The Ten Truths Every CMO Must Know About Search Marketing
Whether you’re a CMO - or someone who needs to educate, advise or influence one - this session will educate you on the 10 critical important concepts surrounding search marketing and its role within the entire marketing mix that CMOs must understand in order to be successful. A panel made up of senior level search marketers across a variety of industries, business models, and sizes will share their experiences, advice and perspective on these 10 critical truths and how understanding them has influenced their CMOs.
Moderator: Chris Sherman, Executive Editor, Search Engine Land
Panelists:
Michelle Stern, Client Services Director, iProspect
Willie Fernandez Director of Marketing, World Travel Holidays
Jennifer Doss, eCommerce Marketing Manager, Hat World and Lids
Jill Nortman, SEO and Web Analytics Specialist, Allegis Group
Jen Miller, Manager, Delta.com Online Content and Marketing
This session is sponsored by iProspect.
1. SEO is an ongoing process.
Why do CMOs need to pay attention? Search marketing should be an integral part of an entire marketing strategy. It’s difficult to communicate the right issues. Enable 360 degree communication.
Jill: SEO is really less of a function and more of a process. It’s ongoing - you can’t set it and forget it. You need to be involved because the Internet industry is constantly changing. Recently, social media sites are being indexed. Having a presence there is very important, especially to articulating that to your CMO. Blended results are also a new phenomenon - if you aren’t keeping up with those changes, you’re missing the boat.
Jen: SEM is an ongoing process. Delta marketing is separate from content production. When she manages paid search, she was working with the content group on how to optimize the website. But then they realized that content and marketing are one so both organizations have been combined. It’s been a lot more beneficial for them. It’s a front-end process. From an organizational standpoint, it was successful, but it took a long time.
2. Being #1 isn’t everything and sometimes is not even possible.
Willie: Being in the cruise space today, the #1 term you would want to rank for is the term "cruise." However, from month to month, being #1 not only was causing them to reach their budget quickly but the word wasn’t converting well. They decided to scale back and found terms that should have been #1 but weren’t. They saw that their budgets were not being stretched out as much and they were finding those other words convert better. In a 4 month exercise, they analyzed 2,000 and scaled back to the point that there was a positive ROI on words that were losing money month to month.
Michelle: In paid search, revenue is really key. Being #1 is not always where it’s at. Analyze your keywords and determine what value your keywords are based on ROI. That will allow you to afford the keywords that ought to be in position #1.
Jennifer: We have a very extensive keyword list and a dozen of those are the most efficient. We do rank on those keywords, but like cruises, hats is a keyword that can’t necessarily be #1. Look at the multi-keyword phrases and you can rank higher. Because they are specific, they convert at a higher rate. 70% of all clicks come from the first page, so concentrate on getting on the first page and then work your way up. Being #1 isn’t as profitable, so looking at where you’re ranking and your spend and if you’re meeting your ROI goals, maybe the lower positions are a better place.
Jen: You may want to optimize for a one-word phrase but it’s too competitive. Think about the top converting/clickthrough keywords instead.
Chris: How much of a challenge do you find addressing ego - "we have to be #1!"?
Jen: It’s about education, trying to share strategy and saying that it’s about integration with other channels and how they play against each other.
Jill: With PPC, you have to pay to play. Being in position #2 can save you a lot of money. As long as you can remain on page 1 or above the fold, that’s something you should also strive for.
Jennifer: Education is a primary element. Directors in our department will ask why we’re not #1, but we have to explain budgets and resources to them.
3. The long tail is your friend.
Michelle: Long tail keywords give you more qualified traffic. Also, there’s less competition and that increases chances of being visible on those terms. That feeds into the third benefit which is when there’s less competition, that equals less costs.
Jen: Mine through the data to see what people are searching for and bid on them.
Willie: We expanded our keyword base by about 10,000 keywords, if not more. We saw that people are searching for something but then they’ve decided what they want. For example, "christmas cruises from New York" or "carnival cruises from miami" has proven to be very successful.
Michelle: You need to start broad and develop more long tail terms over time based on clickthroughs.
Jill: The importance of analytics is critical before you start bidding on keywords.
Chris: So it seems that analytics and tools are really key.
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