise, 2/6,' people not available to a promotion in which consumers On the other end of the spec Magun recommends clients to get their books, could create an ad leave on that date won't click your ad. balance click-throughs and conver that says, "More than 1 million titles, You're giving detailed information sions in their search ad copy against 30% available to ship now." 'You say bamboo, I say woven wood, but let's not call the whole thing off' C opywriting is one way that wordsmiths ply their craft online; writing keywords for search engine marketing is another. And while keywords are usually only one, two or three words, benchmarking they are important to the success of a web site. exercise, the Take the term "bamboo shade." Pretty simple, huh? How agency looked else would you describe it? Well, to the shade-manufacturing at the number industry, bamboo shades are "woven wood shades." of searches on "It's a copywriting challenge," says Sarah Cook Perkinson, major engines over vice president of marketing at Blindsgalore.com, which uses both the previous 120 "bamboo shades" and "woven wood shades" as search engine days for about 50 keywords. "You try to improve your rankings and be relevant to words relevant consumers based on the search terms they use-you don't want to Blindsgalore's to fall prey to the fact that those aren't the correct terms." business. It found The search engines themselves offer a lot of specific guidance o As part of an initial that the industry Sarah Cook Perkinson, vice president of marketing, Blindsgalore.com to paying search advertisers and those seeking to optimize and consumers natural search, including which keywords get the most searches. in some cases used different language-like "woven wood Marketers work with the engines on creating an ad strategy from shades" and "bamboo shades"-to describe the same data compiled by the engines, create campaigns on their own, or products, leading to missed connections that affected search look to a third party such as an interactive agency. That's what rankings, click-through and sales. Other examples included Blindsgalore.com did in turning to Avenue AlRazorfish's AR Search "cordless" shades, which some shoppers called "cord-free," unit for help with boosting natural search rankings. and "tQP down bottom up," which is the industry term for Internet Retailer. March 2006 wvvw.internetretailer.co m "That may improve the conver categorizing them and coming up believes that automatically opti sion rate, because people who don't with regimented tests." Magun also mizing the ads as soon as a trend want to wait won't click through, believes ad testing should be of appears doesn't produce test results but the click-through rate is going statistical significance. "You can't as valid as an equal comparison. "If to go way down," says Magun. just say after 300 or 400 clicks, 'This there are a lot of marketing points But that can also be an effective works or this doesn't,'" he says. we can use, we may end up using approach, as in the case of one AR Search client whose paid search ad Rotating ads all the ads," she says. Nevertheless, Chin says most creative- "Win an iPod. Free trial. To speed up the testing and advertisers choose to leave the Credit Card required"-was effec optimize campaigns based on test creative optimizing feature in Google tive in discouraging click-through results sooner, Google uses a creative campaigns. "Most people tend to use from unqualified prospects. optimizer that will automatically the feature because it does the extra rotate multiple versions of an ad legwork for them," he says. W hile marketers and search engine marketing companies are and automatically serve the one that compiling a growing body of data initially received the highest click is a challenge, as typing in a few on what works for search and what through more often. The rationale keywords and looking at some of doesn't, testing is a critical part is that's the version more people the ads that come up will show. of maximizing ROI for search will choose to click on in the future. "There are a couple of things that campaigns, Magun says. "People are Yahoo also allows advertisers to test should be focused on," says Leitch. always looking for the silver bullet, multiple versions of an ad over time, "Make it short and sweet and but there is no silver bullet. It's but it is a more manual process. compelling. Brand yourself, define Google advertisers can opt silver buckshot," says Magun. "We yourself, qualifY the click, explain never say we know how something out of the optimizing feature, who you are, what you do, and any is going to work. We say, here are meaning that different versions of special offers you might have-in the possibilities, here are the things the ad will be served up equally, a 70 characters or less. Writing good we test for and here is how we strategy typically recommended by copy is not easy." • focus on testing creative elements, More Visibility, says Leitch, who 1i'tblindsgalore WINDOW Cart (0 Items) Or-del" Status (877) 702-5463 shades" that shows a brief paragraph explaining Rom.!ln Shades that the product also goes by the other name. RoUer Shades Solar Screens With that and other changes to the product Sheer Shades wood Shades page content indexed by search engine spiders, WINDOW BLINDS Mim81mds Wood Bhnds wooden Shutter.. SHOP 0 • C onsider valance, or decorati¥8 _ _ edoe bindinos • Other optioMI upgrades indude top downlbottom up, continuous cord loop lIn.d motonution "'4W revenue from organic search has doubled at Natural shades, bamboo shades and matchstick shades are all names for woven woods which offer an exotic, natural look. Faux Wood 8linds Verbcal Blinds both "woven wood shades" and "bamboo shades" a category landing page identified as "woven wood SHAPES Pleated Shades Wovan mary@verticalwebmedia in the same headline. The listing clicks through to Cellut�r I Honeycomb BRAND ehnd'S1J�lore window size: w'�low:.:J H, � [Oio-:.:J my Blindsgalore.com. "Interestingly, we haven't seen a lot of additional traffic, but we are getting people £mail sl9n Up Get ."dusl". .nd th . l.t ••t tr.nd, ..Indo.. Ip.d.1 oH.rr, hot d •• 1Qn tip, tn c.lltom *"dii,.en,. shades that can open from the top or the bottom, but which are who are more qualified coming in from organic search because of this effort," says Perkinson. "Though the sheer volume isn't higher, the average Blindsgalore.com explains to shoppers that "natural shades," "bamboo shades" and "matchstick shades" all refer to the same thing. order is higher." Once the retailer has chosen the keyword, best practices in search marketing call for including the search described six different ways by the six major manufacturers keyword in the title or first line of the listing and if possible, in the that fabricate them. description. "Eye-tracking studies show the title is the most-read AR Search and Blindsgalore addressed the issue by creating . page content that delivers a natural search listing that shows � Creating effective search copy Internet Retailer. March 2006 part of the creative listing," says Diane Rinaldo, director of the retail category for Yahoo Search Marketing. www.internetretailer.com