Search Engine Results Page - Wealth of Information

Search engine marketplaces provide tremendous opportunities for marketers to learn and understand competitive activity, better plan and execute ad campaigns and constantly monitor their standing in the market. You can achieve these objectives by quickly examining the search engine results page (SERP) for your top keywords and following the tips below.

1. Ad Campaign Planning

Before you launch your ad campaigns, you should look at the SERP for the top keywords and try to answer these questions:

How relevant are your keywords to the product? One word can sometimes represent multiple products. For example the word "portfolio management" may refer to investment management, IT portfolio management or project management. Users searching for "portfolio management" could be looking for any of the above.

A quick review of the Yahoo! SERP for "portfolio management" clearly shows that investment portfolio management dominates the page.

The search engines' algorithms display results based on what most searchers are looking for when using that keyword. If your product doesn't belong to the dominant results for certain keywords, it's a good idea to keep a low profile on such keywords to avoid getting irrelevant clicks. Clearly stating the product offering in the ad copy would further help you avoid irrelevant clicks.

Are you competing with unrelated products for placement? Different products can afford different keyword CPCs, and if you are competing with a completely unrelated product for placement, you might end up paying a higher CPC. Inspection of the SERP for your top terms can help you identify and deal with such a situation.

For example, assuming that based on product price, marketing budget and other factors, an investment portfolio management vendor is able to pay a CPC of $5 for the keyword "portfolio management." An IT portfolio management vendor may only be able to afford a CPC of $2 to meet ROI targets. In order to compete with investment portfolio management, the IT portfolio management vendor will need to bid higher and pay a CPC that might not be within budget.

2. Ad Campaign Evaluation

Search engine marketing makes it easy for marketers to evaluate their competitive standing. You should exploit this opportunity to constantly ensure that your ad copies are unique and they differentiate your offering from those of sponsored and non-sponsored links.

Competitive offers vs your offer. Many advertisers are always on their toes writing the most effective ad copies which highlight their best offers. You can easily understand their messaging strategy and approach through the SERP.

Natural search results vs your offer. You are not just competing with other sponsored links but also the natural search results. Advanced SEO enables search marketers to highlight their special offers even in the natural search results. Furthermore, Yahoo! Search Marketing's paid inclusion product Search Submit lets advertisers control the messaging in the natural search results by allowing them to create titles and descriptions that are displayed as algorithmic search result listings. Thus, advertisers are able to highlight their offer even in the natural search results.

Conduct searches using your top terms and ensure that your ad copies and offers stand out from your competitors.

3. Ad Campaign Monitoring

SERPs can help you monitor ad campaigns by providing insights on the infringing actions of your competitors, affiliates and even other business units in your own organization.

Competitors using your trademark keywords. Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter do not allow this and have prevention measures in place but you should also consider it your responsibility to ensure that others are not using your trademark in their keywords and ad copies. Google's trademark policy is more lenient but if you find out that your trademark is being misused, you should file a complaint.

Affiliates bidding on your top keywords. Your own affiliates bidding on your brand and top keywords can cause unnecessary CPC inflation if you get into bidding wars with them.

Other business units bidding on your terms. A business unit belonging to a large enterprise sometimes can inadvertently bid on terms representing another business product. This can cause a bidding war within the same organization and unnecessarily increase keyword CPC. Collaborative bidding techniques, as used by some clients of Efficient Frontier, can help optimize spend in these situations.

Throughout the ad campaign life cycle, the SERP can provide valuable insights. By proactively understanding the marketplace and the competition you can avoid unexpected post-launch surprises. You should stay updated with your competitors' strategies and actions on an ongoing basis, and take measures if your trademark and brand are being misused.

Finally, if you are short on ideas, you can look at competitor ad copies and offers on the SERP and use the information to create your own campaigns. As they say, "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."