Posts Tagged ‘PPC’

UK firms to increase spending on social media, SEO, and paid search

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010

The majority of businesses in the UK are set to up their digital marketing spend next year according to new research.

Data compiled by Econsultancy from a survey of 500 client-side digital marketers and agencies reveals 52 per cent of companies plan to increase their paid search (PPC) budgets next year, up from 45 per cent.

The proportion of companies looking to increase their search engine optimisation (SEO) budget over the same period has increased by 10 per cent, to hit a total of 60 per cent.

According to the report, almost half of all companies (49 per cent) are now spending at least £50,000 on PPC in a year – an increase from 39 per cent in 2008. In addition, the number of firms spending less than £5,000 has decreased significantly from 25 per cent last year to 14 per cent this year.

When it comes to SEO, the report said 22 per cent of firms are now investing at least £50,000 – up from 16 per cent in 2008.

Spending on social media ventures is still small in comparison, with 57 per cent of companies putting aside less than £5,000-a-year.

However, it seems the potential benefits of implementing a sound social media strategy are starting to become clear to business owners, with 65 per cent looking to increase spend during the next 12 months. Out of those companies, 15 per cent plan to double their budget.

In terms of potential stumbling blocks with regard to PPC spending, 41 per cent of companies cited a lack of internal resources while 30 per cent pointed to poorly converting websites. In terms of SEO, companies highlighted a lack of internal resources (49 per cent) followed by budget problems (26 per cent).

By Richard Morris

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BP uses Google to help limit Gulf oil spill damage

Monday, June 7th, 2010

Global energy firm BP is using Google AdWords in an effort to help stem the tide of bad publicity that has washed up on its shore following the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.

According to news agency AFP, the company has already spent $1.25bn on containing the spill, which occurred following an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform in April.

And as well as trying to minimise damage to the environment, the company is also attempting to minimise further damage to its reputation with a PPC campaign.

BP has bid on keywords including ‘BP oil spill’, ‘BP oil spill lawsuit’ and ‘BP suit’. All searches bring up a sponsored listing on Google which links through to the company’s page detailing its response to the disaster.

“Info about the Gulf of Mexico Leak. Learn more about how BP is helping,” say the adverts.

Speaking to ABC News, a BP spokesperson, said: “We have bought search terms on search engines like Google to make it easier for people to find out more about our efforts in the Gulf and make it easier for people to find key links to information on filing claims, reporting oil on the beach and signing up to volunteer.”

Commenting on the move, the chief executive of one US marketing firm, said: “…they’re getting so much bad press that directing traffic to their own site is a great PR strategy”.

By Richard Morris

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Google will enjoy PPC growth in China despite government row, claims research firm

Friday, May 28th, 2010

Google can expect to see a rise in paid search advertising revenues from China, despite its public falling out with the government, according to US research firm Covario.

The company said in spite of the fracas which has led to the search giant re-routing Google.cn searches through Hong Kong, the firm will see its PPC takings from high-tech and consumer electronics companies rise by 43 per cent from quarter one.

However, PPC spend with Baidu, Google’s rival in China, is expected to rise by 210 per cent during the second financial quarter of 2010, compared with Q1.

In a post, Covario said: “Overall strong growth aside, it appears that the prognostications of massive defections from Google are unfounded — the spending on the network in China remains robust.

“However, this strategy by Google clearly is a boon to Baidu — whose spend is up markedly.”

Worldwide, Covario estimates Q2 spending on paid search in the high-tech and consumer electronics sector will be up 24.9 per cent on Q1.

According to the firm, Google will lead the way, benefitting from a 24.9 per cent increase in spending while Yahoo will experience an 11.3 per cent boost. Covario believes Bing will lose out with spending down 13.3 per cent on Q1.

By Richard Morris

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Oakley basks in PPC success as Ad Sitelinks trial begins to shine

Thursday, May 20th, 2010

By Richard Morris

Sunglasses manufacturer Oakley has said it managed to increase website conversion rates by almost 9 per cent, a week after trialling Google’s new Ad Sitelink feature.

Ad Sitelink was launched last November, with the aim of helping increase click-through and conversion rates by offering up to four additional links on paid search adverts, rather than just one to a company’s homepage.

Google says by allowing potential customers access to content deeper within a site, companies are able to create more relevant adverts which improve the value of brand terms and targeted keywords.

Oakley joined a beta test programme for Ad Sitelink and claims within one week, conversions increased by 8.7 per cent, while click-through rates on branded search terms such as “Oakley sunglasses” increased by 14 per cent after two weeks.

According to research firm MarketingSherpa, out of the people who clicked on the PPC ads, 93.51 per cent opted to click on the main link, while 6.49 per cent clicked on one of the four additional links.

The company compared the findings with its second-largest campaign which did not use Ad Sitelinks and experienced a 4.1 per cent conversion rate increase during the same period.

Katie Monsellato, senior account manager at Lakestar Media, said: “Our experience has shown that Sitelinks can have a significant impact on click-through rates for clients. One saw an almost immediate difference, with CTR jumping up by 20 per cent on brand-related search terms and a healthy increase in overall conversion rate of 16 per cent.

“Google Ad Sitelinks help companies increase ownership of their brand space and have greater control of the messaging.  They can be used to complement organic listings and give advertisers the flexibility to include a variety of selling points alongside their core brand message, which is especially useful if there are several other advertisers bidding on your brand terms.”

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IEEE boosts membership with LinkedIn DirectAds

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

By Richard Morris

IEEE, the professional body aimed at advancing technological innovation has said it has managed to significantly boost membership through a LinkedIn PPC campaign.

Using paid adverts displayed on LinkedIn, the networking site for professionals, the organisation said it’s succeeded in increasing the number of quality leads coming through to its website.

Following a two month campaign the IEEE said the channel’s conversion rate was almost three times that of the overall site average. In addition, bounce rate for traffic via LinkedIn was 10 per cent lower than through other sources.

Angela Trilli director of marketing for IEEE, said: “Not only were our results a huge success but we were introduced to a media of marketing that we had never utilised before.”

According to a report by Reuters, professional social networks such as LinkedIn have continued to take off since late 2008.

Martin Olausson, director of digital media strategies unit at research firm Strategy Analytics, said: “The professional social networking industry is recovering very well.

“Because of the recession a lot of people have updated their resumes and increased their professional networking activities in the last year.”

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Yahoo to trial separate PPC ad page

Tuesday, April 27th, 2010

Yahoo has announced it is set to launch a pilot service involving a whole page of paid search advertisements.

The trial, called “More Sponsors” will let users click on a link at the bottom of search results pages, which will in turn take them to another page of results filled with PPC adverts related to their original query.

Speaking to MediaPost, David Pann, Yahoo’s vice president of search advertising, said the idea is to “improve search results that meet the needs of those who use its engine”.

The service will only be available on Yahoo! Search to begin with, although the company said it will look at ways of making it available across the network.

Pann said: “We’re looking at ways to test new formats and treatments of search ads to improve the consumer experience. Once we have the page that supports the More Sponsored ads, we can test different treatments of the ads on the page.”

Yahoo said the paid search adverts can be bought through the Yahoo! Search Marketing system and will cost the same as standard PPC ads.

The search firm will choose which ads appear on a More Sponsors page depending on the search terms. Adverts which rank highly in standard PPC results for certain terms are likely to appear on the More Sponsors page for the same query.

More information on the service is due to be released on Wednesday.

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Businesses may take time to embrace Twitter advertising plan, says survey

Friday, April 16th, 2010

TwitterCompanies could take some time to start embracing plans by micro-blogging site Twitter to introduce advertising.

Website design firm WebBizIdeas polled 850 companies in the US and according to the results, 31 per cent said they would not be prepared to pay for “business functionality”. An additional 43 per cent said they were unsure about the idea, while 26 per cent said they would pay.

Of the 26 per cent that said yes to paying for business functionality, the majority (38 per cent), would not be prepared to pay more than $20 a month.

68 per cent of the potential advertisers said a price per action/click/impression would be their favoured option.

Only 21 per cent would be prepared to shell out in order to gain more followers.

Twitter announced its plans to introduce advertising through a ‘promoted tweets’ model earlier this week.

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Covario report shows increase in European PPC spend

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

A new report from San Diego-based research firm Covario says spending on paid search in Europe the Middle East and Africa increased by 5 per cent between the final quarter of 2009 and the first three months of this year.

The company said paid search spending by its high-tech and consumer electronics customers also increased in the Asia Pacific region by 19.6 per cent, while spending in the Americas was down by 11.9 per cent.

Covario said despite the decline in paid search spending by US companies during the start of 2010, it expects growth of between 14 and 18 per cent by the end of the year.

This is in line with predictions by a number of other research firms which also believe the sector will continue to benefit from increased marketing budgets in 2010.

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Car buyers head online to find scrappage deals

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

The UK government's car scrappage scheme has had a positive effect on both new car sales and internet searches related to the scheme, according to Hitwise.

For the 12 weeks ending August 15 2009, it monitored nearly 12,000 distinct search terms containing the word, and the results show some interesting contrasts between surfers’ use of paid and organic search results.

Hitwise produced this chart which illustrates the volume of searches for three of the most popular generic search variations: ‘scrappage scheme’, ‘car scrappage scheme’ and ‘government scrappage scheme’.

“Searches peaked when scheme was launched back in the spring, then declined, but have maintained a pretty consistent level during the summer months,” said Hitwise UK analyst Robin Goad.

The biggest recipient of traffic from the term is UK Car Scrappage Scheme, an affiliate site that has clearly done a good SEO job, as the vast majority of its traffic comes via organic search.

Also featuring in the table is another affiliate site, as well as Directgov, the main UK government online portal, and other content driven sites such as Telegraph Motoring, Google News UK and BBC News.

In total, Automotive sites currently pick up over 70% of traffic from the search term ‘scrappage scheme’. However, this category also includes the likes of UK Car Scrappage Scheme, so a more accurate picture is provided by looking at the automotive sub-categories that are having success with the term.

For the 12 weeks ending August 15 2009, the Automotive Manufacturers category was the biggest recipient of traffic from the term, picking up 39.5 per cent of clicks. It was followed by Automotive Classifieds (1.9 per cent) and Automotive Dealerships (0.9 per cent). The Dealerships category is much smaller than the other two, but it has received the biggest boost in traffic as a result of the scheme. UK Internet visits to Automotive Dealerships websites increased by 3.8 per cent between July 2008 and July 2009, whereas traffic to Automotive Classifieds and Automotive Manufacturers declined by 7.4 per cent and 13.6 per cent respectively over the same period.

Some manufacturers have even managed to buck the catastrophic downward trend brought about by the recession, and have actually experienced an increase in UK traffic to their sites over the last 12 months, Hitwise also reports.

Looking at the top 10 Automotive Manufacturer websites, both Fiat and Toyota have experienced increases in traffic to their homepages over the period, while Volkswagen, Mercedes, BMW, Audi and Renault have all improved their market share within the category.

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Natural search takes over as PPC shows steady decline

Thursday, September 24th, 2009

And use of news searches surges ahead

Worldwide search statistics compiled by Google Analytics show that 2009 has been the year of natural search as, for the first time, it has generated consistently greater traffic than paid search.

But there is also a clear divide emerging from the Google Analytics figures.

They show that there remains a strong reliance on PPC search results in the territories of the Far East. This perhaps reflects a difference in cultures where a company’s trust among its customers is measured in terms of the amount of money it is prepared to invest in promoting its products and services on line.

SEO has also opened up a clear gap ahead of PPC searches when it comes to traffic volumes generated through news searches.

Indeed, while volumes of generic searches are staying relatively consistent, the big growth has been seen in searches of news reference sources, such as Google News or MSN News.

Over the five years to 2009, news site searches have grown exponentially, as consumers have come to trust them to be more independent than generic search. In this area, PPC and SEO searches stayed broadly level until the end of 2008, when SEO first took a clear lead, which it steadily stretched over the following year, and was continuing to do so at the time this was written.

PPC traditionally hits an annual high as Christmas approaches, with surfers looking for gifts, and presumably turning to the PPC results as they see familiar brands represented among them.

But for each of the last three years, that peak has been lower than in the preceding year, meaning that companies relying on PPC for their rankings at this time are almost certainly getting smaller returns on their outlay.

Google’s findings show clearly why so many companies are placing greater emphasis on securing listings in Google News, as these have come to be seen as more trusted and impartial than both organic and PPC results.

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