Hitwise UK Search Marketing Campaign Strategy

Search Marketing
Campaign StrategyThe art and science of search term selection using Hitwise Search IntelligenceT Advanced Tools
September 2007
Robin GoadLead Analyst: Heather Hopkins, Hitwise UK Director of Research, Hitwise UK
The power of competitive intelligenceContents
1 Executive Overview 1
2 The Search Marketing Cycle 2
3 Researching Search Marketing Campaigns 43.1 Step 1: Set Goals and Objectives 53.2 Step 2: Develop a Broad Search Term List 53.3 Step 3: Identify Search Term Opportunities 63.4 Step 4: Develop an Expanded Keyword List 103.5 Step 5: Assess Audience Behaviour 133.6 Step 6: Re? ne Into Search Term Clusters 15
4 Summary 16
5 Planning Search Marketing Campaigns Checklist 17
6 Glossary 18
7 About Hitwise 19
The power of competitive intelligence
©2007 Hitwise Pty. Ltd. All trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners. All rights reserved.1 Executive Overview 1
Search solves a basic marketing need - to connect buyers with sellers. As the appeal of search grows, so too have revenues and budgets. Global search revenues are expected to exceed $81.1 billion by 12011 , increasing the pressure on marketers as competition for top position grows along with keyword prices. Search Engines accounted for more than one third (35%) of upstream UK Internet visits to All Categories of websites in July 2007, underscoring the importance of search engines as a source of visits.
What does it take to develop a search marketing campaign that will deliver quali? ed leads from search engines to your website in a cost-effective manner? Many factors ? gure into a successful marketing campaign, but few will disagree that the foundation for search campaigns is built upon search term - or keyword - selection.
The search terms you choose determine when your ads appear to potential customers. Ensuring that you are considered when customers search for products you sell is critical to success.
This paper offers processes and strategies to design an effective paid search marketing campaign and to develop the art of search term selection. The paper details how Hitwise can provide you with a competitive edge by analysing search term success, running a comparative analysis with the search terms that drive traf? c to competitor websites and ? nding all of the various iterations of ways that consumers are searching for your products or services.
It also provides search marketers with a step-by-step guide for the planning stage of their search marketing campaigns. With a greater understanding of the strategy that lies behind effective search marketing campaigns, you will be able to maximise the quali? ed traf? c that reaches your website from search engines.
1 Global search revenue estimates, Piper Jaffray & Co. "The User Revolution report", February 2007.
The power of competitive intelligence
©2007 Hitwise Pty. Ltd. All trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners. All rights reserved.2 The Search Marketing Cycle 2
For this paper, we will de? ne search marketing as the process of purchasing advertisements in the form of text ads on search engines, with the goal of increasing exposure and attracting high quality visitors to a website.
Search marketing, as an online advertising platform, is entirely performance driven. Advertisers pay the search engines only when a user clicks through from the advertisement or search listing to their website. Being such an easily measurable, real-time response ad strategy, search marketing offers excellent possibilities for analysis and ? ne-tuning.
The search marketing industry has matured rapidly in the past few years and a three stage best practice has emerged for search marketing campaigns: Research & Strategy, Implementation and Reporting & Analysis.
Search engine optimisation is the practice of increasing referrals from organic or natural search engine results. Whilst search engine optimisation often works hand-in-hand with search marketing, its implementation follows an entirely different approach; one that is not covered in this white paper. Search engine optimisation tends to require a long-term strategy as opposed to the direct response nature of search marketing.
Research and Strategy
To de? ne the parameters of a campaign, search marketers need... [download for more]