MarketingSherpa Blog

Funny, the biggest Net marketing trend these days I hear when interviewing people is Google hate. “Everyone loves them, they have the best brand in the world, but really they stink!” is a typical rant. I think most of it is due to human nature more than any research.

You know: Google is massive, Google is insanely powerful, Google and Bill Gates both have a “G” in their names. Jealously and fear are very powerful.

Last week, not one but two separate research studies were released revealing “Ta da!” that Google clicks are not quite up to snuff compared to other search engines. (Link to more info below.)

First, BIGresearch released a study with the key finding, ‘Yahoo Tops Search Engines for Influence to Purchase.’ (Note: These folks mainly study the consumer marketing world, not B-to-B.)

The next day, Web analytics firm WebSideStory released a study showing the following conversion stats across their many clients:

AOL traffic 6.17% MSN traffic 6.03% Yahoo traffic 4.07% Google traffic 3.83%

However dramatic this data, you should also realize (as I do) that the average marketer is often buying up to tens of thousands more keywords from Google than they are, in particular from AOL or MSN, so of course conversions would be lower. Broader terms equals lower conversions (but often cheaper CPC and better ROI).

Also, whether or not clicks from Google’s non-search AdSense network are included is not noted. If they are (and I bet they are) lower conversions would make sense as contextual ads almost invariably pull lower conversions than search ads. Duh.

OK, while I’m not the biggest Google fan in the world (it’s hard to unwaveringly adore a company that holds massive power over your bottom line -– as Google does for all of us who rely to some degree on search traffic), I suspect this anti-Google research is in some part a very human backlash against its gargantuan-ness.

My recommendations in response to these studies?

#1. If you’re focusing ONLY on Google get thyself onto additional mainstream search engines, niche engines, and/or shopping engines. As we’ve documented for two years now in our Search Marketing Benchmark Guide, a sizeable portion of the online marketplace uses search engines that sometimes are not Google.

A smart direct response marketer would never mail only one list unremittingly. Why focus on a single search engine?

#2. If you are lumping in contextual ads with your search ad buy, as far too many marketers are, split these campaigns and track them separately.

Just because an AdSense campaign has the “Google” name on it doesn’t mean it’s going to perform as well as ads that actually appear on Google.

#3. Search optimization (SEO) is generally far less expensive than an aggressive paid search campaign to get the same amount of traffic. Plus, the effects are longer lasting, and conversions are frequently in the same range (or even higher) than paid ads on engines.

This year marketers will spend roughly 1/8th of their search budgets on SEO, and 7/8th on paid search ads. That’s really stupid. (Lemmings, cliff … you get the picture.)

#4. Don’t use any search engine’s free analytics program to track your conversions. Why would you give someone who sells you ads all the data they need to decide if they should put the price up higher?

It astonishes me that marketers who would never publicly reveal their conversion data will hand over the keys to the data castle in exchange for a little free software. Google may be an awfully nice brand, with awfully nice people, but this is business, remember?

Since when do you allow an ad sales rep inside your books?

Anyway, rant over. Here’s a link to my other blog over at ContentBiz where I first discussed this data last week and gave links to studies: http://blog.contentbiz.com/

As Sherpa reported in a Case Study last week (link at the end of this Blog), Newegg.com increased revenues 30% last year to hit approx. $1.3 billion. A small part of the rev gains were from their “Bill Me Later” program, which is what we did the Case Study about.

However, Marketing Director Stuart Wallock and VP Howard Tong also told me their HUGE site revamp last April helped, too. “Our conversion rate did dip a little for a few months because customers needed to get adjusted again to the site. But eventually the new site ramped up to go beyond the previous site’s conversion rate,” Stuart told me.

The old site converted visitors to purchasers at 4%-5%. After the dip, the revamped site is now running at 5%-6%. With more than 450,000 daily unique visitors, that one point equals a massive revenue gain.

Naturally while I had Stuart and Howard on the phone, I was looking at the new site like crazy trying to guess the design elements that made the difference.

#1. Big typeface

“We took into consideration that people aren’t using small monitors anymore, so the resolution size is much larger and they’re stretching it across. We like to use big type so it’s very easy to read. It does seem larger than life. There’s gotta be a lot of information, but the information has to pop. That’s why our pictures are pretty big and our typeface is pretty big,” Stuart told me.

Side note: In my interview with Steve Krug (aka Web Design God) a few weeks ago, he noted allowing visitors to view your site in bigger typeface is quickly becoming a critical best practice.

#2. Wish lists

The site already had wish lists, but the functionality was revved up a notch. “The wish list is one of the most powerful things we have on the site,” Stuart told me. Two keys:

o Anyone can email a friend (or relative) their list easily so, for example, kids can send lists to parents, or IT consultants can send them to clients.

o Shoppers can post their wish lists to get feedback and review from the rest of the user community. This peer input can help decision-making.

#3. Make consumer reviews very SEO-ed

Newegg.com is famous for customer reviews; in fact some customers brag about their reviews. Now the individual product pages are designed in such a way that this customer-generated content is among the first that search engine spiders notice. Content from the manufacturer is secondary.

This helps because customers are more likely to use terminology that other consumers search by. Also, a customer review page can be a more trustworthy landing page than marketing hype from the manufacturer.

#4. Dynamic width (not fixed)

Most sites these days used fixed width. (Example: Yahoo, where no matter what your screen resolution, the width of the content that appears is always the same. If you have more room on your screen, you’ll see more white space on the sides but the same size Yahoo content in the middle.)

Deciding fixed-width’s popularity must mean users prefer it, the team switched to fixed width. “That was the biggest mistake of the year,” Howard told me. “We got a lot of violent backlash. Customers really liked the dynamic width of our Web site and that it would adjust to their screen or resolution.”

“Should you try this, too?” I asked our own Web team. Turns out dynamic width design is a massive pain and very, very hard to do well without weird white space and holes showing up on screens. In fact, Howard said it took his Web team a solid month to redesign the dynamic width back in. So it’s not a decision to make lightly.

#5. Adding more manufacturer content

The team redesigned the product pages in modules, which made it easier to stick in more content. One of the modules was a tabbed section “Item Intelligence” for extra manufacturer info. Part of the site’s product managers’ income is bonuses based on item revenues. So they have an incentive to push manufacturers to come up with content for this section, which can help conversions.

The content can include white papers, how-to guides, videos and 3D images.

#6. Four home pages

Yup — incoming homepage traffic is split into four equal chunks with each seeing a home page featuring 12 different special items. Visitors can click on links to see the other home pages. Even though these links are tiny (and I would think hard to notice), they are among the top five clicked links on the page.

“We’re widening our home page real estate by 75%,” explained Howard. “People like to browse; it’s window-shopping for geeks.”

#7. Bigger, flashier cart button

“It used to be just a cart with a little arrow. It wasn’t big enough. People’s eyes weren’t going there, so we made it big, bold and very exciting to look at,” said Stuart. The team a/b tested several different cart icons before picking the winner, so go check it out.

What’s next? The team told me they are experimenting with personalized email campaigns this year. I may have to go buy something at Newegg.com just so I can start collecting email samples.

In the meantime, here are two handy links for you.

Sherpa’s recent Case Study on Newegg.com http://www.marketingsherpa.com/sample.cfm?contentID=3173 (Open access until 2/20)

My Steve Krug interview http://www.marketingsherpa.com/sample.cfm?contentID=3165 (Open access)

For two years now I’ve been mildly infamous in emarketing circles for badmouthing RSS.

Don’t take me wrong — I adore the idea of RSS, a direct opt-in info feed to one’s desktop. But, I’m thoroughly underwhelmed with the reality of RSS … so far. Fewer than 10% of Internet users can reliably be said to use RSS on at least a weekly basis (compared to the 91% who check email that frequently).

And, few RSS feed publishers track any useful results metrics. (Ever asked an RSS fan how the incoming traffic converts compared to other traffic sources? Deafening silence.)

However, RSS is great for certain aspects of search marketing. And, now that both AOL and Yahoo have announced they’ll be charging email senders $2.5-$10 per thousand emails sent to guarantee delivery, RSS is looking mighty fine to me.

We all knew the email party had to end, right? It’s gotten more and more expensive over the years. MarketingSherpa’s average reader is spending more than six figures on email marketing service providers per year now.

But, last week’s announcement by AOL may rock everyone’s budgets massively. The proposed charges would roughly double most mailers’ send costs. (The mainstream press avoid mentioning this by talking about fractions of a cent per name; but, when you do the math, things look ugly.)

What’s specifically happening? I can’t tell you for sure, despite lots of research and behind-the-scenes interviews, because the AOL and now Yahoo deals have not been detailed in concrete. (As late as last Wednesday all sources said Yahoo would never join the pay-me-to-deliver-email Goodmail program, and that AOL whitelisting would be “phased out.” Now both these positions appear to be reversed.)

Fact is, companies such as AOL and Yahoo that process email for their customers can stand to make A LOT of money by charging senders. And hey this is a capitalist society and they are in business to make a profit.

If the charge-to-deliver email trend sticks (and I bet it will) other email clients, from MSN’s Hotmail to Gmail, as well as corporate email servers, will start charging too. Your budget for email may double over the next 12 months. And then it will double again when rates start, inevitably, going up.

Just as with CAN-SPAM, the new system won’t stop unwanted email. It’s simply a toll-road tax and should be labeled as such. (Don’t give us guff about improving the in-box for consumers or delivery for mailers. This is about profits, and what’s best for your stockholders. And that’s ok.)

On the mailer side, hopefully this will galvanize folks to do better list hygiene, segmentation and ruthless pruning of inactives.

And, I can tell you right now, as a mailer myself, RSS is looking pretty danged good right now. We’ve already offered an RSS feed for quite some time, but now I’m going to start promoting it like crazy. So here are two links for you:

Hotlink to pick up MarketingSherpa’s own RSS feed http://www.marketingsherpa.com/rss/msherpa_rss.rss

Quick info about RSS for newbies http://www.marketingsherpa.com/sample.cfm?contentID=3179

Late last year, the folks at Three Deep Marketing (a firm offering survey software to the marketing community) asked me if I would help them get the word out about a questionnaire they wanted marketers to take.

I said yes — as long as the questionnaire was truly for research purposes (not a lead gen device asking for contact info) and as long as I could share the resulting data with you guys.

More than 300 MarketingSherpa readers wound up clicking over to start the one-page questionnaire and 27% completed it. I’ve posted the formal results PDF for you online (link below).

Here’s my quick take on a few of the results.

-> Marketers vehemently don’t want to be pitched in person or on the phone by a rep. 70.9% of respondents said “No phone!”; 57.3% didn’t want a face-to-face meeting; and 63% weren’t interested in a group presentation meeting.

However, most were cool with Web-based presentations and pitches. 86.4% would like emailed info; 87.4% wanted links to an info Web site; and 74.8% would attend a Web-based demo from their own computer.

I suspect that most business prospects would reply the same way to these questions; however marketers’ answers were perhaps a bit more dramatic because of the traditional sales vs marketing personality chasm.

-> 64% of respondents want more marketplace feedback, yet only 36.9% would use an easy-to-use survey tool to get it.

My take? Color me dumbfounded. This explains why I’ve never to my knowledge gotten an editorial survey from an email newsletter that’s published for marketing purposes.

The editors of trade magazines have used annual questionnaires for years to make sure their content hits the spot. For an unknown reason this practice has never been copied by marketers publishing newsletters. It should be.

(My golly, here you are competing for attention in your customer’s inbox and you never survey them to make your editorial more engaging?)

-> 34% of respondents said their biggest marketing challenge is measuring ROI of campaigns, while only 7.8% said they had a hard time quantifying lead status before handing off to the sales team.

While I agree that measuring ROI is getting harder with multi-channel communications (all those touchpoints intersecting on the same prospect), I was saddened by the lead quantification answer.

Frankly, when we interview demand generation marketers for Case Studies, we find too many of them focus on generating loads of leads rather than qualifying those leads. And then they complain about how sales never follows up on all the leads they’re given.

It’s another example of that sales vs marketing chasm I mentioned above. Marketing has to get more proactive about truly qualifying every lead and *only* handing over the best ones.

Anyway, rant over. Here’s that link I promised to the research results PDF with 13 interesting data charts: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/3deep/study.html

Acck! Even though we’ve published the annual MarketingSherpa Wisdom Report featuring readers’ own contributed stories for four years now, every year there’s at least one production screw-up.

This year was no exception. My team tell me the reason is because I always “rush the deadline” pushing them to move faster than is responsible. But I can’t help myself, I’m too impatient.

Anyway, this year as I was reading the more than 300 submissions (for 110 spots) one particular story was chosen but then somehow left behind “on the cutting room floor”. I guess I could republish the report as a ‘Director’s Cut Edition’ but it seems simpler to pop the left-behind story into my blog here…

This story was submitted by Stone Reuning of SEO Advantage, Inc:

“We offer SEO evaluations, so naturally we see all the blunders and mishaps of web sites that are not performing well in the search engines. One of the most common structural mistakes we see contributing to a weak organic search engine presence is inconsistent linking to the index page.

Inconsistent linking to your most important pages can dilute the search engines’ perception of the importance of those pages. When you link to your index page in different ways, the search engines treat each as a separate page. For example, if you link to your index page with http://www.domain.com/index.htm in one place and http://www.domain.com/ in another place, search engines do not recognize this as two links to the same page. This applies to links throughout your site as well as inbound links from other web sites.

In 2005, we saw the importance of consistent link structures play a major role in at least two cases: 1. A new client whose website was suffering from inconsistent linking throughout the site realized a major jump in search engine performance within one month of SEO implementation, increasing website leads by 4 times.

Other SEO tactics were also employed, but it’s likely that correcting the link structure accounted for much of the immediate result.

2. Another client had some work performed by a designer who inadvertently used inconsistent linking structure. Google PageRank fell by 2 points immediately, and the site’s performance suffered until the structural corrections could be made.”

By the way, in case you have not gotten your complimentary copy yet, our 2006 Wisdom Report which features 110 more reader-contributed stories like this one is ready for you at: http://wisdom.marketingsherpa.com (open access)

Throughout last year Google fiddled with the programming behind AdWords in its never-ending quest both to offer surfers more relevant listings and to make more money for shareholders.

AdWords expert Andrew Goodman (see our review of his latest book plus a giveaway hotlink below) calls the current situation AdWords version 2.6.

I’ve gotten loads of upset letters from Sherpa readers on this topic — mainly folks frustrated (and sometimes outraged) because Google’s asking them to pay far more per click than they were expecting to. So I called up Andrew to ask for an explanation.

Andrew says, “I’m seeing a number of 10-20 cent charges for clicks I incurred on terms where I was the only advertiser. In essence this means there are no consistent minimums. There are now times where you’ll pay .20 for what used to be a .05 click.” (And, in fact, I’ve met AdWords clients who have had to pay a heck of a lot more in the same situation recently.)

Plus, it seems that low-budget marketers tend to have their campaigns deactivated by Google more frequently these days. Andrew says, “You’re punished for not bidding high enough, for trying to bottom fish for cheap clicks. Under the new system there is less cheap inventory available, even for clever marketers.”

This in turn hurts marketers who use averaged cost per click data to convince their bosses to invest in more expensive terms. You could afford to take a hit on ROI for a few high profile search terms because of the bargain basement terms mingling in your spending mix. That’s not as easy anymore.

Andrew explained to me that the way AdWords 2.6 decides where your ad will be ranked (and what you’ll pay for a click) now seems to be determined by the following equation:

Your chosen maximum bid cost per click (CPC) multiplied by Your ad’s “quality score”

According to Google, a quality score is “determined by the keyword’s clickthrough rate, the relevance of the ad text, historical keyword performance, and other relevancy factors.” Which to my own mind is Google-ese for “a bunch of stuff we won’t explain the detail so marketers can’t jerryrig the system and so we can change the specific formula whenever we decide to.”

Like most heavy search marketers Andrew has gained some behind-the-scenes insights while trying to reverse-engineer the current formula. His tips:

– Your landing page’s relevancy to the search term is probably affecting your cost and rank. If you’re using a generic landing page for a wide array of campaigns, your ad rank may fall and your cost per click may rise. Your campaign could even be disabled.

– In fact if your landing page contains anything that would hurt you if it were being used to attract organic listings (ie. bad SEO) your AdWords ads could be penalized.

– The visible URL you put in your ad is probably considered part of the ad text by Google, so relevant words in that will help you. (I’ve certainly seen plenty of data showing the right wording in a click link can help clickthrough rates.)

– If you’ve been running ads for a particular search term for a year or more, Google may be less likely to penalize your rank for temporary downward blips in clickthrough performance.

– Your overall account lifetime might matter as well. If you keep switching AdWords accounts (or perhaps switching SEM agencies if they use their accounts for your campaigns) then you lose your history each time and risk your ad rankings and costs. – If you’re using somebody else’s trademark terms in your ad, your rank could fall, so test with and without trademarks.

– Test dayparting to turn off your ads during times of day (or days of week) when your clicks are historically lower.

– Try using Google’s dynamic keyword insertion tool to get higher rankings.

Last but not least Andrew says when you launch new campaigns, you might try bidding more aggressively than you plan to for the long term just to get the highest possible ranking and “demonstrate” to AdWords that your ad can get great clickthroughs when it’s in a good position. You’re paying to establish a “this is a good ad” history with the program, which perhaps will give you a leg up once you take your bid back down in future.

Andrew notes, “It’s a bad time to be a new advertiser. There are times you just set a budget and burn it in order to get where you need to be.” He suggests that you “keep a lower ROI but high clickthrough rate ad in rotation with one-two lower clickthrough rate, higher ROI ad just to keep the quality-score wolves at bay.”

In the meantime, Google’s competitors are also studying the 2.6 system and deciding how much of it to copy in their own programs. If you’re a major PPC spender, now is the time to get on the phone with an account rep at Yahoo/Overture and the new MSN Search and see if you can influence their development.

You know, sometimes I’m awfully glad that I’m just leading a research team instead of having to actually conduct online ad campaigns myself anymore. Today is definitely one of those times…

Here’s that link I promised to our review and giveaway contest for Andrew Goodman’s new book: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/sample.cfm?contentID=3117 (Giveaway contest ends 1/23)

Sponsor: Eyetracking & Conversion Data on Search Marketing ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sherpa’s 2006 Search Benchmark Guide has 210-pages of stats: – Eyetracking lab test color charts – Trends in CPC, CTR, and conversion rates – Do agencies get better results than in-house marketers? – SEO (Optimization) vs PPC campaign data

+ 3,271 marketers’ real-life 2005 search campaign data: http://www.sherpastore.com/Search-Marketing-Benchmarks-2006-SEO-PPC.html or call 877-895-1717
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I love chatting with Hannah Paramore on the phone. She’s the President of Paramore/Redd Online Marketing which is based in Nashville, and her accent is just delicious.

As we were shooting the breeze last Friday afternoon before kicking off for the weekend, she said two really smart things in quick succession that made me grab for my pen so I could scribble them down for you.

Pledge #1. To make your email more successful in 2006

“Less copy, better headlines, and let’s sell it on the landing page.”

Pledge #2. To make your site more successful in 2006

“Repeat after me: My site is a dynamic marketing tool and it will never be finished … and that’s ok.”

Hannah told me that she actually starts all client meetings by making everyone in the room, from big-time CEOs to lowly marketing assistants, raise their hands and say the appropriate pledge out loud.

I love that idea — having everyone in a creative meeting start by pledging out loud the overarching rule behind success.

Whether you agree with these two rules (obviously I do) or you have your own house rule that is even better (another good one might be, ‘test it, test it, test it) why not start your next marketing meeting by having everyone take the ‘Pledge’?