Salesforce for Google AdWords Blog
Salesforce for Google AdWords Blog - November 2006
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Search Investments: SEM vs SEO
Nov 27, 2006Savvy internet marketers are always looking for proof in numbers, trying to measure the business impact of trackable online marketing programs. One hot topic at the forefront of internet search is the investment tradeoff between Search Engine Optimization (SEO = techniques used to improve organic search ranking) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM = paid search programs, such as Google AdWords).
To date, SEM and SEO have been separate disciplines. For example, an expert in SEO inherently understands how backlinks influence organic search ranking, while SEM gurus understand which factors control the mysterious Google AdWords Quality Score. While all of these little blue hyperlinks sit only inches apart from one another on the screen, generating results from SEM and SEO has often meant hiring or contracting a variety of folks.
If you subscribe to the wisdom of crowds, you're probably wondering how other companies are investing their search budget...what is the relative investment in SEO vs. SEM? At the end of last year, SEMPO reported that, of the $5.75 billion spent on internet search in North America, 83% was spent on SEM, and 11% of that spend was invested in SEO.
Only 11% on SEO, doesn't that seem low?
Mid-year 2006 studies have indicated that the relative investment in SEO has fallen even further, while the overall search industry continues to grow at a blistering pace,
Why are marketers spending less on SEO?
Here's a simple theory: For new and intermediate search marketers, the return on SEO investments seem elusive, while the return on SEM investments are more immediate and clear. If I dump $1000 into the Google AdWords machine, I can generate 700 clicks and 50 qualified leads within 30 days...and I can show my boss that we rank #1 for keywords in our primary category. It's hard to say that about SEO.Stay tuned, our next post will detail an integrated approach to SEM and SEO tracking with Salesforce for Google AdWords.
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Q3 Internet Ad Spend Over $4 Billion
Nov 15, 2006Yesterday the Internet Advertising Bureau released a report highlighting the upward trend of internet advertising revenues to a record $4.2 billion in the third quarter 2006. Quarterly advertising revenues are up 33% over the third quarter 2005.
We enjoyed reading and agree with the perspective/analysis of Jason Calacanis (of AOL and Weblogs Inc). Read his recent post The real story of Web 2.0: Advertising 2.0
The report does not break down exactly which product segments, advertising networks, or geographies comprise the $4.2 Billion, but it is safe to say that Google AdWords/AdSense is a good chunk of the results, with $2.7B alone in recent quarterly revenue. Google AdWords (and other search marketing platforms) allow marketing professionals to deliver targeted, relevant, and trackable ad programs...make no mistake, search marketing is at the heart of the internet advertising growth.
IAB notes that their numbers do include "data concerning online advertising revenues from Web sites, commercial online services, free e-mail providers, and all other companies selling online advertising."
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The Era of Trackable Media
Nov 14, 2006Imagine this scenario: Manufacturing wants to build a new facility that’s designed to increase capacity and decrease defects. In order to execute the project, they need $10M from management. Management (of course) asks manufacturing for an ROI model for the project.
Manufacturing’s response: We don’t have an ROI model, but we can promise you’ll like the way it’ll look.
Hard to believe? Well, it happens just about every day across corporate America, but not in manufacturing. It happens in marketing. Every day, marketers spend millions on advertising investments with uncertain (and worse, largely unmeasured) return.
They don’t do this by choice. They do it because advertising was forced by circumstance to develop the now time honored habit of investing serious dollars in untrackable media. Print ads with no response component. Big TV spend. David Ogilvy popularized John Wanamaker’s astute observation that “half of all advertising dollars are wasted. The trick is figuring out which half.”
Mr. Wanamaker, Mr. Ogilvy, meet Google AdWords and Salesforce. Now you can know. And not only can you know what worked, you can know which investments drove the highest response rates and which others drove the highest quality return. You can tune your advertising investments to your business needs.
Ad spend is shifting from Madison Avenue to Amphitheatre Parkway. Little lines of text might not be as funny as riding a chicken at a rodeo, but it works.
The era of trackable media is here...
Major ad budgets are shifting online, and Google's acquisition of YouTube starts to make sense. -
Touch Google, Touch the Market
Nov 13, 2006
It can be a challenge to understand the relationships between providers of organic search results, paid search results, and internet directory listings. Just when you've got the hang of things, you blink, and the world seems to change...new players, restructured deals (is yahoo really going to buy AOL?), and websites you've never even heard of before (dogpile, mamma, excite, and other meta-search engines).A marketing professional in 2006 could get confused by this madness. Those who are looking to use internet search for awareness or demand generation can remember one simple phrase when it comes to sponsored search: If you touch Google AdWords, you touch the market.
One sponsored advertisement placed with Google AdWords is displayed on google.com, and the sponsored results are syndicated to many other search engines, inclusing Ask, AOL, Netscape, Lycos, Hotbot, and a myriad of other meta-search engines. Compare this with Yahoo and MSN, whose sponsored links currently serve primarily only their own web properties.
Of course, this world is bound to change. As a good reference, we periodically check our sanity with Bruce Clay's Search Engine Relationship Chart.
TIP: To experiment with the Google syndicated sponsored search network, log into Google AdWords, navigate to a campaign, and select Edit Campaign Settings. Salesforce for Google AdWords customers who have a linked AdWords account can take advantage of ad tracking through the syndicated network.
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Link Salesforce to Your Existing AdWords Account
Nov 9, 2006The Existing Advertiser Tutorial is designed for experienced users of Google AdWords who would like to understand the nuances of linking Salesforce to their existing Google AdWords account. After viewing this webinar, you will understand:
- How to link Salesforce with your existing Google AdWords account
- Setup landing pages and web-to-lead forms for conversion tracking
- Use Reports and Dashboards to track AdWords effectiveness
- Measure AdWords impact on leads, pipeline, and revenue
- Optimize search marketing programs to increase lead quality
Complete Series:
a) Introduction to Search Marketing
b) Salesforce for Google AdWords - New Advertiser Tutorial
c) Salesforce for Google AdWords - Existing Advertiser Tutorial -
The New and Improved Snippet
Nov 6, 2006Over the weekend, we released a new and improved version of Salesforce for Google AdWords javascript snippet. The new snippet is designed to handle an even wider array of javascript-heavy websites and custom web-to-lead forms (forms that post to custom code, before insterting a lead into Salesforce).
Check it out >> Instructions for installing the new snippet
For those of you who installed the Salesforce for Google AdWords snippet prior to November 6, never fear, your system will continue to function normally. However, we do recommend that you migrate the snippet on your site to the latest version. As we continue to add tracking functionality to the salesforce snippet (organic search, site visitor tracking, etc), the new snippet will automatically provide these added features.
You can recognize the new snippet with its reference to "sfga.js"
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New Advertiser Tutorial
Nov 4, 2006The New Advertiser Tutorial is designed for Salesforce customers new to the world or online advertising and Salesforce for Google AdWords. After viewing this webinar, you will be able to:
- Activate your new Google AdWords account
- Place ads on Google by creating a new search campaign
- Build effective landing pages to convert website visitors
- Track search effectiveness with reports and dashboards
Complete Series:
a) Introduction to Search Marketing
b) Salesforce for Google AdWords - New Advertiser Tutorial
c) Salesforce for Google AdWords - Existing Advertiser Tutorial
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