Special thanks to Columbus AMA for inviting Jeff Ivany and myself to present on how to use Search and Social Media together. Below is our presentation.

Note: If you are interested in having someone from EnginePoint Marketing or Conrad Phillips Vutech present this topic at your organization or conference, please contact us. Our presentations are designed more for the personal touch with our presenters.

In February 2006, I stipulated that Google was on the verge of becoming the next Yahoo. I did not mean it as a complement. This analysis came about as I was (again) watching Yahoo’s product line fracture.

Yahoo had a strange history of creating competing products. It was either a case of one part of a large company not aware of what another part of a large company was doing, or there was no cohesive strategy from leadership. (Maybe both?) At one point Yahoo had it’s own image sharing service, only later to acquire Flickr. The services were never merged into one, single useful product. Yahoo Images (which is now a image searching engine)  limped along for awhile, then was eventually shut down. Similarly, Yahoo had MyWeb which was different than Yahoo Bookmarks, despite the fact they apparently did the same thing. Both of which were identical to Delicious, which Yahoo purchased and… you get the idea.

Along the way, Yahoo experienced lots of product drift and were usurped by Google. That we all know.  We also know that Google is a very, very smart company. So why are they repeating Yahoo’s mistakes?

Farhad Manjoo has a fantastic article on Slate.com (link: Déjà Google) pointing out that Google seems to be repeating the same folly of Yahoo. Google is spinning out products that directly compete with other products they have already created. A few highlights:

• Newly launched Google Buzz will tell your friends where you are… duplicating Google Latitude which was launched last year
• Orkut already offered social media online profiles, but that didn’t stop Google from launching Google Profiles
• Google offers to save your bookmarks so they are available on any computer, but it is not-compatible with Chrome’s bookmarking feature that allows you to save your bookmarks so they are available on any computer.

Which brings me back to my original post from February 2006, Google is the Next Yahoo!, that points out that Microsoft could beat Google if Google accidentally becomes too much like Yahoo.

Looks like that is happening. OK, Microsoft it’s your move.

You have to hand it to marketers for their ability to jump on a trend. In fact, it’s one of the core strengths of SEM — the ability to very quickly show ads for hot searches that may relate to your product line. It is interesting to me how companies attempt to capitalize on pop culture trends.

Example: the recent scuttlebutt over Tiger Woods and speculation over what the heck actually happened. All my years of search experience tell me that search traffic around his name has skyrocketed. I don’t need to check the hard data (though I did, and searches for Woods are volcanic), I just know that human nature plays itself out on a search engine.  We may all say we don’t like gossip, but search data says otherwise. We are addicted to gossip.

We could argue that Tiger Woods is entitled to his privacy. Without a doubt, I agree. What I’m watching is the search traffic and what effects its causing. All of those golf companies that bid on “Tiger Woods” as a keyword to help sell golf equipment have probably seen impressions increase many times over. In fact, right now may not be the best time to advertise with “Tiger Woods” related terms since most of the searches are no longer golf related.

Which is why I find it interesting who is still advertising on Tiger Woods’ name. Namely eBay.

eBay ad for Tiger Woods. Screenshot taken on Dec 1, at 10:30AM.

What exactly is eBay selling? Clearly they, or whomever runs their SEM campaign, is not paying attention. It appears to me, Tiger Woods is for sale on eBay. eBay is not in the gossip business. The ROI on that ad has to be zero.

Poor word choice, poor execution, poor timing, poor marketing.

Yahoo! and Microsoft… Microsoft and Yahoo!. Together at last. Despite what they may say about increasing innovation and the operating income of each company, this deal is about one thing: Google.

The basic terms of the deal include Microsoft running the search engine portion, in essence, making Yahoo! search an extension of Bing. Yahoo will run the ad platform. This makes perfect sense, as Yahoo! has not considered search to be a core business product for years, and didn’t really want to get its hands dirty fighting Google.

Microsoft, on the other hand, doesn’t mind getting its hands dirty. More than that, they hate being second at anything and has show a willingness to tap their deep pockets to fund a fight. Microsoft sank nearly $500 million dollars into the Xbox before seeing a profit. That’s how bad they wanted to beat the PlayStation.

This sort of agreement is not new to Yahoo!. Around 2000, Yahoo’s search platform was powered by Google. Then someone at Yahoo! woke up and realized Google was actually a competitor, so the rushed a search platform into development.

The only thing that surprised me was the length of the agreement. Ten years! That’s five complete product life cycles on the internet. It seems improbably that these two companies could get along that long to make that time line a smart move. A deal of that length says one thing to me.

Yahoo! and Microsoft are heading for a merger. This lengthy arraignment is the equivalent of dating before they get married.

The economy is a mess, and that’s saying it the polite way. My company (EnginePoint Marketing) has not been immune to the effects of the downturn. Some clients have drawn down their SEM campaigns to a lower level due to marketing budget cuts.

How do you adjust an SEM campaign to a smaller budget, yet make sure it’s still able to perform at a high level? Here are a few tips.

1. Have a target budget in mind.
Do you want to lower your monthly SEM budget by 20% or 25%? It’s easier to effectively adjust a campaign into a smaller one if you know what your target budget is.

As my business partner Kirk Phillips said in a recent post on his blog (BrandStoke)

Knowing the availability of resources is critical to achieving the desired outcome.

2. Don’t cut based on keyword price.
It’s seems logical to run a keyword performance report, look at what keywords are costing the most money, then cut them. The downside of that is you’ll end up cutting the best performing keywords out of your campaign. What you’ll have left is second-tier keywords doing a second-tier job. You may have to cut a few higher cost keywords, but using this as the sole decision-making metric is not a good idea.

3. Revisit negative keyword matching.
Negative keywords are a way of telling search engines what keywords not to match your ads for. This is one of the overlooked gems of paid search. Making sure you have a real tight, well-defined negative keyword list can reduce a budget by 15%.

For example, one of our clients sells casters, the wheels on the bottom of everything from office chairs to surgical carts. What they don’t sell is caster oil. Negative keywords ensure that bidding on the term “caster” does not match ad on searches for caster oil. It’s a simple concept, but so very often overlooked.

4. Pause specific categories, leaving others untouched.
Take a look at what part of your product lines you are supporting with paid search. Instead of taking a bit from each area, look at pausing ad groups that are not part of your core product line. Leave your core product area running at full steam.

5. Pair SEM exposure with SEO.
We prefer the blending method of search, using both SEO and SEM to drive traffic. But sometimes people get really focused on SEM. Review your SEO implementations. Some SEO changes might help you increase in rankings for keywords that you would no longer have to bid on.

Times are tight and sometimes budgets get cut. But hastily cutting an SEM budget can cause the remains of the campaign to falter. Any decent search agency can help you effectively reduce a campaign in a very effective way in a matter of a few days. But if you are running your own campaign, hopefully these tips will help you draw down a campaign until the economy gets a little better.

For the last week, I’ve been humbled by the flu. I’m honestly not sure what was worse, having the flu or subjecting myself to 5 days of cable TV while I lay on the couch. (I feel very close to Bob Villa now.)

While I sat on couch, cheering my white blood cells on, I did a search for "flu symptoms." I noticed a common search problem—a case of one advertiser knowing who they are talking to and others who are clearly not sure.

Search marketing like other forms of marketing, need to focus on "the who." Not the stellar British rock band of the 60s and 70s, but those who are searching. You must know who you are talking to in order for the brand message to break through the clutter. The keywords you bid on tell you "the who" and what their intent is.

This PPC ad is perfect.

It’s to the point and addresses exactly what anyone searching for information on flu symptoms needs.

Tylenol, on the other hand, is wasting money (and a consumer’s time) because they don’t know who they are talking to.

Simply, I don’t have a "common cold," I have the flu. Based on my search—flu symptoms—what
I want is pretty clear. Their PPC ad does not begin to address my intent for searching.

Next, I did a search for "flu treatments" and found the same issue. A few very good PPC ads that spoke to and leads to information about how to treat the flu. But again, Tylenol misses:

Once again, I’m not trying to treat a cold. I’m dealing with nausea, a flu symptom not a cold symptom. But, alas, Tylenol is not alone. Vicks also uses off-target copy.

PPC ads must address the intent of the searcher in order to convince them that your site has information they can use. That is why a consumer will click. For some keywords, this can be tricky to judge. Multiple ads can help you test your way into figuring out what ads speak to the consumer the best.

But in some cases, such as with flu symptoms and treatment, the intent is clear. And failing to address the consumer’s need will send them clicking somewhere else.

This week, 1-800-Contacts sued LensWorld for allegedly purchasing branded terms in order to show LensWorld PPC ads when users are searching 1-800-Contacts. (MediaPost reports.) The key here is one company buying the branded terms of another company.

This is not the first lawsuit of its type. The question is around if it is infringement of any sort. Currently, engines allow advertisers to buy competitive brand terms if the competitors name is not used in the actual ad copy. Complaints to engines over this are handled on a case-by-case basis.

The main problem I see with a competitor buying the branded terms of another competitor is that it drives up the cost for that brand name. Simply, you could end up paying a high pay-per-click rate for your own name if your competitor purchased your brand name as well. (Many people I know in the industry follow an unwritten rule not to buy competitor brand names, often for fear of retribution on their own
brand name.)

This is a problem that is very hard to solve, and sadly, will probably have to be sorted out in the court room. Is it Google or Yahoo’s job to protect intellectual property? I say no, but engines constantly find themselves in the middle of this issue.

Honestly, it’s not much different than two advertisers appearing on the same page of a magazine. It is up the professionals that create the ad to distinguish it among the competitors.

Besides, every company should rank highly in organic listings for their own branded terms. If a company can not stand out on a search results page for their own branded terms, they have much larger issues than a competitors bid price.

This time of year is very exciting for my family. We have a small pond in our backyard and when spring arrives, it comes alive with activity. The fish come out of hibernation, birds gather to bathe and drink, and my kids look for new tadpoles. My six year old started asking a lot of questions about tadpoles, so we hit the web to search for information and pictures of the frog life cycle.

When looking for what types of food tadpoles eat, I noticed the PPC ads.

Wow, Target sells everything! They even have tadpole food. Or, they don’t, which is what I found when I clicked the link to their landing page.

Target could have become part of my son’s exciting adventure into tadpole care. With their ad they built an expectation, then failed to deliver. Leaving me, the consumer, and a 6-year old boy, frustrated with their
brand.

Why would Target place such this PPC ad? Probably sloppy set up from their search vendor. When you get into SEM—or any advertising for that matter—you have to deliver upon the expectation you build. Not meeting those expectations will cost you customers.

I love Spring Hill Nursery. I’ve been getting their catalog for years and frequently order from them. Yesterday they emailed me to let them know about their Earth Day sale.

They obviously took time to plan the sale and get the email together to send out. Yet Spring Hill did not reflect their sale messaging in the PPC banner they have for their own name. That would be a perfect place to also announce the Earth Day sale, and connect it right to their site.

I’m am not knocking email in any way, but I do get tons of it each day – and that’s just the email that I want. In other words, I could have missed the Spring Hill email. As a brand, you have to be ready to consistently message to your customers in multiple marketing channels. You may never know in which channel a consumer will see and react to first.

Last Friday, as I was getting ready to head home for the weekend, a Barnes & Noble email jumped into my inbox. It was about a book just covered on Oprah that afternoon called Scam Proof Your Life. Kudos for the up-to-the-second relevance of the email.

Barnes & Noble obviously knew it was going to be featured today on Oprah. The email was designed in advance and waiting for the show to air. So I ask, why did they not also launch PPC banners in tandum? They could have also been prepared in advance and set to launch at a specific time of day. Barnes & Noble missed a chance to be truly effective in leveraging the influence of trigger points.

Trigger points are the influencers that drive people to a search engine to find information. Having a good search strategy also requires an understanding of how and why people use engines.

Trigger points happen all the time – everyday – and if you recognize them as they happen, your brand can leverage search just as people are arriving at engines to begin their information quest.