Taylor Pratt asked if cereal was allowed as a mid-afternoon snack today. A resounding yes was heard from what I saw, and that sparked my interest. What do search marketers (and any of my other followers) eat? Specifically, what is an SEO’s favorite cereal?

Winner: Lucky Charms

Voted on By:
Christa Watson, Joshua Sciarrino, Lyndsay Walker, Dan Perry

Seems like everyone loves the marshmallows. Forget the sugar covered oats, we want the marshmallows!

Runner Ups

Voted on By: Matt Siltala, Dan Perry	Voted on By: Casey Yandle, Andrew Woods	Voted on By: Taylor Pratt, Casey Yandle
Voted on By: Alan Bleweiss, Chiropractic	Voted on By: William Attwood	Voted on By: Ruth Burr
Voted on By: Matt Pellerin	Voted on By: Robert Brady	Voted on By: Jason Harrison
Voted on By: Clint Zink

Snack Time Cereal – SEM Edition is a post from: Kate Morris

The question centered around dayparting in Google but based on the specific industry their client was in, so after I guessed (educated guess, really …), I told them to look at the company’s analytics and see where their clients were visiting and buying. The retort was “Google Analytics doesn’t tell me that.”

Poppycock.

But I understood the confusion. Information by hour isn’t readily available but it is there. And I am going to show you how to pull the data. But to start, let’s review why dayparting might be important to you.

Dayparting

We get this term from traditional marketing. I first learned it in Introduction to Media Buying at The University of Texas. It had to do with radio and TV time purchasing. Imagine my delight when PPC started using it too. And it’s about the same. Dayparting is molding your spend to specific days and hours of the day to match when your best customers are looking.

Dayparting is not for every company. If you are a consumer based company, people are probably searching for your products at any hour of the day. Business-to-business firms are going to be more open to specifying a time of day. Consider business software – you might have some hard core people searching at night, or small business owners, but if your product is not focused to them, you probably don’t want to be running at 2am. Right? Good. Moving on.

When are your Customers Online?

Your analytics package should be able to tell you when customers are on your site. Above that, you should be tracking what time of the day people are purchasing if you are ecommerce. Google Analytics does provide this information to you, you just have to know where to look. Custom Reports FTW.

1. Get into your Google Analytics Account and find the “Custom Reporting” button on the left side navigation.

2. Click and get the bigger menu. At the bottom click on “Manage Custom Reports.”

3. In the upper right side, click on “Create new custom report.”

4. Title it (you’ll forget later) – hit edit next to the “Custom Report blah blah blah” up at the top.

5. First pick the metrics you want to see (in blue, see below). I am a fan of the metrics below, it’s a good place to start when you aren’t sure what to look at.

• Unique Visitors
• Unique Pageviews
• Total Goal Completions (you have to have goals set up to get data here)
• Avg. Time on Site
• Unique Purchases (must be e-commerce to use this)
• Bounce Rate

Sample Google Analytics Dayparting Report Setup

6. Once you get those, move to the green aka dimensions. This is where you pick what you are looking at. You can do one of three things here, or I recommend one of three.

1. Use one dimension - Time of Day – this is the minimal report and will help you see overall trends for time of day.
2. Use two dimensions – (1) Day (2) Time of Day – this gets down to each day and how things worked out each hour. More detailed but maybe too detailed for some.
3. Make both. Two separate reports. You can play with more dimensions of course, but I am just talking dayparting remember?

Once you’ve done that, preview the report and test away until you get it like you want it. If it’s that good and you have more than one client that can use it, you can save it to all of them. Nice huh? Yay for time saving! The rest … you should know what to do with. Pick the best hours, see if there are some major drop offs in traffic and purchasing, and review the data with the client (or executives).

For more information on dayparting check out these resources:

• Google Dayparting
• Yahoo Dayparting
• AdCenter Dayparting (aka Bing/MSN) (note that Brad covers Google here too, I <3 Brad)

So that was the quick and dirty – please comment with any questions and I’ll do my best to answer or point you to a resource with the answer.

PPC Tip: Dayparting using Google Analytics is a post from: Kate Morris

My main issue after Google answered some questions was that these searches are not the keywords that the advertiser specified. How were we to know when our ads were showing?

I came across something recently that makes things a little better. After some research, others (cough Brian Cater cough) have noticed the same thing. Read more on this topic by Brian over at Search Engine Journal.

When running a search query report (that’s your how to right there, pull a search query report) for a client (sorry I had to fuzz out the keywords), I noticed some really weird entries. Sure enough, it noted that they queries were session-based. The person had changed their search, and when they did, the ad showed for their next query … in this case (the one that doesn’t identify my client) “richard session austin texas”. This had nothing to do with my client!

Sure enough, right after that it shows (Session-Based) in the query type column. I see these for only broad matched keywords across my clients, but I am not saying that this is all that happens. I am hoping that this is the only match type this happens in, but we’ll see.

Now for my wishlist. Google … can we get the option to filter for session-based searches? We can filter the Search Query report for a number of things but not match type. It would be awesome to be able to pull a report of just these keywords. It would be an interesting insight to what our searchers are looking for after they put in a key phrase we target. Thanks.

Finding Session-Based Ad Clicks is a post from: Kate Morris

But it is true. Well a few months back I stumbled on a post at Marketing Pilgrim about a new PPC tool called WordStream. I wasn’t exactly pleased, especially because it was pegged as the way to automate search marketing. Automate? The human brain and how it reacts to the order of keywords, the meaning of a sentence? I was NOT buying it and made it known that I wasn’t buying it.

A few weeks went by, and I stopped thinking about it. Then I got an email from the Founder of WordStream asking for the chance to explain the product. Haha. Ummm, sure.

Have to say, while I was skeptical, it is actually a really nice product.

You have to understand I have never been one to use tools when dealing with paid search campaigns. Mainly because I always worked for “budget conscious” companies that thought I did everything, and in 2 hours a day. I mean that’s possible right? Managing 6 accounts, thousands of keywords each, along with the development, upkeep and optimization of 30 websites. And you think I’m kidding …

Back to WordStream … sorry I get distracted easily – and then I start telling stories …

So their thing is focusing on [duh duh duuuuhhh] the organization of your campaigns. Their program helps the search marketer drill down and organize their campaigns. The program then uses the PPC platform APIs to push the new structure into the live campaigns.

Wordstream is not only a bid management program – it does all the “normal stuff” too – but their system of assisting in campaign organization is what makes it unique. Some marketers can do this in their sleep, but for those that are doing multiple things with very little time, this system could be a godsend.

I have to give it to the staff at WordStream, they are highly dedicated to their product and each person I have been in contact has full faith that they are the best. I haven’t used to to it’s full extent, but so far I’d have to agree that they have found a niche that has not yet been explored and very valuable to the search marketer.

WordStream: PPC Tool Review is a post from: Kate Morris

To the session:

Yahoo
Stewart from Yahoo starts out by talking about Panama — blah, blah, we’ve heard about it, we are living it. Move on.

There were some points about Yahoo now revealing invalid clicks (yawn) and domain blocking. But the real news here was the quality based pricing that everyone is now talking about. Apparently advertisers will get discounts for poorer quality clicks. I’d be fascinated to hear what they mean by that. LINK DEAD

More news was about the new API program. There are levels, some more cool stuff … not my thing right now. But you can read more here if need be. Yahoo APIs

MSN
Doug from MSN then started. He focused first on their new guy. The model in all of their new campaigns. He’s supposed to be “marriage material” … “attractive but scrawny” and “not high-matienance.” MSN’s idea here, or that of their marketing team is to get us (webmasters) to propose to them. He is to be the “McDreamy of paid search, just more faithful.”

The most fascinating thing about this section was MSN noted that they need more clicks and quality based ranking. There will be bulk managing, full text search for campaigns (finding things within the platform), campaign import, and favorites.

I’m still waiting for something new …

Google

The part we all wanted to hear, Frederick from Google. I try not to be a psuedo Googler, but they come up with such great things! My favorite is the SMS Notifications he announced. That way if your account is down you know immediately, not just when you next check your work email. Wait, that can have some drawbacks too. I can see it now … “hold on guys, I have to go fix my campaigns” … (leaving a theatre).

And a new one on me. AdWords Editor! You can use this tool to find duplicates, identify poor performing campaigns, and export all the new data into spreadsheets. Loving it! There are also searches now for negative keywords and negative exact! Don’t want just a specific keyword, but want the varitations from it? You can do it now!

And yes, there is more. Now there is a search query report in the report center. you can move around keywords and exclude keywords based on the results of some query. That’s going to be fun to play with.

Ask.com
It’s Ask.com’s turn. Just a boring as the others. I was sad about this, there was nothing of note. And I was looking forward to hearing from Ask.

QA
This was difficult and not really worth it because the people asking questions were in very specific industries and situtations. Not applicable to everyone.

More from SMX: Paid Search Roundtable is a post from: Kate Morris

Panel Members:
Misty Locke*
Peter Hershberg*
Robert Ashby
Chris Zaharias

*Bid Mangement is Dead Team

Misty:
“My theory … that I have, that is to say which is mine …”

Not saying its completely dead, but that search marketing is better and can be better.
Three Principles
1. Basic Build and fundamentals of a bid tool

1. Can’t bid to position
2. Uninformed bid decisions (ex. time, CTR, other campaigns, etc.)

2. Simplistic Tunnel Vision

1. Not just about keywords … about demand when it happens
2. Influencers are not taken into account (outside referrals)
3. optimizing online and search programs
4. Not about last Click to Conversion

3. Consumer Intent Can’t be Managed by a Tool

1. Marketing is an art improved by science, not an exact formula

Robert Cross Exam
How can you expect humans to manage several thousand keywords at the same time?
I don’t think they don’t have a place, they just aren’t the end all be all. There has to be a human. One size does not fit all.

How would you characterize better click0thru unless there is better SEO (influencers)
My point is that you can’t set a big management tool and leave it be.

Chris: Bid Management is alive and well
Starting with history of bid management
1st Proof: Too many things to do in a bigger account setting
2nd: Search Engine API Usage
Lost the rest of it due to company email … I’ll pick it up from someone else later.

Cross Exam
Traditional PPC was pay for position, and bid was the only issue.
Can changing ads, landing pages, and keyword have an affect on cost?
Yes
How can I beat you out for one keyword? My minimum and max are different than yours.
Portfolio theory: React to the campaign as a whole

Closings

Peter:
Bid Management is not dead, its just not part of search marketing anymore. Back when, your entire thing was bid management, you could guarantee placement with a bid. But you can’t anymore. Now it is about relevance and what your product is. There are too many factors now. So its not dead, its just a variable now, its not a monster, its a pet bunny.

Robert:
It’s tough to manage 5 million keywords. You want to spend your time with your customer, not with AdWords. Bid management is the foundation … its what zaps your resources if you don’t pay attention to it. Bid management allows you to focus on other aspects of the business.

Chris:
It’s about the metrics. Bid Management allows you to make better decisions. The role of bid management is to do what we can’t.

Misty:
You do need tools to get your job done. It’s not humanly possible to touch 5 million keywords. But SEMs don’t just rely on technology, it changes a lot and so does the industry. But as SEMs we sell the time to mange your campaigns. The keyword is just as important as the TV spot. Technology must be used with human influence to work the best. It’s not just science, its art and science.

Peter:
Quality Score has put the M back in SEM. We are not just doing math anymore.

My conclusion: Bid Management is not dead, its just not necessary for the small-mid market companies.

Is Bid Management Dead? A Debate is a post from: Kate Morris