Capturing Unrealized Revenue Through Keyword Order Analysis

As search engine marketers, our job is to maximize profits while minimizing dollar spend. Impressions and clicks are important, but it is the return on investment that truly demonstrates whether our efforts have a positive impact on a company’s bottom line.

Today, let’s focus on one specific strategy to identify unrealized revenue: keyword order. In my experience, SEMs are more likely to bid on “blue suede shoes” than “suede shoes blue.” The former is the “primary keyword phrase” and the latter is an example of a “secondary keyword phrase.”

Is it worthwhile to bid on secondary phrases such as “suede shoes blue” and "shoes blue suede,” etc.? Can secondary keyword phrases produce revenue and a similar profitability as primary keyword phrases?

My pre-analysis hypothesis was “yes” based on the rationale that it’s the combination of keywords that matter, not the order in which they are expressed. The analysis is revealing on a potentially significant source of revenue.

To test my hypothesis, I analyzed six campaigns in two different verticals. In total, I analyzed over 78,000 primary keyword phrases and the related secondary keyword phrases. Since these results were based on exact and phrase match functions, there was zero redundancy in the impression and clicks generated by the primary and secondary search phrases.

Impressions, Clicks and CTR Percentage Analysis

As expected, primary keyword phrases garnered a big percentage of impressions and clicks, but what surprised me is that secondary keyword phrases yielded 15 percent of impressions. Additionally, secondary keyword phrases had very good CTRs: phrases with three keywords had similar CTRs, and those with four keywords had slightly higher CTRs.

Next, I asked, “Do secondary keyword phrases drive enough revenue to produce an attractive profit?” To do this I analyzed the return on ad spend (ROAS) for the same primary and secondary phrases as above.

ROAS Analysis

This analysis tells us that secondary keyword phrases bring in a similar margin as primary phrases.

When viewed holistically, the above analysis on impressions, clicks, and margin for primary and secondary keyword phrases reveals interesting insights and actionable strategies for SEMs:

• Even when multiple consumers have the same search intents, they will use varying keyword phrases when conducting a search
• Bidding on secondary keyword phrases can produce a positive ROAS that can materially add to your campaign’s performance
• SEMs should take all high-volume keywords with multiple keywords, rearrange them, and run them through AdWords or adCenter on exact/phrase match to determine the number of impressions; this data will help inform your strategy for bidding on secondary keyword phrases

While it is unlikely all keyword combinations will produce similar margins, this analysis suggests it is worthwhile to explore various combinations. I hope you use this analysis to expand your campaigns and discover unrealized revenue.

The next installment in our Search Engine Watch exclusive series will analyze call to action keywords and how they impact performance, including impressions, clicks and conversions.

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How YouTube Will Escape Google’s New Pirate Penalty

Google has announced that it will soon penalize sites that are repeatedly accused of copyright infringement. But one site in particular doesn’t need to worry: Google’s own YouTube. It has a unique immunity against the forthcoming penalty.

The penalty — which we’ve dubbed the Emanuel Update — impacts Google’s web search results. If someone has reported a web search listing as being a copyright violation, using the DMCA takedown mechanism, that’s a strike against the entire site.

Accumulate enough strikes (how many, Google’s not saying), and a publisher may find their entire site hit with a penalty. Every page, whether it was reported for copyright infringement or not, will have less chance of ranking well.

Strike Count Against Publishers

If you’re trying to understand what sites might be at risk, Google has a page where it discloses which publishers have the most takedown strikes against them:

But many, if not all, the copyright strikes against YouTube won’t show up on this list. Google even tells you this:

Requests for products other than Google Search (e.g, requests directed at YouTube or Blogger) are not included.

The YouTube Escape Hatch

See, people who are upset with alleged infringement on YouTube are directed to a completely separate DMCA form to use. Try it yourself. Use the form Google talked about in its blog post today. The form warns you away from using it to report YouTube violations right at the top, and if you still try to pick the YouTube option, you get a further warning to go elsewhere:

When you do go elsewhere, YouTube jumps you through more hoops before you can just report. You go the YouTube Copyright Center:

From there, if you follow the “Content Owners” option, you get to a new page with several further options:

There, YouTube will let those who want to do a removal do so, but it also pitches a way to submit multiple notices more easily through a special Content Verification Program (a sign that YouTube gets lots of takedown requests), as well as the pretty cool Content ID system, which lets those who have infringement allegations decide to be mellow, let those videos stay up with ads and collect some income off of it.

Content ID is very nice, but if copyright owners aren’t convinced, they can still go the takedown route and get a video removed. The page at YouTube hosting the video itself remains up. The page also remains potentially listed in Google. The request definitely doesn’t count against YouTube in the tallies that will be used in the new pirate penalty, since these aren’t considered web page removals.

If Google had a common DMCA takedown system, YouTube would face a threat with the forthcoming penalty. How much is uncertain. Since Google doesn’t seem to disclose the number of YouTube takedown requests it has acted upon (I have asked for a figure), there’s no way to assess YouTube against the other sites on the strikeout list above.

YouTube In Search Results

Now let’s see how this works in action. You might recall earlier this year, Saturday Night Live did an absolutely hilarious parody of how Downton Abbey might be promoted if it ran on Bravo.

Unfortunately, for reasons that have never been made clear (but likely a rights dispute between NBCUniversal & the makers of Downton Abbey), it was never aired outside the East Coast of the US nor posted online officially.

That didn’t stop people posting it unofficially, without explicit permission. Here’s how the results currently look at Google, if someone were seeking that video in a common way right now:

The first result leads to the Perez Hilton site, where you can still watch the video hosted on that site just as you might watch it hosted on YouTube. If NBCUniversal filed a DMCA request, chances are, that page would get removed (assuming there’s not some licensing agreement, and I doubt there is). Perez Hilton’s entire site would have accumulated a strike against it.

Next, Styleite also self hosts the video, it seems, so it’s the same situation as with Perez Hilton. The same is true for Gawker, as best I can tell.

Several other pages listing in the top results above show the video, but because they embed from YouTube, they’re not really at risk for a DMCA takedown. These include known pirate sites like Time and Entertainment Weekly.

NBCUniversal’s own Today site was cheerfully embedding a pirated version of the video on YouTube until that got taken down, but it’s still promising to assist with second-hand infringement as soon as the clip turns up elsewhere:

Sorry! NBC Universal has blocked the YouTube clip that showed the “SNL” skit. If it shows up anywhere else online, we’ll get it back up here.

How The Google Search Umpire Doesn’t See YouTube’s Strike

Now let’s talk YouTube. In the screenshot above, I’ve pointed to where YouTube is listed, with a “Safe!” caption. It’s not that the video is safe. NBCUniversal could file a DMCA request to get the clip removed. But as I said, doing this just removes the clip as what we could call a “YouTube takedown,” not a “Search takedown.” YouTube, in the eyes of Google Search, has not suffered a copyright strike against it.

Technically, the YouTube listing appearing in the screenshot above isn’t a web search result but a Google Video result, inserted by Google Universal Search. That’s also true for the other video under it, a different listing from the Perez Hilton site. But that Perez Hilton video listing would get removed via the web search takedown system, as there is no Google Video removal. The YouTube one, as I’ve explained, would fall under the YouTube removal system.

Google: “We’re Treating YouTube Like Any Other Site”

I did ask Google about all this and was told

We’re treating YouTube like any other site in search rankings. That said, we don’t expect this change to demote results for popular user-generated content sites.

I just don’t see that. There’s no way to treat YouTube — or Blogger — like any other site in the search rankings, when those sites have special takedown forms that don’t allow their alleged infringing activity to measured up against other sites.

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3 Tactics for Demographic Targeting on the Google Display Network

A major reason online marketers are attracted to Facebook advertising is the ability to segment audiences with razor-sharp accuracy.

Wouldn’t it be great to create campaigns with a similar strategy on the Google Display Network (GDN)?

We’ve pulled together a plan that can help segment your audience by demographic/psychographic profiles on the Google Display Network.

When compared to the specificity of Facebook and the relatively easy-to-use user interface (UI), the strategy laid out in this article is patched together with duct tape and glue. This is because locating a specific demographic on the GDN can require utilizing and blending targeting strategies.

For this article, let’s say we're targeting affluent men over the age of 50. The objective of this strategy is to discover and target content on the GDN that these individuals would likely be reading.

Topic Targeting

Within the GDN campaign options, you can target placements by Topic. This means that Google scans the content of each page and places it under a designated Topic. You can target and exclude specific Topics depending on the audience you’re trying to reach.

Below is a snapshot of the Topic Targeting option within the Display Network tab of the AdWords UI. Within this example we have selected Topics that should appeal to our target audience:

Because our target audience is affluent men over the age of 50, we have chosen topics such as business finance, business services, banking, golf, etc. These topics might seem a little cliché, but they are relevant.

Interest Targeting

Another tactic for the GDN is utilizing Interest Categories. Often advertisers don't understand the difference between Topic Targeting and Interest Targeting. At a high level:

    Topics target the content of a specific page.

    Interests target the attributes of a specific person.

How does Google determine a demographic profile and related interests for you and everyone else? Here is the scoop straight from the AdWords Support information:

    When someone visits an AdSense partner website, we analyze the content of the page and site to show contextually relevant ads. We also use these page topics as well as data from third-party companies to associate interests with a visitor’s anonymous cookie ID, taking into account how often people visit sites of those categories, among other factors.Google may use information that people provide to websites on the Display Network -- such as social networking sites -- about their gender, age, and other demographics. We may also use the websites people visit and third-party data to infer this information. For example, if the sites a person visits have a majority of female visitors (based on aggregated survey data on site visitation), we may associate the person's cookie with the female demographic category.

Interests can be added to each individual campaign within your GDN options screen, similar to adding Topics.

If you plan to utilize an Interest cluster in a variety of campaigns, you should create a Custom Combination. To do this, you should enter the “Shared Library” section of your AdWords account, and then enter the “Audiences,” section.

From here you can build a new custom combination, give it a title, and save it for future use. Below is a screenshot, focused on our target audience (men over 50):

On the flip side, you can also create Interest clusters for exclusion.

For example, you may want to gather a series of interests that would appeal to a younger audience (under 18) and exclude them from your campaigns. This can help qualify your traffic and improve performance. However, keep in mind this may limit your distribution as well.

Placement Targeting

Selecting specific placements (websites) to target can be overwhelming due to the extensive inventory on the GDN. However, DoubleClick Ad Planner is a useful tool when conducting placement research based on audience information.

Within Ad Planner you can research sites via Audience, Content, and Placement segmentation. To target affluent men over 50, I entered these parameters within my search:

By entering my specific search criteria, Ad Planner suggested a series of websites that may be relevant to my target audience. Of course, it's up to you to sort through the laundry of suggested websites and create your own media plan within Ad Planner.

A great feature within Ad Planner is that their search results provide specific websites as well as the topic under which this URL this fits. If you find that a large number of suggested sites fall into a category, you may want to try targeting those general topics, rather than individual websites, and this can help increase impression volume.

What About Demographic Bidding?

Previously, AdWords offered a demographic bidding option. You could multiply bids based on user demographics. However, around March 28 of this year this feature was retired.

We never found this tool to be very useful because data was extremely scarce on which to automatically adjust bids.

Summary

Targeting users via psychographic/demographic information on the GDN is nowhere near as easy as Facebook. But if you have defined audiences within your Facebook campaign, then you can apply them to your GDN efforts – but it just takes a bit more effort, research, and a patchwork plan.

One caveat with this strategy: conversion rates can be lower via Topic and Interest targeting. Reason being is that you are relying on Google to determine the topic of specific pages, as well as the interests of a specific person. With Facebook, you are often targeting demographic information provide specifically by users and there is less room for interpretation (and error).

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How to Increase Social Influence Scores on Klout & More

How to Increase Social Influence Scores on Klout and More

Klout, PeerIndex, Kred, and Percollate are today's social influence reporters. Like it or not, marketers, brands and individuals are getting scored, ranked and labeled as a specialist, a celebrity, a curator, or even a taste-maker. For more about Increase Social Influence Scores on Klout.

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Facebook: Here’s How You Pay to Promote Posts

Facebook Promoted Posts

Facebook has released details about a new feature that allows businesses to easily promote their posts and get updates in front of more eyes — for a fee.

Although it was reported earlier this month that Facebook was testing a “highlighted posts” feature, the company has now made it official — with a page that explains how the promoted posts will work. For more about Facebook Promoted Posts.

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