Sophisticated Search Strategies Showing More Support For Lead Gen Activities
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While spending on search engine marketing (SEM) has been rising steadily over the past few years, many organizations are now getting a leg up on the competition by refining their search strategies to generate more targeted leads and support specific campaigns. Using advanced tactics such as ad groups and negative keywords, companies selling complex solutions are seeing improved search results and identifying prospects earlier in the sales funnel.
According to the “2007 State of the Market” report released by SEMPO (Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization), the North American SEM industry grew from $9.4 billion in 2006 to $12.2 billion in 2007, exceeding the earlier projections of $11.5 billion for 2007. North American SEM spending is now projected to grow to $25.2 billion in 2011, up significantly from the $18.6 billion forecast a year ago.
The primary objectives for SEM spending are direct sales (58%) and increased brand awareness (61%), the SEMPO report found. However, a growing percentage of respondents report they are trying to generate leads for their sales team as well as for dealer or distributor channels (both 20%). More than 50% of respondents tracked the following success metrics for the SEM campaigns: site traffic, post-click conversion, clickthrough rate, ROI, cost-per-click, cost-per-action (e.g., sale), cost of sales generation, and sales volume.
Looking forward, BtoB marketers say search spending is at the top of their list of priorities and should count for a large portion of their marketing spend.
“Search is very important,” says Jon Miller VP Marketing for Marketo. “It’s a great tactic for finding prospects earlier in the buying cycle—when they are ready to engage, as opposed to pushing a message to them. If fits nicely with our pull marketing strategy. That’s why search is so important to us, because it’s probably the most effective way of doing that.”
Marketo recently enlisted Enquiro Search Solutions, a SEM agency with a BtoB specialty. The solution they came up with for Marketo was to expand the company’s ad groups dramatically, from 20 to 80.
“By separating words into groups, I can write ads that have landing pages that speak to the different nuances,” says Miller. “Marketo is getting an average of 15% or more conversions,” according to Miller.
Beyond emphasizing a pull marketing strategy, industry experts suggest BtoB marketers should utilize the negative keyword matching application from Google. Kevin Gold, director of marketing at iNet Interactive, a social media company operating prominent online communities for technology professionals and enthusiasts, suggests marketers should utilize this feature in the instance of saving time and marketing efforts. “You have your broad, your phrase, and your exact matching words, but adding negative keyword match allows you to ensure that your ad and impression is not being wasted on someone is completely irrelevant to your subject.”
Google gives BtoB marketers 10,000 negative keywords to choose from, which gives a lot of opportunity to narrow your market, says Gold.
In addition to focusing on negative keywords, Gold offers these three ways suggestions to improving search marketing results:
- Set performance tracking measurement. You should have a firm grasp on your cost-per-lead and, ultimately, what it costs to generate one sale based on that number of leads coming in. These metrics in place will help operate your pay-per-click marketing campaign. You have to understand at least your target range for cost-per-lead—then associate the cost-per-lead, and you’ll know what conversion rate you need based on your budget in order to achieve cost-per-lead.
- Establish competitive parity. This allows you to gage more of what your competitors are bidding on. You can do a search on keywords that are critical to you and then look at how your competitors are writing ad copy. This type of research and help reveal what’s the best approach for your company to attract the appropriate audience. You should always be testing ad copy in Google ad Words. Find out which ones produce higher click through rates.
- Generate early buying stage exposure. It’s important to know the appropriate keywords and where they would fall within your consumer’s buying process. Once prospects are exposed to your brand, they may seek you out personally during their next search. Take your consumer research to get into the conversation early and apply that to your pay-per-click marketing campaign.