Best Practices For Bid Management Whitepaper

Just a few days ago I wrote a post about Adobe’s new whitepaper called Going Global In A Social World. (If you have not read it yet, make sure to, it will totally help shape your global social media strategy.) Today, I read another amazing whitepaper, all about paid search bid management from my friends at Kenshoo. The whitepaper, Best Practices for Paid Search Bid Management and Optimization, is incredibly thorough and helpful. Here are some of my favorite highlights:

Kenshoo’s whitepaper is 25-pages. It’s incredibly thorough and a must-have reference when it comes to paid search bid management.
The whitepaper goes into detail about all different types of modern pay per click bidding models. If you enjoyed my post about Portfolio Theory Versus Margin Maximization, you’re going to really enjoy Kenshoo’s whitepaper. It provides all of the details to truly understand your bidding options.
Kenshoo’s whitepaper is unbiased. It shows the pros and cons of all bidding models. It leaves it up to the reader to choose the best one for their particular situation.
The whitepaper provides specific examples, with math to back up and help explain the bid management models.
Kenshoo’s whitepaper will make you look really good at work. It’s a great reference that will help you answer any question about enterprise level bidding technology.

I hope you have an amazing weekend! If you have a few extra minutes this weekend, make sure to read Kenshoo’s free Bid Management Whitepaper. You’ll definitely enjoy it and head into the office on Monday empowered as a bidding expert!

Image of Kenshoo © Kenshoo

Sign Up For Kenshoo’s Bid Management Webinar

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Apr 4 1

I’m a huge fan of SEM automation. When it comes to SEM automation, my favorite topic is Bid Management. In fact, that’s the topic of my last post (the one just linked to). The world of SEM platforms is extremely competitive right now. Leading SEM platforms have a ton of funding. They’ve recruited the brightest minds around. They are producing amazing systems. What does this mean for online marketing professionals like you and me? Easy: We win, big time!

When it comes to SEM automation, Kenshoo is one of the absolute top names around! I’ve been following these guys since the early days back in 2009. I cannot speak highly enough of Kenshoo, their team, and their platform. Engineering is deeply ingrained in Kenshoo’s culture and they develop some of the most innovative technologies in our industry. Next Wednesday (April 11, 2012) Kenshoo is holding a webinar I’ll be attending for sure. Kenshoo will be discussing Enterprise SEM Bid Managment. In particular, members of Kenshoo’s marketing and research teams will discuss the current state of bid managment platforms, how to evaluate platforms for your business, and of course Kenshoo’s latest technologies.

I’m most excited by the fact that Kenshoo will discuss the Kenshoo Portfolio OptimizerTM (KPO) which was recently released in version 3.0 of Kenshoo’s Model-Based Bid Policies. One of Kenshoo’s clients, All Star Directories, will discuss how they leveraged Kenshoo bidding to grow their average daily profit by 87%. I can’t wait to hear all about it!

Make sure to sign up for Kenshoo’s Enterprise SEM Bid Management Webinar today! I know bid management is top of mind for so many of us right now and I truly hope this webinar helps you develop your personal bid management strategy.

Image in this post © Kenshoo

5 Advantages of PPC Bid Management Platforms

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Apr 1 2

I’m a huge fan of SEM Automation. Great SEM Software suites such as Kenshoo and Efficient Frontier accomplish so many great things – reporting, analytics, keyword generation, cross-platform campaign management, ad copy testing, advanced querying, and so much more. My favorite part of such platforms: PPC bid management. Today, I wanted to share 5 key advantages to implementing your own PPC bid management platform.

Advantage 1: More Consistency In Numbers

The pay per click landscape can be quite volatile. You have competitors entering and leaving the market all the time. You have bids fluctuating wildly based on time of day, day of week, and week of year. In the absence of a bid management platform, it’s likely your CPA is quite volatile over time. You may even have difficulty managing your program to a particular CPA. With a great bid management platform in place, your numbers will be much more consistent. Your CPA will be much more stable, as the platform will update your bids regularly, based on the most up-to-date information available.

From a career perspective, it’s all about delivering great, consistent numbers. Every business wants predictability. Implement a bid management platform and it could be the key to your program’s success.

Advantage 2: Greater Control and Precision

This advantage really ties into the last one. With consistency comes control and precision. Let’s say you’re running at a $50 CPA and your management wants you to bring it down to $48 for the month. This type of precision is quite difficult with manual bidding, especially when you’re dealing with hundreds of thousands or even millions of keywords. However, with a well-implemented bid management platform, you will have a very consistent CPA. That very consistent CPA will give you more control and precision. Let’s say you want to lower CPA by just a dollar or two, this will be possible with precision. It will take some setup time to hit this point, but it’s totally possible and easy with a well-implemented bidding platform.

Advantage 3: Ability To Manage More Keywords

Let’s face it, more keywords means more overhead. More keywords especially creates complexity in bidding since your data keeps getting sliced in a more and more granular manner. Let’s say you’re bidding on the term auto insurance (broad match) on a national level. Let’s say you now decide to split it out by state. Next, let’s say you want to buy all of the different match types. After a while, you have an overwhelming number of instances of the same keyword (at least 153). This is the absolute right thing to do from a campaign management perspective, but makes it more difficult to bid due to thin data. That is, unless you have an intelligent bid management platform in place that can aggregate and analyze data in unique perspectives that are not straight forward nor scalable in Excel.

Advantage 4: Increased Innovation and High Level Thought

When you’re bidding in Excel, you’re just trying to get the work done. Manual Excel bidding is important work. If you don’t have a platform in place, this is what you have to do. That said, when you’re in a manual bidding state of mind, it’s difficult to innovate and think of big, high level changes to your overall bidding strategy. Get a great bidding platform in place and all you’ll do is think about innovate approaches to bidding.

Advantage 5: More Free Time

At the end of the day, automated bid management platforms are huge time savers. PPC is an incredibly busy discipline. We always have a full plate of work. To the extent that you can automate manual work, it will truly make a difference in your program. Use that extra time to work on growth initiatives and you’ll see amazing results. In my experience, bid management platforms save house of work every single week!

Image of Online Marketing © iStockPhoto – pagadesign

Three Tips When Buying SEM Software

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Mar 7 6

I’m a huge fan of SEM software. Some of the most popular posts here on PPC Ian are all about this very topic. Eight years ago, when I first started out in this industry, there was no option but to build your own SEM software using the search engine APIs. Today, platforms like Kenshoo and Efficient Frontier are better than what any company could possibly build in-house (or at least the vast majority of companies). As such, the Build Versus Buy decision is somewhat easy, in my opinion. Let’s say you’re in the market for SEM software. Today I’m going to share three off-the-beaten-path tips you should consider when buying your platform. I’ve already covered most of the standard stuff in my SEM Automation Whitepaper so today’s tips are some of the more advanced ones.

Tip 1: Get Peace of Mind In Your Contract

SEM Automation

Once you buy your new SEM platform, you’re going to invest a lot in the integration. I’m talking about getting your back end conversion data into the platform, testing and optimizing bidding algorithm, training your team at length, setting up reporting/alerting, and so much more. All of this stuff, if done right, will take a lot of time. It will also propel your SEM program to new levels never thought possible. The byproduct of this all? Once things are working, you really won’t want to change platforms. Sure it’s possible, but it’s going to be a setback for your operation once your new platform is all set up perfectly. For this very reason, I recommend having your legal team insert language into the contract so that the SEM software company cannot raise prices on you. Or, if they do, it’s capped at a certain amount per year that you’re comfortable with. Now, I’m not saying that the SEM software companies will try to raise prices. Most likely, you will be just fine and the price will stay the same. That said, I’m talking about peace of mind here. Whether you’re buying SEM software or any other software for that matter, get some peace of mind in your contract!

Tip 2: Get Resources Behind Your Ideas

Every vertical in online marketing is different. SEM platforms these days offer so much functionality that they cover almost every use case imaginable. That said, after leveraging your SEM software for a while, it’s likely you’ll come up with some idea specific to your company that has not been thought of before. Personally, I’m championing one such idea right now. My tip: Make sure to purchase software from a company that’s interested in hearing and acting upon your ideas. It’s truly great when you’re working with a platform that is receptive to client feedback.

Tip 3: Make Sure Your SEM Software Company Has Funding

The space is heating up for sure. Acquisio acquired ClickEquations. Adobe acquired Efficient Frontier. When you invest in SEM software, it’s not only about the present but it’s also about the future. Make sure to invest in an SEM platform that is going places. Make sure you buy SEM software that has resources (money) to innovate. SEM is a fast-paced field that changes daily. There’s a ton of overhead in innovating SEM software. Make sure the money is there to make it all happen! By the way, the platforms I discuss here on PPC Ian have major funding behind them.

Image of SEM © gdas

Acquisio T-Shirt Slogan Contest

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Mar 5 9

I just went to SMX West 2012 and one thing was clear: It’s all about SEM Platforms. When it comes to SEM Platforms, Acquisio is one of the best. I’ve blogged quite about about Acquisio here on PPC Ian. Some of my favorites: The Must Have Retargeting eBook of 2012, Acquisio Acquires ClickEquations, and My Guest Post on Acquisio’s Blog.

Today, it was a beautiful day here in the SF Bay Area, with temperatures in the 70s, even though it’s just early March. This year, the weather has been unreal. To enjoy the great weather, Nicole and I enjoyed the outdoors while wearing our very own Acquisio t-shirts. You can see several pictures in this post. Whenever I run into Acquisio at the search marketing conferences, Marc and his team are always so generous with their amazing t-shirts. Next time you’re at an SEM conference, head over to their booth and they will hook you up!

I’m excited today to announce that Acquisio is Running a T-Shirt Slogan Contest. The contest is great! Between now and March 30, head on over to the contest page (the one I just linked to) and enter your slogan. Then, between April 6 and April 20, the public will vote on the slogans. On April 20, the winner will be announced. What does the winner get? They get a free pass to the Acquisio User Summit on July 28 and July 29, 2012. Also, they get free airfare to and from the conference (it’s in Montreal). Last, they get two nights at the Hyatt Regency Montreal during the conference! I’m definitely going to enter, it would be my dream come true to attend Acquisio’s User Summit. I highly recommend entering yourself!

All Images In Today’s Post © PPCIan.com

Negotiating a Great Price on SEM Software

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Feb 5 0

Are you in the market for SEM Software? If you’re running a large paid search program, I certainly hope so. SEM Software produces great returns, but it certainly does not come cheap. Today, I’m going to share a few tips that will help you negotiate a super price on your SEM Software.

Tip 1: Compare Prices on SEM Software

Marketing Automation Flow Chart

There’s a lot of different, great SEM Software packages available these days. You can read about a few of them in my post titled, SEM Software – Four Amazing Tools. The beauty of all these options? SEM Software companies are fighting for your business! Audition all of the platforms out there. Make it known that you are doing your homework. Leverage the fact that you are comparing platforms to negotiate prices down.

It’s expensive to build search engine marketing software. That said, it is possible to negotiate prices. Don’t give up and hold your ground. If you’re not a super experienced negotiator, you may even want to include someone from your sales or business development team. They can get a great read on the situation and help you with your negotiations.

Tip 2: Offer Yourself As A Reference

SEM Software companies only make money if they sign up a huge number of clients who spend a large amount of money on paid search. There is no better way to sign up new business than via referral. Tell the SEM Software company that you are willing to be a reference if they offer you and your company a discounted price. Just remember: Once you’re on their platform, make good on your promise. It’s the right thing to do, and it’s a fun way to meet new people in our great industry.

Tip 3: Become An SEM Software Testimonial

This one really ties into the last point. Offer yourself and your company as a potential testimonial for the SEM Software company. SEM Automation companies are always looking for testimonials, case studies, and even video interviews with clients. These help their marketing team drive more new business. Before promising this one, make sure to check with your company’s legal team. Are you authorized to be a testimonial? What are your company’s policies on testimonials? What type of data can you share and what can you not? Testimonials are a win-win, they keep prices down and will even get you some media exposure!

Tip 4: Is a "Lite" Version Available?

These days, SEM Software companies realize that large, enterprise customers have different needs than smaller organizations. Assess your monthly spend and understand if a "Lite" version is available. Many search marketing platforms offer abridged versions (at a cheaper price) that are still incredibly powerful for smaller advertisers.

Best of luck in purchasing your pay per click software and I also recommend reading my SEM Automation Buyer’s Guide Whitepaper for more tips on your big purchase.

Image of SEM Software Flow Chart © iStockPhoto – Henrik5000

Acquisio Acquires ClickEquations

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Dec 21 5

As of late, there’s been a tremendous amount of growth and M&A activity in our industry. Just a few weeks ago, Adobe acquired Efficient Frontier for $400 million. Personally, I feel like $400 million is a really solid, strong price for Efficient Frontier and sets the tone for more big liquidity events in the coming months/years. It’s really great news for our industry.

Way To Go, Acquisio and ClickEquations!

Today, I was absolutely floored when Acquisio announced their acquisition of ClickEquations. If you’ve been reading PPC Ian for a while, you probably know that I’m a huge fan of Acquisio, the leading performance marketing platform for agencies. I have covered some of their amazing whitepapers, interviewed their CMO Marc Poirier, and recently did a guest post on Acquisio’s awesome blog.

What you may not know is I’m also a huge fan of ClickEquations. As you can see in my SMX 2011 Recap, I had the great opportunity to connect with Craig Danuloff, CEO of ClickEquations. Craig literally wrote the book on quality score and is a true leader in our industry. The ClickEquations team is truly top-notch and they built an outstanding platform. Integrate ClickEquations into Acquisio’s platform and it’s going to be a true home run for the online marketing community.

Prediction: SEM Platform(s) Will Go Public In 2012-2013

So, what’s next after all of this recent M&A activity? First and foremost, it means better tools for end users like you and me! More M&A means more activity, growth, and competition. It’s a race at this point to build the biggest and best online marketing platforms around.

Second, I think the recent activity sets the stage for some even bigger deals in the future. Looking at companies like Acquisio, Kenshoo, and Marin Software, I would not be surprised if one or more of them went public in 2012-2013. One thing is for sure: If you manage large online advertising campaigns, I highly encourage you to audit the platforms out there, you will not be disappointed!

Image in this post © Acquisio

Check Out My Guest Post On Acquisio’s Blog

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Dec 14 5

I’m a huge fan of online marketing automation, with platforms like Acquisio at the top of my list. Have you heard of Acquisio? They offer the leading performance marketing platform for agencies.

Today, I wrote a guest post on Acquisio’s blog: 5 Ways To Get The Most Out of Your New Online Marketing Platform. I’m so excited and honored. Acquisio has a really amazing online marketing blog and I highly recommend checking it out. Since the entire online marketing world is in the process of moving from manual campaign management to leveraged campaign management via platforms such as Acquisio, I thought this would be the perfect topic.

After reading my guest post, I highly recommend checking out Acquisio’s whitepapers as well (they are really amazing). I have covered several of them here on PPC Ian including:

Want to learn even more about Acquisio? I had the honor of interviewing Acquisio’s CMO Marc Poirier right here on PPC Ian. Thanks for all your support and I hope you enjoy my guest post!

PPC Bidding Automation Tips

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Sep 21 0

If you’ve been reading PPC Ian for a while, I bet you know that I’m a huge proponent of SEM automation. I even wrote a whitepaper a while back, PPC Ian’s SEM Automation Buyer’s Guide. One of my favorite aspects of PPC platforms such as Kenshoo, Acquisio, and Marin Software is automated bidding. In that spirit, I wanted to provide a few invaluable tips to keep in mind when setting up and maintaining your automated bidding platform.

Tip 1: Verify Your Platform’s Data Daily

What You Need To Know

Good data means good decisions. Bad data means bad bidding decisions. I’ve seen it hundreds of times: Something goes wrong and your SEM platform does not sync data properly. Perhaps the search engine API is down. Perhaps your own API (or FTP) is not working and the platform cannot access your internal conversion data. Perhaps your internal system does not update conversions properly. Sometimes it’s just a day’s worth of bad data. Sometimes, the bad data can pour in for multiple days (my worst nightmare, that is if it goes undetected).

Here’s the problem: Automated bidding systems rely on accurate data. If the clicks, cost, conversions, or other important metrics are off, the bidding system is going to make mistakes. These mistakes can be incredibly costly. It’s important to audit your data daily on all levels: Account, campaign, adgroup, and keyword. It’s also important to make sure your internal conversion data is passed into the system correctly (if applicable). When you do catch issues, make sure to work closely with your account management team and, until the problem is fixed, make sure the bidding system ignores the bad data dates.

Tip 2: Leverage Internal Conversion Data

Do you currently bid based on conversion collected via search engine pixels? Or, do you leverage your own, internal conversion data? From my experience, search engine pixels are always off. They will never offer as accurate of a picture as your own internal data. As such, I highly recommend passing your internal conversion data into your automated bidding platform, if at all possible. By doing so, you will see an instant lift in your results (good data equals good results). If not easily possible, search engine pixel data can be a stepping stone until you’re able to integrate internal conversion data.

Tip 3: Invest Heavily In Your Bidding Setup

Long term, automated bidding systems save a ton of time while also driving improved results (more conversions at lower CPA). Short run, however, they require a ton of setup. In my experience, it’s the setup (or lack thereof) that will make or break your bidding system. My advice is to spend a good amount of time upfront thinking through all the details. I’m talking about these types of questions:

Should I pass data across search engines? For example, if Microsoft adCenter does not have statistically significant data on a keyword, should I leverage my Google data?
Should I minimize bid movement on a day-to-day basis? Let’s say my current bid is at $0.50 and I’m headed toward $1.00. Should the system make the entire move in one day or should the system make the move gradually?
What should my bidding system consider statistically significant? Is 100 clicks worth of data statistically significant? How about 1,000 clicks worth of data?

My advice is to compile a list of at least 30-50 such questions and then think through them in great detail. Engage your account management team and expect to dedicate a full time employee (for at least one month’s time) to make your new automated bidding system work.

So, there you have it. Some of my favorite automated bidding tips, especially if you’re newer to the exciting world of PPC bidding automation. I sincerely hope this helps and encourage you to investigate the great SEM platforms out there.

Kenshoo Launches Amazing Watchdog Platform

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Apr 6 12

If you’ve been visiting PPC Ian for a while, it will not surprise you at all that today’s post is about SEM automation software. After all, this is probably my favorite topic in the world. I’m particularly excited about today’s post, however, because I’m going to be discussing a new type of SEM automation software. I’m going to discuss software that fills a huge void in the world of large scale, corporate SEM. I’m going to talk about software that saved one retail advertiser $120,000 of potentially wasted ad spend (and $250,000 of potentially lost sales revenue) within just one short week after implementation. I’m thrilled to discuss the brand new Kenshoo Watchdog Platform.

What Is Kenshoo Watchdog?

So, what is Kenshoo Watchdog? Watchdog is basically software that functions as a 24/7 member of your team scouring your SEM campaigns for broken links, an abundance of redirects (bad for quality score), website failures, out of date products and promotions, and more. This patent-pending solution is the ultimate money-saver for those of us with enormous search engine marketing accounts with thousands upon thousands of ad copy all with different URLs, different promotions, and different messages. Watchdog comes from Sequoia-backed Kenshoo, one of the best and most innovative software companies I have ever seen. Due to the team backing this software, it’s jam-packed with innovative features such as prioritizing its audits on adgroups with the most spend and pages that were recently changed. If you’re in the corporate world of SEM (especially in a managerial level position), it’s really your duty to audition this tool, in my opinion.

Large SEM Accounts Can Get Out of Control

I’ve been in this corporate search engine marketing world long enough to know that it’s impossible to QA all campaigns, adgroups, and keywords on an ongoing basis. When you’re dealing with multiple accounts, hundreds of campaigns, tens of thousands (or even hundreds of thousands of adgroups), and millions of keywords, there’s no way you’re going to be able to QA it all manually. Now, throw into the mix that your website is constantly changing with new site releases. Once relevant offers are consistently changing, pages that once worked now fail to resolve at all. Despite your best efforts to make sure your program is perfect, that’s just not realistic in a manual fashion. Large SEM accounts at one point or another will get out of your control.

Even worse, your reputation as an online marketer is at stake. Executives at your company, investors, and customers are out there clicking your ads. The last thing you want is a broken link, bad offer, or outdated landing page tarnishing your reputation. So, what can you do to make sure your account is always in the perfect state and you’re spending all of your budget efficiently? Check out the next section…

Watchdog: Keeping Your Program In Check

I’m here to say that Kenshoo Watchdog is the perfect companion to your existing search marketing systems and practices, a companion that makes large scale audits of ad copy, URLs, offers, and landing pages possible.The best part of it all? Watchdog will work with any bidding and campaign management system you may already have in place. It’s a standalone solution. My prediction: I believe a huge percentage of large SEM spenders will be leveraging Kenshoo Watchdog within the next year because it’s so flexible and can basically plug into any existing program.

Kenshoo: Empowering The SEM Industry

I first got to know the Kenshoo team in 2009 and have been nothing but impressed. I know a good number of employees at Kenshoo across many teams (management, client services, marketing, and engineering), and they’re true thought leaders and innovators in our industry. As just one example, I highly recommend checking out my three part interview with Chad Baldwin, VP of Sales at Kenshoo (part 1, part 2, part 3). In short, these guys are doing amazing stuff and I truly recommend checking out Kenshoo, their world class Kenshoo Search platform ($15 billion+ annual sales revenue and $1 billion annual marketing spend is directed via this platform by the way), and of course the brand new standalone Kenshoo Watchdog platform. Watchdog is the platform to audition in 2011, in my opinion.