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If you’re a small business owner new to the world of online advertising, you may be a bit overwhelmed by all the of the options and features that are available to you. How can all of this help you sell your product or service? I won’t try to give you a full seminar on online advertising in this post. Instead, I’m going to give you two quick suggestions: finding more keywords and experimenting. Finding more keywords What queries do people use to find stuff on Bing? How can you get…(read more)

In 496 AD, Pope Gelasius established Valentine’s Day, named after one or more Christian martyrs. No romantic elements are known in the original early medieval biographies of either of these martyrs, but  Saint Valentine became first associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished.

For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.
(“For this was Saint Valentine’s Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate.”) (1)

It’s still a long way from Chaucer’s mating birds to today’s international love-fest, but as a search marketer, you probably care less about historical facts and more about getting most out of your campaigns.

Valentine’s Day falls on a Tuesday this year. After two previous years of decline and stagnation, the National Retail Federation (NRF) reported a significant growth in Valentine’s Day spending in 2011. Spending was pegged to hit $15.7 billion last year, a trend that’s expected to continue. (2)

Traditional gifts in 2012 will include jewelry, clothing, and romantic dinners along with candy and greeting cards. But in the world of search, it’s all about the flowers, which are by far the most popular search queries for online shoppers. (3) To help boost your Valentine campaign, we analyzed data from last year and compiled these optimization tips.

In 2011, flower-related keywords saw a significant increase in impressions and clicks in the week before Valentine’s Day with clicks spiking on February 14th again. (3)

While the market for flower terms definitely heats up in February, the cost per click (CPC) for keywords remained fairly stable. Click-through rates (CTR), however, increased in the last days, peaking on Valentine’s Day above 8%. (4) To capitalize on this trend, offer a same-day delivery option and include those words in your ad copy.

Creating specific campaigns for Valentine’s Day has proven beneficial in previous years. In the first two weeks of February 2011, keyword combinations with “Valentine” in it (for example “Valentine Flowers”) had a CTR of 13.65%, while all other flower-related keywords came in at 3.49%. CPCs for Valentine keywords also stayed slightly lower than for all other keywords. (4) You can download a comprehensive Valentine’s keyword list and select the terms that apply to your business.

But having the right keywords uploaded is just half the battle; their position matters, too. The chart below illustrates how click volume relates to ad position. Forty-two percent of all clicks came from ads appearing in position 1 or 2. (5)

While it’s difficult for small businesses to compete with large retailers, a few simple tricks can boost your success:

Place competitive bids and select the right match type. As the chart below shows, flower-related keywords set to exact match type generated the most impressions and clicks, resulting in the highest CTR. (4)

Your ads should clearly mention Valentine’s Day in the title or copy. Call out your unique offerings and services, such as discounts and free or same-day delivery. You can use dynamic insertion in your ad copy or ad title, which typically improves CTR.

Finally, consider utilizing adCenter’s targeting options to your advantage. Here’s how: In 2011 men spent twice as much on Valentine’s gifts as women. (2) Incremental bidding by gender with a bid boost for male shoppers allows you to increase bids automatically and push your ads into higher positions. Brick-and-mortar stores can use radius targeting with a recommended minimum 20-mile reach to help reach local customers.

While these insights are focused on flower shops, the same recommended strategies apply to other industries as well. Whether you sell flowers, jewelry, clothing, or romantic dinners and weekend getaways, keep these essentials in mind:

• Plan for a short but lucrative window of opportunity and apply sufficient budget.
• Create separate Valentine’s Day campaigns and include specific keywords for the occasion.
• Place competitive bids and use all match types.
• Mention “Valentine’s Day” in your ad title or copy and distinguish your ads through discounts, free or reduced shipping and a clear call to action.
• Use geographic and demographic targeting to reach your specific audience.

Happy Valentine’s Day and thanks for reading!

(1) wikipedia.org

(2) Love is in the Air This Valentine’s Day, According to NRF

(3) Based on data from comScore, Microsoft Advertising Intelligence , Google Trends

(4) adCenter internal data, based on a sample of flower stores, February 2011

(5) AdCenter Position Analysis, February 2011

Have you loaded a list of keywords into adCenter only to find that your output sheet has a list of errors for “duplicate” keywords? If you go through your list and see that the keywords are clearly different, adCenter may not have seen it that way. While the queries “the row boat” and “row boat” appear different to you and me, adCenter views these queries as duplicates due to a process called normalization. What is Normalization? Normalization is the process where…(read more)

If you’re a seasoned PPC veteran who’s well aware of the key performance indicators and how to tweak them to achieve the results you want, you probably don’t need to read this post as the information in it is geared towards those new to managing PPC campaigns.

I know when I first started learning the ins an outs of search engine marketing, I was a bit overwhelmed by how many different factors go into whether a campaign is successful or not.  Not only that, it seemed like the information I needed was spread out across different sources with varying levels of complexity in their descriptions.  A campaign that’s bombing isn’t going to get any better unless you know what to look for and what to do once you find it.

With that in mind, I typically post this handy quick reference guide a couple of times each year in the hopes that someone who’s pulling their hair out trying to get up to speed quickly might run across it and find the help they need. Below are some of the most common PPC levers and some suggestions on changes you can make to improve your campaign’s performance.

PROBLEM: Low CTR
•    Test multiple ads
•    Use dynamic text
•    Make ad groups more focused
•    Make ads more relevant (to keywords and landing pages)
•    Adjust match types:
      – Use phrase match instead of exact match
      – Use broad match instead of phrase match
•    Add negative keywords
•    Implement demographic targeting

PROBLEM: High CPC / Low ROI
•    Ensure landing page URLs are current (no broken links)
•    Revise ad copy; make it more concise, mention special offers, use calls to action (e.g. “buy”, “shop”, etc.) 
•    Adjust bids (lower)
•    Match types: bid on broad, phrase, exact
•    Add negative keywords
•    Set daily limit to monthly budget

PROBLEM: Low Traffic
•    Shorter keyword phrases
•    Expand keywords (try Microsoft Advertising Intelligence)
•    Increase bids to improve page position
•    Use broad match
•    Remove or expand geographical targeting

PROBLEM: Low Conversion Rate
•    Update landing pages
•    Bid higher on the keywords that perform the best

PROBLEM: Low Page Position
•    Increase base bid
•    Review keywords and ad copy relevancy
•    Dynamic text in ad title, text, display URL

For more context on the points above, I’d recommend checking out Peter Haubold’s Small Business Essentials Series where he’ll walk you through the entire process from choosing keywords through to reporting and optimization.

As always, use the comments field below  to let us know if there’s anything you’d like us to cover here on the adCenter Blog.

As the nights get longer and 2011 finally draws to an end, we can’t help but sit and reflect over what was great, good and challenging over the 12 months.

As the UK Search Account Services team prepares for the festive period we all agreed that it would be a marvellous opportunity for a spot of reflection of our own, that’s why we wanted to share with you some of our highlights and best blogs. So here we go..

Zero to Hero Tips on Setting up and Optimising Your New adCenter Account

Pay Per Click (PPC) for SMB – A Paid Search Back to Basics Series was a 13-part series that all the Search Account Services team contributed to; drawing on a wide range of experience and Search best practice covering off everything you ever needed to know about setting up a Microsoft Advertising adCenter account in easily accessible bite-size portions.

Insightful Insights

We like to keep our finger on the pulse here at adCenter Towers; and we’ve written a number of blogs around the trends we’ve been seeing in the UK Search marketplace (Top 10 Christmas Gadgets 2011 and Top 5 Holiday Destinations for 2012) as well as preparing you for seasonality peaks across the various core Search verticals such as Finance, Travel and Retail.

How to Guides

Finally, we’ve helped the wider Microsoft Advertising Community with such blogs as the recent “Miffed about Matching” and “Sanity Check your adCenter Defaults” series to help best serve you and ensure that you are completely informed on getting the very best out of adCenter.

Thank you very much for engaging with us throughout the year and for sharing your thoughts on the adCenter UI and adCenter Desktop Tool, as well as the insights we produce. We love you guys!

Here’s wishing you all a happy and peaceful holidays and a fabulous 2012!

Cheers

Kate and the UK Search Account Services Team

We’re excited to announce the publication of our latest help video. Meet Susan Palmer from the adCenter team (you may remember her from Eleanor’s recent interview with her about the Customer and Partner Experience Group ), she’ll walk you through the latest adCenter features and how to use them in under four minutes, including: Account performance graphs Filter options Saving queries Create new campaigns more efficiently For more helpful hints and tricks, in addition to 32 free training…(read more)

Remember the story of the blindfolded men and an elephant? As a quick recap for those that don’t: A group of men were blindfolded and led to an elephant. Each man was allowed to only touch a small part of the animal and then asked to describe what they were standing next to. One man, after feeling the leg, says he was next to a pillar. Another, who felt the tail, thought he had been led to a rope. A third man said that his companions were crazy, he was most definitely feeling a spear (he had…(read more)

Here at Microsoft Advertising adCenter, we value our advertisers and want to get your ads live as quickly as possible. There are some products and services, however, that aren’t allowed on our network. We want to ensure that we abide by all laws and protect the consumer, so we have Disallowed Content Guidelines . Below is a Q&A list that will help you understand the guidelines on these products. What are some products that are disallowed? Counterfeit products and replica designer goods…(read more)

Amongst the top New Year’s resolutions for 2012 are:

• Become more physically fit

• Improve one’s financial condition

• Improve health

• Weight loss

This year, resolutions related to overall health and fitness increased in priority over weight loss and other goals, signaling a possible shift from previous years. (1)

In any case, January is a crucial month for advertisers who promote products or services related to a healthier lifestyle. With three out of four top resolutions being health and fitness related, advertisers in the health vertical have a unique opportunity to start 2012 strongly by optimizing their adCenter accounts early.

In the world of paid search, weight loss still seems to be one of the most popular goals. comScore reported more than 583 million searches just for the term “weight loss” in January 2011 across all search engines. This was a 105% increase compared with the previous month. (2)

This trend was certainly reflected in adCenter as well. A look at adCenter data from 2011 shows a small, but vital, window of opportunity. Though impression counts stayed consistently high throughout February and March, clicks peaked in January. (3) This makes sense, as people are more determined to achieve their goals when the new year starts, but the desire to take action fades over time.

However, the most important takeaway for advertisers is that costs-per-click (CPC) were the lowest in January.

Though there is no guarantee 2012 will be identical to the 2011 trends, we do expect there will once again be a very narrow time frame to run a successful campaign on products related to New Year’s resolutions.

In January of last year, the majority of clicks for weight loss products happened in week one of the year with clicks decreasing each passing week.

Optimization Guidelines

Timelines and Budget:

• Be prepared to launch your campaigns by the end of December.
• Plan for growth and ensure your budget is sufficient for the first month of the year.
• Expect the highest demand in the very first week of the year.

Keywords:

• Create your keyword list in December. Review our list of suggested terms*.
• If you sell pharmaceutical products, upload your terms even earlier to clear any editorial obstacles that may occur.
• Use all match types and avoid bidding on broad match only. We recommend using your highest bids on exact match.

As you can see in the charts below, exact match type generated by far the most clicks and also the highest click-through-rate (CTR). (4)

Ad Copy:

• Create ads that include references to a New Year’s resolution, for example “2012 Weight Loss Programs.”
• Use incentives, such as free shipping or discounts.
• Have a clear call to action, for example “Try it now for 30 days” or “Order online today.”
• Highlight the unique advantages of your product, for example “Average weight loss of 25 lbs in 6 months” or “Safely lose up to 5 lbs per week.”

Targeting:

• Small businesses can leverage incremental bidding to boost bids for specific age groups and gender.

• 59% of queries for the keyword weight loss are conducted by women, the age groups 35-49 and 50-64 combined for 63% of searches. (5)
• If your business has a physical location – such as fitness studios, vitamin shops – use radius targeting to focus in on searchers who are near your store address.

Other health & fitness industries likely to benefit from New Year’s resolutions campaigns include:

• Fitness studios and fitness equipment sellers
• Programs to help people quit smoking

As an advertiser, one of your first resolutions should be to have your campaigns prepared for the expected peak in early January.

Happy New Year and best of luck in 2012 from all of us at adCenter!

Thanks for reading

Peter Haubold, Vertical Specialist

NOTE: Be sure to review all keywords for applicability to your own campaigns before uploading them — failure to do so could result in editorial disapprovals.

1) PRWEB; November 2, 2011

2) comScore Term Profile: July 2010 to Sept. 2011

3) adCenter internal data: Vertical Analysis, Oct 2010 to March 2011 (based on 76 accounts)

4) adCenter internal data: Keyword Analysis, January 2010

5) Microsoft Ad Intelligence: Demographic report, October 2011

Here at Bing we’re always trying to help you get the best possible ROI from your accounts. In the run up to Christmas and in anticipation of the new year, this is especially important. To that end, we would like to invite our customers to a very special event. The Bing Account Management team are hosting an Optimisation and product workshop, which will be held between 9am and 1pm on Monday 5^th of December at the Cumberland Hotel in Marble Arch, London.

This Optimisation and Product workshop help you to manage your accounts on Bing more efficiently and teach you how to optimize your accounts and maximize the benefits of adCenter. We will also provide you with quick tips and tricks on how to use the new features of each of our tools, and discuss your accounts on a one to one basis with members of our team.

We will host sessions specific to the verticals outlined below, later in the morning. We will look at upcoming trends and challenges in the next quarter and present best practices for accounts within those verticals:

1. Finance
2. Entertainment (including Gambling)
3. Travel and Lodging
4. Retail

You will have the option of signing up for whichever sessions suit your accounts best as well as the opportunity to have a private 1-1 session to discuss your accounts priorities and any potential quick wins. You can register for the sessions here.

At the end of the training attendees will receive an best practice Pack that will contain handy how-to guides for when you are optimizing your Bing accounts in the future.

Best of all, this is all free. We’ll even provide all attendees with an adcenter accreditation voucher so they you do the exam for free , not to mention some seasonal spot prizes!

So what are you waiting for, sign up today!

Not a Bing/adCenter customer yet? Sign up here