Search Marketing Toolbox - SES San Francisco
Everyone needs a good tool. So are you ready to hear about the latest and greatest? Me too. I actually changed sessions to be here today after Alex sold me on his toolbox at Schmoozefest yesterday.
Anyway, we have Simon Heseltine (AOL Inc.) moderating an All-Star line up: Dave Snyder (Blueglass), David Szetela (Clix Marketing), Mark Jackson (VIZION Interactive), Alex Cohen (ClickEquations), and Ariel Bardin (Google).
Alex is up first because he’s the biggest search marketing tool on the panel [his words, not mine!].
There are three major areas to improve profit:
First off, start by identifying what types of problems are holding you back
The Paid Search Technology landscape is HUGE, so it’s not a question of what tools you should use, rather which tools you should use and when. When you are early on in the process, identify where you are on the paid search maturity curve.
The Stages of Maturity
When you start out, free tools will do the job; at this stage it’s more about people and education. As you move up the maturity curve, you will start to need more specialized and niche tools.
Summary
David is up next – he has a bunch of books that everyone should check out. David is going to talk about a couple of free Google Tools:
1. Conversion Optimizer (CO) provides automated bid management
2. AdWords Editor helps you to segment your AdGroups
Ariel is at the podium next. His tip of the day is to go to the Google Ad Innovations page which lists all of the tools that Google have, so go check this out. He’s going to help answer two key questions:
How do I know if I am doing well?
Go to the Google Opportunity Center and use the Analyze Competition report to see how you are doing against your competitors. Analyze Competition shows you CTR comparisons, and you can see what quartile you are in for your category.
How can I do better?
Campaign Experiments is now in Beta and allows you to run experiments to see in a statistically significant way, results from your campaign experiments. You can easily experiment with keywords, bids, adgroups…and Google will do all the math for you.
Mark is up next and is going to look at the tools of the trade.
Tools that Mark really likes
Last, but not least, Dave is up and he’s going to talk about creating your own tools and customizing them for your needs. He recommends following four steps when creating your own tools.
Step 1: Define Needs
Step 2: Identify the APIs for those needs
Step 3: Interact with the Data
Step 4: Build Out a Really Simple Interface
Step 5: Test and Refine
Wow. Another great session, with a bunch of cool stuff to go check out… right after lunch that is!