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tools to streamline
your PPC efforts




                      1
Table Of Contents
3   letter from the president
	   By Pat East, CEO of Hanapin Marketing

4   maximize your efficiency with
	   analytics e-commerce tracking
	   By Sam Owen

10 keyword research tools and analysis
	 By Eric Couch

14 an ode to pivot tables
	   By Sean Quadlin

18 ppc tools & your competition – which 	
	 tools keep you in the game?
	 By Kayla Kurtz




     ABOUT
     Hanapin Marketing is a paid search agency based in Bloomington, Indiana.
     Founded in 2004, the company manages and optimizes clients’ paid search
     programs. From ad copy composition to keyword research to landing page
     optimization, Hanapin’s core objective is to maximize our clients’ return on
     investment. Hanapin Marketing publishes the industry leading blog,
     PPC Hero.
Letter from
the president
By Pat East, President and CEO of Hanapin Marketing



The PPC game is ever changing, so it’s
                                                      About the President
incredibly important that you house a dynamic
                                                      Pat East is the President and
strategy to stay ahead. At Hanapin, we believe
                                                      CEO of Hanapin Marketing.
it’s important to have reliable tools that
provide value to our process and our clients.
As such, we are always on the lookout for new
PPC tools to enhance and refine our account
management process. Our team is constantly
                                                      “ We believe it’s
riding the cutting edge of PPC strategy and           important to have
we believe it’s our job to bring these tools to       reliable tools that
the forefront so we can all reap the benefits!
                                                      we know provide
                                                      value to our process
The articles in this Compass will uncover our
favorite tools, new and refined, to help you          and our clients.”
improve your process for PPC management.
There is something here for most situations
in PPC, so enjoy, and let us know if you have
any additional questions. The team at
Hanapin is always happy to help!



                                                                                      3
                                                                                          3
maximize your efficiency
with analytics e-commerce
tracking
By Sam Owen


In the world of ecommerce one idea is          Analytics tracking adds is a way to look
king: profit. As the old saying goes           more in depth at the data and typical
‘revenue is vanity, profit is sanity’ and it   customer behaviors associated with
is for this reason that properly optimized     making a sale. For example, you can see
PPC can help keep all e-commerce               exactly which SEO keywords, landing
website owners very sane and very              pages, referring websites, social media
happy. By setting up Google Analytics’         campaigns or searches on your website
e-commerce tracking to integrate with          are generating the most sales and
your PPC data you can track the exact          revenue. Information you can use to
amount of revenue made on your site and        inform where you spend your marketing
work down to the keyword level where           budget: If you find that social media is
that revenue was generated within your         generating a ton of clicks, but very little
Google AdWords account.                        revenue and that your PPC traffic is
                                               actually bringing in a lot of sales, you
Essentially, Google Analytics e-commerce       know to redirect some of that budget
tracking is a piece of JavaScript code you     invested in pushing your social media
place on your website which takes all the      campaigns back to PPC.
information from a particular transaction,
and passes it over to the Analytics            Even if you aren’t thinking of starting
servers. So what are you losing out on by      up any PPC campaigns until next year,
not implementing it? Well firstly, Analytics   we’d still thoroughly recommend getting
e-commerce tracking isn’t just useful for      your Analytics e-commerce tracking up
PPC. I’m sure most website owners out          and running now. You can gain valuable
there have some way of tracking the sales      insights about how to focus a new PPC
you are driving, most likely through your      account from old e-commerce data.
own back-end system or through your cart       Let’s say you sell software packages
program’s own analytics package, such          worldwide by implementing e-commerce
as through PayPal, WorldPay, etc. What         tracking early — by the time it comes to
maximize your efficiency with analytics
e-commerce tracking (Continued)

launching your PPC campaigns you can al-
ready have an estimated value per visitor for
a variety of potential segments. For example
you might be able to say a visitor from the US
generates on average $1 of revenue, whereas
a visitor from Europe generates $0.50. With
this data you would be able to know to set bids
twice as high for your US PPC campaigns as
for ones targeting European countries.

You will need to take care of a couple of things
if you want to use it to track PPC performance.
First, make sure that your AdWords and
Analytics accounts are linked. You can do this
by going into your ‘Tools and Analysis’ tab in
AdWords and selecting ‘link accounts’ under

the Admin->Data Sources tab. You will also want to make sure that Google Analytics Profile
is set to ‘Yes, an E-Commerce Site/App’.

For details on how to fully implement ecommerce tracking please see Google’s instructions –
it should be fairly straightforward for your developers to implement. These instructions tell
you how to set up your JavaScript to pass over information from each transaction such as
basket value, product SKUs, shipping costs and quantities.

Once it is all set up you can find your e-commerce information in Analytics under the
‘Conversions’ tab.

From here you can see a number of different reports:
 » Overview – top level stats of your revenue by category, source or product.
 » Product performance – how well individual products are selling.
 » Sales performance – how much revenue you generated per day over a certain
   period of time.
 » Transactions – the value of each individual transaction that took place on your site.
 » Time to purchase – find out how many days or visits it takes your average
   customer to complete a transaction.                                                          5
                                                                                                    5
maximize your efficiency with analytics
e-commerce tracking (Continued)


“As a word of caution,                       The easiest way to set up your Analytics
                                             e-commerce data in a way which will help
Analytics won’t be 100%
                                             you to make improvements to your PPC
accurate with your transaction               campaigns is with custom reporting. What
and revenue data!”                           we want to know is how much revenue
                                             each keyword in AdWords is generating
It won’t be able to figure out orders        compared with the amount spent on it –
cancelled at a later time, or orders where   any with a ROAS higher than our goal, we
the customer bailed from your site after     can increase bids on and be more
completing the transaction, but before the   aggressive, any with a low ROAS we
thank you page had time to load.             need to drop bids on as they are losing
                                             money.
Now that you have your Google Analytics
set up to handle your e-commerce             To create a custom report go into your
tracking, let’s look at the ways you can     ‘Custom Reporting’ tab in Analytics and
use all your new data to make tangible       select ‘+New Custom Report’. Now name
improvements to your AdWords account.        your report ‘Profit per PPC keyword’ or
We can start to be more advanced with        something similar. You’ll want to add
the way we think of conversions – no         ‘Revenue’ and ‘Cost’ to your Metric
longer should we judge our PPC               Groups and ‘Keyword’ to your Dimension
campaign success on a cost per               Drilldowns. To make sure you are seeing
acquisition (CPA), but rather on a return    PPC-only keywords, select ‘add filter’
on ad spend (ROAS). ROAS tells you how       and select Medium equals CPC. You can
much revenue you generate per dollar of      make a similar report for organic
advertising spend. If your average           keywords revenue by removing the Cost
profit margin on your products is 20%        metric and changing the medium to
you’ll need every dollar you spend to        ‘organic’.
make you at least $5 in revenue to be
profitable.



ROAS = ((Revenue – Advertising
Cost) / Advertising Cost)
maximize your efficiency with analytics
e-commerce tracking (Continued)

Setting up your custom report should look something like this:




Once you save this report you should be able to pull some valuable information from it straight
away – is your PPC profitable? Below is an example of a poorly optimized e-commerce ac-
count. As you can see, while revenues are higher than costs, it is only generating a 10.6%
ROAS, which would only be profitable if the products being sold had a 95% profit margin.




The point of the custom report we just created was to find individual keywords to optimize for
profit — on the next page, you can see how our new report lists this data.

                                                                                                  7
                                                                                                      7
maximize your efficiency with analytics
e-commerce tracking (Continued)




Exporting this data into Excel will enable us to work out our current ROAS by keyword and
also how much we need to adjust our current bid levels to hit our ROAS targets. Add columns
to your exported table for ‘ROAS’, ‘Desired Profit Margin’, ‘Desired Cost’ and ‘Change Bids’.


    » To calculate ROAS you will need to add a formula for revenue minus cost divided
      by cost.
    » Your desired profit margin is simply whatever margin you want to work to.
    » Cost to be profitable is your revenue divided by your profit margin.
    » Change bids is the amount you will need to change your current bids to hit your
     desired ROAS – it is calculated by dividing your cost to be profitable by your
     current cost.
maximize your efficiency with analytics
e-commerce tracking (Continued)




Thanks to e-commerce tracking in Analytics you now have an actionable list of keyword bid
changes that you can make to increase your PPC profitability. From the table above I know
that Anon KW 1 needs to be reduced by 82 percent, and that Anon KW 10 needs to be
increased 143 percent. As these numbers will fluctuate, by running this report and making
bid changes on a weekly basis you can work towards an optimal bid and ultimately, PPC
profitability.




                                                                                            9
                                                                                                9
keyword research tools and
analysis
By Eric Couch



Researching and implementing new keywords can be a time-consuming, mentally
draining process. It’s the cornerstone of account expansion, and an often
underappreciated aspect of account management. Luckily, we have a host of tools
at our disposal that can give us an edge in brainstorming new avenues of account
expansion.

The best place to start when tackling any account expansion is to take a holistic view
of the account from multiple angles. Think logically about the account and ask
yourself: “What’s missing?” In my experience, some of the best ideas for keyword
expansion can come from an unfamiliar eye – someone without experience in the
account that can take an objective, unbiased look at the existing keyword list and
pick up on any glaring omissions.

Once you’ve finished with the high level view, things start to get a bit more technical
as you look to fill in keyword gaps. Luckily, we have a host of tools at our disposal
that can give us an edge in brainstorming and generating new avenues of account
expansion.



The Basic Options:

1) Search Query Reports: Already an invaluable tool for their use in qualifying
traffic via negative keyword additions, oftentimes you can glean keyword insights
from the minds of your customers and search engine populace through a thorough
examination of their search queries. These can lead to avenues of expansion
through the use of synonyms and industry-specific jargon that you might not have
found in the initial account buildout.
keyword Research Tools and analysis (Continued)

2) Google Opportunities: A consolidated list of missed account opportunities
as discovered by the Google team, this tool can be of use in the same way Search
Query Reports are useful – finding those gaps in keyword coverage that can lead to
a full-fledged campaign/ad group buildout. It provides account structure and bid sug-
gestions as well, with the option of adding the keywords directly in to your
account. However, this rarely ends up working out in your favor. It’s primarily used
as a means of exploring potential keywords to build out later on our own.

3) Google Keyword Tool: The most basic of our keyword research options, this
tool allows us to enter in potential keywords and examine up to 800 closely related
terms. This tool also provides an estimate of the bidding competition for your
potential keywords, and a rough idea of the monthly searches you can expect by
adding them to your account – even allowing you to examine the effect of match
types on your potential levels of traffic. In addition, it provides the option of crawling
specific websites to automatically generate keywords with all of the above-listed
benefits still available.

4) Client Website: Perhaps the most obvious source of inspiration for any and all
keyword ideas, the client’s homepage is often the first stop any account manager
takes when considering new keywords. New products, product language and
qualities, industry terminology, and marketing materials are an invaluable resource in
building new campaigns – one that we try to take full advantage of whenever we can.

5) Client Internal Documentation: Similar to the website, it helps to be as
integrated as possible with the client’s internal marketing team. Aiming for
synchronization in keywords, ad copy, and the client’s internal marketing
documentation can help align and reinforce advertising efforts across every medium.

6) Competitor Websites: Even if you have no intent of bidding on
competitor-specific keywords, it can be helpful to examine what language and terms
your rivals use when describing their own competing product. Take advantage of
their marketing research and put those potential keywords to use!

7) Ecommerce/Product Sites: In the same vein, examining product sites like
Amazon.com (among many, many others) can provide you with more marketing
language and terms to build out potential keywords. In addition, researching the
                                                                                             11
                                                                                             11
keyword Research Tools and analysis(Continued)

customer reviews and comment forums often found on these sites can provide
insight in to the potential search queries used to find your product – directly from your
intended audience.

8) WordNet 2.0: Not as immediately useful as some of the other options
discussed, but it still has a place in keyword research. WordNet is a lexical
database of English hosted by Princeton University. For our needs, it functions in
similar fashion to a thesaurus – providing synonyms and definitions for your keyword
ideas that might lead to potential areas of keyword expansion in the future. It’s a bit
more intellectual than most keyword tools, but still worthy of consideration.

9) Google Analytics: Perhaps the end-all, be-all of all things statistically
significant for any website, Google Analytics can provide multiple avenues of
keyword expansion across different areas. Firstly, researching organic traffic and
top performing keywords from that avenue can help provide potential keywords for
your campaigns if they’re not in sync with one another. In a similar vein, examining
top-performing keywords and product categories from a revenue standpoint can
provide a strong incentive to expand on your strengths – building out campaigns and
ad groups on variants of highly profitable keywords can be a key strategy in growing
profits for our clients.

These are some of the most basic option available for any account manager to utilize
when performing keyword research. However, there are more advanced keyword
tools available as an option for those willing to pay.



The Advanced Options:

1) WordStream Keyword Niche Finder: One of the more powerful tools at our
disposal, the WordStream Keyword Niche Finder allows you to enter in keywords
and populate a list of terms based on your chosen keyword. The real strength in this
particular tool lies in the way it categorizes and structures the keywords into niches.
This allows for both a top-level, broad view of potential areas for keyword expansion
while also providing hundreds of long-tail keywords to input into your account. Even
if the keywords themselves aren’t useful, the niches alone make this paid tool worthy
of consideration.
keyword Research Tools and analysis(Continued)

2) Wordtracker: Already popular with the SEO crowd, Wordtracker still has some
use for the PPC account manager. It’s particularly capable at generating a large
amount of long-tail keywords quickly, while providing competitor keywords all in an
easy-to-use interface. The Keyword Effectiveness Index can also help you key in on
your site’s best keywords, leading to better relevance and higher quality scores for
your account.

3) SpyFu: Another popular paid option; SpyFu is a powerful PPC and SEO suite
that is primarily focused on competitive research. You can search rival domains
and examine their most profitable PPC keywords, weed out keywords based on
profitability, and even examine historic ad copy to find new and effective messaging
that you might not have considered otherwise. It can also provide specific keyword
statistics and account recommendations based on competitive insights.

These are only a few of the versatile tools available to account managers as they
work to expand your accounts. While each method has specific strengths and
weaknesses, they can all provide new and novel insights into areas of potential
keyword expansion. Used in concert (and under the proper guidance), they can help
grow your account by leaps and bounds - bringing you to new heights of
profitability!




                                                                                       13
                                                                                       13
An Ode to Pivot Tables
By Sean Quadlin


Streamlining PPC efforts is imperative.     that Morpheus offers to Neo in The
There is so much data, there are so         Matrix. Down the rabbit hole we go.
many users, there are so many things
to test, there are so many targets,         Once you have your data selected
there is so much EVERYTHING. It’s           and the pivot table option checked,
overwhelming if you don’t have the          you’ll be presented with four options
right tools in your belt to learn lasting   to view your data as you see fit.
lessons from everything that’s              There are column labels, which are
available.                                  just like columns in Excel. There are
                                            row labels, which are just like rows in
Luckily, whatever genius it was at          Excel. There are report filters, which
Microsoft that developed the pivot          let you choose just what data in your
table function within Excel has made        report you want to view at any given
analyzing your accounts quickly so          time. And finally there are values,
much more doable. If you teach              which are the things that you want to
yourself to be comfortable with pivot       see.
tables, you can take a lot of the grunt
work out of identifying what’s working
from what isn’t so that your return on
ad spend can grow and grow. I’m
willing to go so far as to say that PPC
is the Chia head and pivot tables are
the life-giving water. They’re that
important.

The glory of pivot tables is located
under the Data menu (Data > Pivot
Table…). Ellipses are generally one of
the most expressive of all punctuation
marks, but the ellipsis employed
following Pivot Tables contains so
much wonder that I find it difficult to
contain myself. They’re like the pills
An Ode to Pivot Tables (Continued)


The beauty of pivot tables is that you can change any of your options into any of the
columns to see your data exactly as you want it to be seen. While row and column
labels seem pretty basic, when you can switch columns and rows at will (and, dare
I even say it, put data as rows) it becomes quite a powerful tool. I don’t want to
focus too much on the basics, but take some time to familiarize yourself with all of
their glories.

Once you feel like you have steady footing with your pivot table basics, you can
start to analyze. And while it’s easy enough to say “let’s start analyzing,” the true
beauty in pivot tables comes when you’ve finished your analysis within minutes.

Here are some of the reports that I run most frequently:

Headline Performance                            that I wouldn’t be able to learn
If you repeat the same headline                 anything substantive. This step
across multiple ad groups and                   requires adding in a new row to my
campaigns, you can add headline as              data downloaded from the interface.
the row label and then look at all of           If you just pop in a “Headline Type”
the different metrics that your heart           column next to your headlines, all
could desire. I’ve used this technique          you’ll have to do is run through each
to find that putting a verb in my               active headline and code it. It can be
headline doubles my CTR (ex.                    as simple as “verb” or “no verb.” As
“Perform this action” instead of “Action        soon as you run your pivot you’ll have
Performances”). I can’t fit as many             the answer you’re looking for. (A
keywords into that headline as I’d like,        quick note, any time you update your
but by simply rearranging the same              data once the pivot table exists, make
words and putting one in verb form I            sure to refresh your data.)
see a world of difference.
                                                Landing Page Performance
I also use this function to learn               Since I’m obsessed with tracking
insights about headline trends. I’ll            leads all the way from first click to
subtly change headlines to ensure               completed sale, all of my destination
that they match the keywords in my ad           URLs are tagged with tracking
groups, so if I tried to run this report by     information. This means that the
all of the active headlines in the              dimensions tab just doesn’t give me
account I’d have so many headlines              the type of insight on my landing        15
                                                page performance that I really crave.
                                                                                         15
An Ode to Pivot Tables (Continued)


By downloading an ad report (or a           Pivot Table is there to help.
keyword report if you’re using              In your row column add in Average
keyword-level tracking), I can simply       position. Then you’ll add your most
use Text to Columns to remove the           important metrics to the values (cost,
trailing tracking information from my       conversions, revenue, etc).
destination URLs. Once that’s done,
I’m ready to pivot table away into the      Group your row column (which is
wee hours of the night.                     done by just right clicking in the
                                            column with average position and
If you’re really feeling dangerous, you     then selecting “Group”) and then
can download a landing page                 aggregate on however big an
performance report from analytics           increment you want to look at. I’ll
and merge it into your ad report            generally go by two tenths of a
spreadsheet. Using this report, you         position, but you’ll know what size of
can pull in bounce rate, pages/visit and    groups make sense when you see
even average time on page. It can all       your report.
be done from one pivot table if you add
the data to the same spreadsheet.           Once you see where your volume is
                                            acceptable and your return is optimal,
Optimal Average Position                    you can set a baseline for your
Performance can vary wildly from one        bidding strategy. This process helps
ad position to another in your account.     you to identify your account’s
You can probably spot this in the           Gerald B. Watson Memorial Sweet
interface on a campaign by campaign         Spot (a bit of a Hanapin inside joke,
basis, but if you import that data into a   so please forgive the refernce).
spreadsheet you can look at your best
average position across multiple            This tool is crazy adaptable and
campaigns or ad groups in one fell          I’m sure you can find uses for it that
swoop.                                      I haven’t mentioned here. Before I
                                            sign off, there’s one more thing
Here are the steps to follow:               that I want to pass along. All of your
Download a keyword report over the          analysis should use calculated fields.
most relevant time range, but               This function allows your pivot table
segment it by day. It’s going to bring      to update stats like CTR and cost/
back a lot of data. It may seem over-       conversion dynamically.
whelming, but don’t be alarmed. Uncle
An Ode to Pivot Tables (Continued)


Without performing this important step, your metrics will look out of whack and
would paint the incorrect picture.

The calculated fields that I use most often are:

» CTR
» Cost/Conversion
» Conversion Rate
» Bounce Rate
» Pages/Visit
» Avg. Time on Page

There’s a wonderful world of pivot tables out there, and it’s just waiting to
make your life easier. If you take the time to familiarize yourself with this tool,




                                                                                      17
                                                                                      17
PPC Tools & Your
Competition – Which Tools
Keep You In The Game?
By Kayla Kurtz



All paid search managers know they         when beginning a new PPC account
have to be mindful of what the             or opening up to a new segment
competition is up to, but do they know     within PPC. I would struggle to
how to go about gathering that             believe that any account is started
competitive information? Further, do       without some version of competitive
they know how to gather that               analysis taking place, however it’s
information quickly and efficiently so     very easy to get bogged down in
they can keep their predominant focus      optimizing to your own data once
on optimizing their accounts?              things are going and forget to revisit
                                           this area.
The good news is there is a plethora
of tools out there for PPC managers to     I’ll say right now that my purpose
utilize in order to gather and compare     with competitive analysis is never to
competitive research to stay on top of     run directly after the strategy my
things. The bad news is that they          competition is using and throw mine
aren’t always completely accurate,         out the window. However, checking in
or free if you want all the bells and      to your competition’s messaging and
whistles. We’re going to provide           possible targets can increase
information about why it’s important       creativity when you least expect it.
to stay hip to your competition’s          Is my competition offering a benefit
strategy, outline some of the tools that   we do better? Are they bidding on
are available and finally how to use the   a group of keywords I’ve missed?
information you’ve found to make your      Again, maybe the best idea isn’t to
brand as competitive as possible!          copy what the competition is up to,
                                           but at the very least explore what
Why is competitive analysis                they’re up to and see if it’s applicable
so important? Generally speaking,          to you and your accounts in some
competitive analysis is top of mind        way.
PPC Tools & Your Competition – Which Tools Keep
You In The Game? (continued)

This competitive analysis can also help drive conversations with clients if their
competition is gobbling up a large amount of market share. If you’re hitting KPI and/
or ROI goals, why not invest a bit more budget and tackle as much of that market
share as possible?

What tools are available?

1. Analyze Competition via Google AdWords’ Opportunities tab




The information provided by this AdWords tool can help you distinguish how various
metrics are stacking up against your competition by industry. The information you
see via this tool aggregates your performance data by determined industry over the
previous two weeks and compares it to advertisers in the same industry. You can
view comparisons of clicks, impressions, CTR or average position. Further, you can
filter your competition by country to determine differences by geographic area.

While the information you gather from this tool is rather vague and doesn’t give you
exact access to competitor strategy, it will give you an idea of focus areas that you
can focus on to improve compared to the competition. For example, in the following
screenshot, you can see that in the Earth Movers & Construction Tractors category,
based on clicks, I’m staying incredible competitive and pull down almost twice as
many clicks as competitors in that industry.                                            19
                                                                                        19
PPC Tools & Your Competition – Which Tools Keep
You In The Game? (continued)
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that in the Earth Movers &
Construction Tractors category, based on clicks, I’m staying incredibly competitive
and pull down almost twice as many clicks as competitors in that industry.




2. Spyfu
My good friend Eric Couch mentioned this tool previously. This site is one we all
use regularly, but I use it with definite caution as I’ve seen it report some inaccurate
traffic and budget numbers in the past. However, it provides rather specific
information regarding keywords your competition is bidding on and seeing the
greatest success with. Further, you can view actual ad copies they may have been
running as recently as the month previous. And that’s just in the free version!
Simply type in the web address for one of your competitors and you’ll see estimated
budget, ad position, clicks per day, keywords and ad texts.




		
The paid version of the Spyfu interface also gives you access to about 90% more
data, including keyword overlap, CPC estimates and other advanced keyword
statistics, and the ability to track your own performance.

3. SEMRush
The SEMRush site is rather similar to Spyfu, providing you with top information
about competitors to your brand. Within the free version, you can type in your
competitors website and view their biggest competitors (are you on the list?), ad
PPC Tools & Your Competition – Which Tools Keep
You In The Game? (continued)

texts, average position for the top keywords and the percentage of their total
budget and traffic that is allocated those keywords. Of course with the paid version,
all these results and statistics are increased so you can see more data. SEMRush
will also allow you to track information for your competitors Facebook and Bing
accounts.




4. iSpionage
Again, iSpionage is a site that offers quite a bit of information for free, with even
more becoming available with the paid version. In addition to showing keywords
your competitors are bidding on and ads they are running with accompanying
ranking information, if you do upgrade you gain the ability to build new campaigns
with the information you find.

Essentially within the iSpionage interface, you complete the keyword research
phase based on what you discover from competitors, audit that keyword research,
group the terms together and then build out the actual campaigns for upload to
Google or Bing.




                                                                                        21
                                                                                        21
PPC Tools & Your Competition – Which Tools Keep
You In The Game? (continued)

How do you process & utilize               has ever been managed by someone
all this research?                         else) in the event that what the
The most important key here is             competition is trying, you’ve already
not to fully trust all the research you    attempted with less than acceptable
just did. This sounds counter intuitive,   results.
I’m sure, but the fact of the matter is
that none of these tools have direct       Overall, make sure you look at
access to your competition’s accounts.     competitor research with an
They are simply compiling information      investigative eye and don’t lose
from the search engines and                sight of your overall account goals
making that information available to       and progress. Competitive research
you. Of course, using the free versions    is only as useful if you use it as a part
of those tools may not allow you to get    of your PPC strategy, not the lead
a full view of what’s going on.            driver in how you determine the best
I encourage you to average out your        ways to move forward
findings after completing competitor
research through a few of these
tools, that way you’re not relying
completely on one source, but you’re
making some effort to analyze that
competitive data and make changes as
needed.

The next tip is something I mentioned
earlier, which is not to necessarily
throw out your entire strategy book
based on the competition. You can’t
see their exact ROI and maybe what
they’re doing isn’t working. PPC is all
about testing, so if you find a good
nugget of information through this
research, test it before going all in.
Also, make sure you take some time
to thoroughly revisit your previous
strategies (especially if the account
Hanapin Marketing:
“Hanapin” means search in Filipino and Hanapin Marketing’s forte is search engine
marketing, specializing in premier pay-per-click management. Hanapin Marketing brings
clients tremendous paid search results combined with white glove customer service and a
customizable experience. Compass, a quarterly journal discussing the hottest PPC topics,
is produced by the Hanapin Marketing team. Hanapin Marketing also hosts Hero Conf, the
popular new conference that focuses solely on paid search.

Visit www.hanapinmarketing.com to learn more about Hanapin Marketing.




PPC Hero: Our PPC Blog
			                Produced by Hanapin Marketing, the PPC Hero blog shares helpful
			                strategies, landing page reviews, PPC case studies and related news
			                updates with the PPC industry at large. With over 10,000 subscribers,
			                PPC Hero has become one of the most widely read blogs in the paid
			                search industry. Read PPC Hero at www.ppchero.com.		



Hero Conf: Our conference
			                Hero Conf is Hanapin Marketing and PPC Hero’s premier, all PPC
			                conference. We are going on our second year in 2013. Our conference 	
			                covers only PPC and allows industry leaders and PPC professionals a 	
			                chance to meet and learn more about the ever-changing pay-per-click 	
			                realm. For more information visit www.heroconf.com.




			
			 For more information about Hanapin Marketing,
			 contact Tom Hootman, Director of Sales.
			 Phone: 812.330.3134 x 120
			Email: tom.hootman@hanapinmarketing.com
                                                                                           23
                                                                                           23

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Q4 compass

  • 1. tools to streamline your PPC efforts 1
  • 2. Table Of Contents 3 letter from the president By Pat East, CEO of Hanapin Marketing 4 maximize your efficiency with analytics e-commerce tracking By Sam Owen 10 keyword research tools and analysis By Eric Couch 14 an ode to pivot tables By Sean Quadlin 18 ppc tools & your competition – which tools keep you in the game? By Kayla Kurtz ABOUT Hanapin Marketing is a paid search agency based in Bloomington, Indiana. Founded in 2004, the company manages and optimizes clients’ paid search programs. From ad copy composition to keyword research to landing page optimization, Hanapin’s core objective is to maximize our clients’ return on investment. Hanapin Marketing publishes the industry leading blog, PPC Hero.
  • 3. Letter from the president By Pat East, President and CEO of Hanapin Marketing The PPC game is ever changing, so it’s About the President incredibly important that you house a dynamic Pat East is the President and strategy to stay ahead. At Hanapin, we believe CEO of Hanapin Marketing. it’s important to have reliable tools that provide value to our process and our clients. As such, we are always on the lookout for new PPC tools to enhance and refine our account management process. Our team is constantly “ We believe it’s riding the cutting edge of PPC strategy and important to have we believe it’s our job to bring these tools to reliable tools that the forefront so we can all reap the benefits! we know provide value to our process The articles in this Compass will uncover our favorite tools, new and refined, to help you and our clients.” improve your process for PPC management. There is something here for most situations in PPC, so enjoy, and let us know if you have any additional questions. The team at Hanapin is always happy to help! 3 3
  • 4. maximize your efficiency with analytics e-commerce tracking By Sam Owen In the world of ecommerce one idea is Analytics tracking adds is a way to look king: profit. As the old saying goes more in depth at the data and typical ‘revenue is vanity, profit is sanity’ and it customer behaviors associated with is for this reason that properly optimized making a sale. For example, you can see PPC can help keep all e-commerce exactly which SEO keywords, landing website owners very sane and very pages, referring websites, social media happy. By setting up Google Analytics’ campaigns or searches on your website e-commerce tracking to integrate with are generating the most sales and your PPC data you can track the exact revenue. Information you can use to amount of revenue made on your site and inform where you spend your marketing work down to the keyword level where budget: If you find that social media is that revenue was generated within your generating a ton of clicks, but very little Google AdWords account. revenue and that your PPC traffic is actually bringing in a lot of sales, you Essentially, Google Analytics e-commerce know to redirect some of that budget tracking is a piece of JavaScript code you invested in pushing your social media place on your website which takes all the campaigns back to PPC. information from a particular transaction, and passes it over to the Analytics Even if you aren’t thinking of starting servers. So what are you losing out on by up any PPC campaigns until next year, not implementing it? Well firstly, Analytics we’d still thoroughly recommend getting e-commerce tracking isn’t just useful for your Analytics e-commerce tracking up PPC. I’m sure most website owners out and running now. You can gain valuable there have some way of tracking the sales insights about how to focus a new PPC you are driving, most likely through your account from old e-commerce data. own back-end system or through your cart Let’s say you sell software packages program’s own analytics package, such worldwide by implementing e-commerce as through PayPal, WorldPay, etc. What tracking early — by the time it comes to
  • 5. maximize your efficiency with analytics e-commerce tracking (Continued) launching your PPC campaigns you can al- ready have an estimated value per visitor for a variety of potential segments. For example you might be able to say a visitor from the US generates on average $1 of revenue, whereas a visitor from Europe generates $0.50. With this data you would be able to know to set bids twice as high for your US PPC campaigns as for ones targeting European countries. You will need to take care of a couple of things if you want to use it to track PPC performance. First, make sure that your AdWords and Analytics accounts are linked. You can do this by going into your ‘Tools and Analysis’ tab in AdWords and selecting ‘link accounts’ under the Admin->Data Sources tab. You will also want to make sure that Google Analytics Profile is set to ‘Yes, an E-Commerce Site/App’. For details on how to fully implement ecommerce tracking please see Google’s instructions – it should be fairly straightforward for your developers to implement. These instructions tell you how to set up your JavaScript to pass over information from each transaction such as basket value, product SKUs, shipping costs and quantities. Once it is all set up you can find your e-commerce information in Analytics under the ‘Conversions’ tab. From here you can see a number of different reports: » Overview – top level stats of your revenue by category, source or product. » Product performance – how well individual products are selling. » Sales performance – how much revenue you generated per day over a certain period of time. » Transactions – the value of each individual transaction that took place on your site. » Time to purchase – find out how many days or visits it takes your average customer to complete a transaction. 5 5
  • 6. maximize your efficiency with analytics e-commerce tracking (Continued) “As a word of caution, The easiest way to set up your Analytics e-commerce data in a way which will help Analytics won’t be 100% you to make improvements to your PPC accurate with your transaction campaigns is with custom reporting. What and revenue data!” we want to know is how much revenue each keyword in AdWords is generating It won’t be able to figure out orders compared with the amount spent on it – cancelled at a later time, or orders where any with a ROAS higher than our goal, we the customer bailed from your site after can increase bids on and be more completing the transaction, but before the aggressive, any with a low ROAS we thank you page had time to load. need to drop bids on as they are losing money. Now that you have your Google Analytics set up to handle your e-commerce To create a custom report go into your tracking, let’s look at the ways you can ‘Custom Reporting’ tab in Analytics and use all your new data to make tangible select ‘+New Custom Report’. Now name improvements to your AdWords account. your report ‘Profit per PPC keyword’ or We can start to be more advanced with something similar. You’ll want to add the way we think of conversions – no ‘Revenue’ and ‘Cost’ to your Metric longer should we judge our PPC Groups and ‘Keyword’ to your Dimension campaign success on a cost per Drilldowns. To make sure you are seeing acquisition (CPA), but rather on a return PPC-only keywords, select ‘add filter’ on ad spend (ROAS). ROAS tells you how and select Medium equals CPC. You can much revenue you generate per dollar of make a similar report for organic advertising spend. If your average keywords revenue by removing the Cost profit margin on your products is 20% metric and changing the medium to you’ll need every dollar you spend to ‘organic’. make you at least $5 in revenue to be profitable. ROAS = ((Revenue – Advertising Cost) / Advertising Cost)
  • 7. maximize your efficiency with analytics e-commerce tracking (Continued) Setting up your custom report should look something like this: Once you save this report you should be able to pull some valuable information from it straight away – is your PPC profitable? Below is an example of a poorly optimized e-commerce ac- count. As you can see, while revenues are higher than costs, it is only generating a 10.6% ROAS, which would only be profitable if the products being sold had a 95% profit margin. The point of the custom report we just created was to find individual keywords to optimize for profit — on the next page, you can see how our new report lists this data. 7 7
  • 8. maximize your efficiency with analytics e-commerce tracking (Continued) Exporting this data into Excel will enable us to work out our current ROAS by keyword and also how much we need to adjust our current bid levels to hit our ROAS targets. Add columns to your exported table for ‘ROAS’, ‘Desired Profit Margin’, ‘Desired Cost’ and ‘Change Bids’. » To calculate ROAS you will need to add a formula for revenue minus cost divided by cost. » Your desired profit margin is simply whatever margin you want to work to. » Cost to be profitable is your revenue divided by your profit margin. » Change bids is the amount you will need to change your current bids to hit your desired ROAS – it is calculated by dividing your cost to be profitable by your current cost.
  • 9. maximize your efficiency with analytics e-commerce tracking (Continued) Thanks to e-commerce tracking in Analytics you now have an actionable list of keyword bid changes that you can make to increase your PPC profitability. From the table above I know that Anon KW 1 needs to be reduced by 82 percent, and that Anon KW 10 needs to be increased 143 percent. As these numbers will fluctuate, by running this report and making bid changes on a weekly basis you can work towards an optimal bid and ultimately, PPC profitability. 9 9
  • 10. keyword research tools and analysis By Eric Couch Researching and implementing new keywords can be a time-consuming, mentally draining process. It’s the cornerstone of account expansion, and an often underappreciated aspect of account management. Luckily, we have a host of tools at our disposal that can give us an edge in brainstorming new avenues of account expansion. The best place to start when tackling any account expansion is to take a holistic view of the account from multiple angles. Think logically about the account and ask yourself: “What’s missing?” In my experience, some of the best ideas for keyword expansion can come from an unfamiliar eye – someone without experience in the account that can take an objective, unbiased look at the existing keyword list and pick up on any glaring omissions. Once you’ve finished with the high level view, things start to get a bit more technical as you look to fill in keyword gaps. Luckily, we have a host of tools at our disposal that can give us an edge in brainstorming and generating new avenues of account expansion. The Basic Options: 1) Search Query Reports: Already an invaluable tool for their use in qualifying traffic via negative keyword additions, oftentimes you can glean keyword insights from the minds of your customers and search engine populace through a thorough examination of their search queries. These can lead to avenues of expansion through the use of synonyms and industry-specific jargon that you might not have found in the initial account buildout.
  • 11. keyword Research Tools and analysis (Continued) 2) Google Opportunities: A consolidated list of missed account opportunities as discovered by the Google team, this tool can be of use in the same way Search Query Reports are useful – finding those gaps in keyword coverage that can lead to a full-fledged campaign/ad group buildout. It provides account structure and bid sug- gestions as well, with the option of adding the keywords directly in to your account. However, this rarely ends up working out in your favor. It’s primarily used as a means of exploring potential keywords to build out later on our own. 3) Google Keyword Tool: The most basic of our keyword research options, this tool allows us to enter in potential keywords and examine up to 800 closely related terms. This tool also provides an estimate of the bidding competition for your potential keywords, and a rough idea of the monthly searches you can expect by adding them to your account – even allowing you to examine the effect of match types on your potential levels of traffic. In addition, it provides the option of crawling specific websites to automatically generate keywords with all of the above-listed benefits still available. 4) Client Website: Perhaps the most obvious source of inspiration for any and all keyword ideas, the client’s homepage is often the first stop any account manager takes when considering new keywords. New products, product language and qualities, industry terminology, and marketing materials are an invaluable resource in building new campaigns – one that we try to take full advantage of whenever we can. 5) Client Internal Documentation: Similar to the website, it helps to be as integrated as possible with the client’s internal marketing team. Aiming for synchronization in keywords, ad copy, and the client’s internal marketing documentation can help align and reinforce advertising efforts across every medium. 6) Competitor Websites: Even if you have no intent of bidding on competitor-specific keywords, it can be helpful to examine what language and terms your rivals use when describing their own competing product. Take advantage of their marketing research and put those potential keywords to use! 7) Ecommerce/Product Sites: In the same vein, examining product sites like Amazon.com (among many, many others) can provide you with more marketing language and terms to build out potential keywords. In addition, researching the 11 11
  • 12. keyword Research Tools and analysis(Continued) customer reviews and comment forums often found on these sites can provide insight in to the potential search queries used to find your product – directly from your intended audience. 8) WordNet 2.0: Not as immediately useful as some of the other options discussed, but it still has a place in keyword research. WordNet is a lexical database of English hosted by Princeton University. For our needs, it functions in similar fashion to a thesaurus – providing synonyms and definitions for your keyword ideas that might lead to potential areas of keyword expansion in the future. It’s a bit more intellectual than most keyword tools, but still worthy of consideration. 9) Google Analytics: Perhaps the end-all, be-all of all things statistically significant for any website, Google Analytics can provide multiple avenues of keyword expansion across different areas. Firstly, researching organic traffic and top performing keywords from that avenue can help provide potential keywords for your campaigns if they’re not in sync with one another. In a similar vein, examining top-performing keywords and product categories from a revenue standpoint can provide a strong incentive to expand on your strengths – building out campaigns and ad groups on variants of highly profitable keywords can be a key strategy in growing profits for our clients. These are some of the most basic option available for any account manager to utilize when performing keyword research. However, there are more advanced keyword tools available as an option for those willing to pay. The Advanced Options: 1) WordStream Keyword Niche Finder: One of the more powerful tools at our disposal, the WordStream Keyword Niche Finder allows you to enter in keywords and populate a list of terms based on your chosen keyword. The real strength in this particular tool lies in the way it categorizes and structures the keywords into niches. This allows for both a top-level, broad view of potential areas for keyword expansion while also providing hundreds of long-tail keywords to input into your account. Even if the keywords themselves aren’t useful, the niches alone make this paid tool worthy of consideration.
  • 13. keyword Research Tools and analysis(Continued) 2) Wordtracker: Already popular with the SEO crowd, Wordtracker still has some use for the PPC account manager. It’s particularly capable at generating a large amount of long-tail keywords quickly, while providing competitor keywords all in an easy-to-use interface. The Keyword Effectiveness Index can also help you key in on your site’s best keywords, leading to better relevance and higher quality scores for your account. 3) SpyFu: Another popular paid option; SpyFu is a powerful PPC and SEO suite that is primarily focused on competitive research. You can search rival domains and examine their most profitable PPC keywords, weed out keywords based on profitability, and even examine historic ad copy to find new and effective messaging that you might not have considered otherwise. It can also provide specific keyword statistics and account recommendations based on competitive insights. These are only a few of the versatile tools available to account managers as they work to expand your accounts. While each method has specific strengths and weaknesses, they can all provide new and novel insights into areas of potential keyword expansion. Used in concert (and under the proper guidance), they can help grow your account by leaps and bounds - bringing you to new heights of profitability! 13 13
  • 14. An Ode to Pivot Tables By Sean Quadlin Streamlining PPC efforts is imperative. that Morpheus offers to Neo in The There is so much data, there are so Matrix. Down the rabbit hole we go. many users, there are so many things to test, there are so many targets, Once you have your data selected there is so much EVERYTHING. It’s and the pivot table option checked, overwhelming if you don’t have the you’ll be presented with four options right tools in your belt to learn lasting to view your data as you see fit. lessons from everything that’s There are column labels, which are available. just like columns in Excel. There are row labels, which are just like rows in Luckily, whatever genius it was at Excel. There are report filters, which Microsoft that developed the pivot let you choose just what data in your table function within Excel has made report you want to view at any given analyzing your accounts quickly so time. And finally there are values, much more doable. If you teach which are the things that you want to yourself to be comfortable with pivot see. tables, you can take a lot of the grunt work out of identifying what’s working from what isn’t so that your return on ad spend can grow and grow. I’m willing to go so far as to say that PPC is the Chia head and pivot tables are the life-giving water. They’re that important. The glory of pivot tables is located under the Data menu (Data > Pivot Table…). Ellipses are generally one of the most expressive of all punctuation marks, but the ellipsis employed following Pivot Tables contains so much wonder that I find it difficult to contain myself. They’re like the pills
  • 15. An Ode to Pivot Tables (Continued) The beauty of pivot tables is that you can change any of your options into any of the columns to see your data exactly as you want it to be seen. While row and column labels seem pretty basic, when you can switch columns and rows at will (and, dare I even say it, put data as rows) it becomes quite a powerful tool. I don’t want to focus too much on the basics, but take some time to familiarize yourself with all of their glories. Once you feel like you have steady footing with your pivot table basics, you can start to analyze. And while it’s easy enough to say “let’s start analyzing,” the true beauty in pivot tables comes when you’ve finished your analysis within minutes. Here are some of the reports that I run most frequently: Headline Performance that I wouldn’t be able to learn If you repeat the same headline anything substantive. This step across multiple ad groups and requires adding in a new row to my campaigns, you can add headline as data downloaded from the interface. the row label and then look at all of If you just pop in a “Headline Type” the different metrics that your heart column next to your headlines, all could desire. I’ve used this technique you’ll have to do is run through each to find that putting a verb in my active headline and code it. It can be headline doubles my CTR (ex. as simple as “verb” or “no verb.” As “Perform this action” instead of “Action soon as you run your pivot you’ll have Performances”). I can’t fit as many the answer you’re looking for. (A keywords into that headline as I’d like, quick note, any time you update your but by simply rearranging the same data once the pivot table exists, make words and putting one in verb form I sure to refresh your data.) see a world of difference. Landing Page Performance I also use this function to learn Since I’m obsessed with tracking insights about headline trends. I’ll leads all the way from first click to subtly change headlines to ensure completed sale, all of my destination that they match the keywords in my ad URLs are tagged with tracking groups, so if I tried to run this report by information. This means that the all of the active headlines in the dimensions tab just doesn’t give me account I’d have so many headlines the type of insight on my landing 15 page performance that I really crave. 15
  • 16. An Ode to Pivot Tables (Continued) By downloading an ad report (or a Pivot Table is there to help. keyword report if you’re using In your row column add in Average keyword-level tracking), I can simply position. Then you’ll add your most use Text to Columns to remove the important metrics to the values (cost, trailing tracking information from my conversions, revenue, etc). destination URLs. Once that’s done, I’m ready to pivot table away into the Group your row column (which is wee hours of the night. done by just right clicking in the column with average position and If you’re really feeling dangerous, you then selecting “Group”) and then can download a landing page aggregate on however big an performance report from analytics increment you want to look at. I’ll and merge it into your ad report generally go by two tenths of a spreadsheet. Using this report, you position, but you’ll know what size of can pull in bounce rate, pages/visit and groups make sense when you see even average time on page. It can all your report. be done from one pivot table if you add the data to the same spreadsheet. Once you see where your volume is acceptable and your return is optimal, Optimal Average Position you can set a baseline for your Performance can vary wildly from one bidding strategy. This process helps ad position to another in your account. you to identify your account’s You can probably spot this in the Gerald B. Watson Memorial Sweet interface on a campaign by campaign Spot (a bit of a Hanapin inside joke, basis, but if you import that data into a so please forgive the refernce). spreadsheet you can look at your best average position across multiple This tool is crazy adaptable and campaigns or ad groups in one fell I’m sure you can find uses for it that swoop. I haven’t mentioned here. Before I sign off, there’s one more thing Here are the steps to follow: that I want to pass along. All of your Download a keyword report over the analysis should use calculated fields. most relevant time range, but This function allows your pivot table segment it by day. It’s going to bring to update stats like CTR and cost/ back a lot of data. It may seem over- conversion dynamically. whelming, but don’t be alarmed. Uncle
  • 17. An Ode to Pivot Tables (Continued) Without performing this important step, your metrics will look out of whack and would paint the incorrect picture. The calculated fields that I use most often are: » CTR » Cost/Conversion » Conversion Rate » Bounce Rate » Pages/Visit » Avg. Time on Page There’s a wonderful world of pivot tables out there, and it’s just waiting to make your life easier. If you take the time to familiarize yourself with this tool, 17 17
  • 18. PPC Tools & Your Competition – Which Tools Keep You In The Game? By Kayla Kurtz All paid search managers know they when beginning a new PPC account have to be mindful of what the or opening up to a new segment competition is up to, but do they know within PPC. I would struggle to how to go about gathering that believe that any account is started competitive information? Further, do without some version of competitive they know how to gather that analysis taking place, however it’s information quickly and efficiently so very easy to get bogged down in they can keep their predominant focus optimizing to your own data once on optimizing their accounts? things are going and forget to revisit this area. The good news is there is a plethora of tools out there for PPC managers to I’ll say right now that my purpose utilize in order to gather and compare with competitive analysis is never to competitive research to stay on top of run directly after the strategy my things. The bad news is that they competition is using and throw mine aren’t always completely accurate, out the window. However, checking in or free if you want all the bells and to your competition’s messaging and whistles. We’re going to provide possible targets can increase information about why it’s important creativity when you least expect it. to stay hip to your competition’s Is my competition offering a benefit strategy, outline some of the tools that we do better? Are they bidding on are available and finally how to use the a group of keywords I’ve missed? information you’ve found to make your Again, maybe the best idea isn’t to brand as competitive as possible! copy what the competition is up to, but at the very least explore what Why is competitive analysis they’re up to and see if it’s applicable so important? Generally speaking, to you and your accounts in some competitive analysis is top of mind way.
  • 19. PPC Tools & Your Competition – Which Tools Keep You In The Game? (continued) This competitive analysis can also help drive conversations with clients if their competition is gobbling up a large amount of market share. If you’re hitting KPI and/ or ROI goals, why not invest a bit more budget and tackle as much of that market share as possible? What tools are available? 1. Analyze Competition via Google AdWords’ Opportunities tab The information provided by this AdWords tool can help you distinguish how various metrics are stacking up against your competition by industry. The information you see via this tool aggregates your performance data by determined industry over the previous two weeks and compares it to advertisers in the same industry. You can view comparisons of clicks, impressions, CTR or average position. Further, you can filter your competition by country to determine differences by geographic area. While the information you gather from this tool is rather vague and doesn’t give you exact access to competitor strategy, it will give you an idea of focus areas that you can focus on to improve compared to the competition. For example, in the following screenshot, you can see that in the Earth Movers & Construction Tractors category, based on clicks, I’m staying incredible competitive and pull down almost twice as many clicks as competitors in that industry. 19 19
  • 20. PPC Tools & Your Competition – Which Tools Keep You In The Game? (continued) For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that in the Earth Movers & Construction Tractors category, based on clicks, I’m staying incredibly competitive and pull down almost twice as many clicks as competitors in that industry. 2. Spyfu My good friend Eric Couch mentioned this tool previously. This site is one we all use regularly, but I use it with definite caution as I’ve seen it report some inaccurate traffic and budget numbers in the past. However, it provides rather specific information regarding keywords your competition is bidding on and seeing the greatest success with. Further, you can view actual ad copies they may have been running as recently as the month previous. And that’s just in the free version! Simply type in the web address for one of your competitors and you’ll see estimated budget, ad position, clicks per day, keywords and ad texts. The paid version of the Spyfu interface also gives you access to about 90% more data, including keyword overlap, CPC estimates and other advanced keyword statistics, and the ability to track your own performance. 3. SEMRush The SEMRush site is rather similar to Spyfu, providing you with top information about competitors to your brand. Within the free version, you can type in your competitors website and view their biggest competitors (are you on the list?), ad
  • 21. PPC Tools & Your Competition – Which Tools Keep You In The Game? (continued) texts, average position for the top keywords and the percentage of their total budget and traffic that is allocated those keywords. Of course with the paid version, all these results and statistics are increased so you can see more data. SEMRush will also allow you to track information for your competitors Facebook and Bing accounts. 4. iSpionage Again, iSpionage is a site that offers quite a bit of information for free, with even more becoming available with the paid version. In addition to showing keywords your competitors are bidding on and ads they are running with accompanying ranking information, if you do upgrade you gain the ability to build new campaigns with the information you find. Essentially within the iSpionage interface, you complete the keyword research phase based on what you discover from competitors, audit that keyword research, group the terms together and then build out the actual campaigns for upload to Google or Bing. 21 21
  • 22. PPC Tools & Your Competition – Which Tools Keep You In The Game? (continued) How do you process & utilize has ever been managed by someone all this research? else) in the event that what the The most important key here is competition is trying, you’ve already not to fully trust all the research you attempted with less than acceptable just did. This sounds counter intuitive, results. I’m sure, but the fact of the matter is that none of these tools have direct Overall, make sure you look at access to your competition’s accounts. competitor research with an They are simply compiling information investigative eye and don’t lose from the search engines and sight of your overall account goals making that information available to and progress. Competitive research you. Of course, using the free versions is only as useful if you use it as a part of those tools may not allow you to get of your PPC strategy, not the lead a full view of what’s going on. driver in how you determine the best I encourage you to average out your ways to move forward findings after completing competitor research through a few of these tools, that way you’re not relying completely on one source, but you’re making some effort to analyze that competitive data and make changes as needed. The next tip is something I mentioned earlier, which is not to necessarily throw out your entire strategy book based on the competition. You can’t see their exact ROI and maybe what they’re doing isn’t working. PPC is all about testing, so if you find a good nugget of information through this research, test it before going all in. Also, make sure you take some time to thoroughly revisit your previous strategies (especially if the account
  • 23. Hanapin Marketing: “Hanapin” means search in Filipino and Hanapin Marketing’s forte is search engine marketing, specializing in premier pay-per-click management. Hanapin Marketing brings clients tremendous paid search results combined with white glove customer service and a customizable experience. Compass, a quarterly journal discussing the hottest PPC topics, is produced by the Hanapin Marketing team. Hanapin Marketing also hosts Hero Conf, the popular new conference that focuses solely on paid search. Visit www.hanapinmarketing.com to learn more about Hanapin Marketing. PPC Hero: Our PPC Blog Produced by Hanapin Marketing, the PPC Hero blog shares helpful strategies, landing page reviews, PPC case studies and related news updates with the PPC industry at large. With over 10,000 subscribers, PPC Hero has become one of the most widely read blogs in the paid search industry. Read PPC Hero at www.ppchero.com. Hero Conf: Our conference Hero Conf is Hanapin Marketing and PPC Hero’s premier, all PPC conference. We are going on our second year in 2013. Our conference covers only PPC and allows industry leaders and PPC professionals a chance to meet and learn more about the ever-changing pay-per-click realm. For more information visit www.heroconf.com. For more information about Hanapin Marketing, contact Tom Hootman, Director of Sales. Phone: 812.330.3134 x 120 Email: tom.hootman@hanapinmarketing.com 23 23