Unraveling the Mystery of Roanoke Colony: What Really Happened?
Â
Larry Kim's Presentation for SearchFest 2015, Portland, Oregon
1. The Top 10 PPC
Marketing Hacks of All
Time!
Larry Kim,
Founder/CTO, WordStream
Feb. 27, 2015
2. Three Things About Me (@larrykim)
1. Founder & CTO of
WordStream
2. (Slightly) Obsessed
with Quality Score
3. Had a Kid 9 Months
Ago (#ppckid)
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #SEARCHFEST
3. Photos From My Commute from Boston This Morning
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #SEARCHFEST
13. This is The Expected Click Through Rate Curve…
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #SEARCHFEST
14. Just Beat Account Avg. Expected Click Through Rate!!
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #SEARCHFEST
15.
16. Quick Recap So Far …
• Below Avg. CTR = Low
QS
• Low QS means…
– Less prominent ad
positions
– Very low impression
share
– Huge CPC penalties
(+400% Tax)
– High Cost Per
Conversion (+64%)
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #SEARCHFEST
20. Here’s a Map of the Forrest…
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #SEARCHFEST
21. Donkeys vs. Unicorns
Percentile Vs. Average CTR Designation
Bottom 50% n/a DONKEYS
Top 15% 2x
Top 5% 3x
Top 1% 6x UNICORNS
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #SEARCHFEST
43. The Hack: Think of PPC More Like Email Mktg.
Email Marketing
• Limit Number of Blasts To
Reduce Unsubscribes
• 0.5-2% Unsubscribes Each
Blast
• People Need To Opt Into
Your List
• Tons of Unqualified Emails
on the List
People Based Marketing
• N/A
• N/A
• N/A
• N/A
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #SEARCHFEST
54. Identity + User Demographics = $$$
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #SEARCHFEST
55. CONFIDENTIAL – DO NOT DISTRIBUTE 55
# 6.
Quality Score for
Google Display
Network
56. A 0.1% +/- in CTR yields +/- 20% in CPC!
Quality Score Exists on Google Display Network!!
Higher
CTR =
Lower
CPC
Higher
CTR =
Lower
CPC
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #SEARCHFEST
57. The Hack: Make Display Ads With Very High CTR
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #SEARCHFEST
58. About Those “Display Ads”…
• 67.5% of Display Ads are Plain Text Ads!
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #SEARCHFEST
59. CTR of “Display Ads” Based on Ad Format
Ad Format on
Google Display
Network
Click
Through
Rate
Text ads that are
formatted as
Images
0.23%
True Image ads 0.31%
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #SEARCHFEST
60. Huge Tax on “Text Display Ads” vs. True Image Ads
Google Display
Network Ad
Format
CPC (USD)
Text $2.31
Custom Image $0.48
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #SEARCHFEST
61. Push Display Ads To Your Offers
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #SEARCHFEST
62. Do a Conversion Path Analysis
Define audience
segments using
the pages that
most often lead
to a conversion
event
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #SEARCHFEST
63. Conversion Rates vs. Ad Impressions
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #SEARCHFEST
Conversion Rates Double With More Ad Impressions!
65. ~5% of Blog Content Gets ~50% of Social Shares
Promote These
Top 5% of Articles!!!
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #SEARCHFEST
66. These Emotions Make People Click on Things
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #SEARCHFEST
67. The Hack: Make Display Ads Look More Like Content
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #SEARCHFEST
68. CONFIDENTIAL – DO NOT DISTRIBUTE 68
# 5.
Get 3x More
Impressions on
Google Display
Network
69. 14 Display Ad Formats on GDN
• Vertical rectangle: 240 x 400
• Mobile leaderboard: 320 x 50
• Banner: 468 x 60
• Leaderboard: 728 x 90
• Square: 250 x 250
• Small square: 200 x 200
• Large rectangle: 336 x 280
• Inline rectangle: 300 x 250
• Skyscraper: 120 x 600
• Wide skyscraper: 160 x 600
• Half-page: 300 x 600
• Etc.
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #SEARCHFEST
70. Different Ad Formats Don’t Compete With Each Other
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #SEARCHFEST
71. Diversify Your Ad Formats = 3x Impressions
Ad Format Share of
Impressions
Leader board (728 x 90) 25.5%
Inline rectangle (300 x 250) 25.1%
Banner (468 x 60) 12.0%
Wide skyscraper (160 x 600) 10.1%
Large Rectangle (336 x 280) 8.6%
Mobile leaderboard (320 x 50) 7.4%
Half-page (300 x 600) 4.3%
Square (250 x 250) 2.8%
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #SEARCHFEST
72. CONFIDENTIAL – DO NOT DISTRIBUTE 72
# 4.
Crazy Mobile
Hack to Triple
Conversions
73. Mobile is Very Different…
OMG a Call
Button!!
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #SEARCHFEST
74. Call Extensions Change Everything!!
Calls to Businesses worth on Average 3x More
Than Clicks to Websites!!
4. Captured
Lead
2. Calls
Business
2. Clicks On Ad
Desktop Search Conversion Funnel
3% Avg.
Conversion
Rate
Mobile Conversion Funnel
1. Sees Ad 1. Sees Ad
3. Visits Website
Landing Page
3. Lead
Captured!!
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #SEARCHFEST
86. YouTube Ads Hack #1: Know Targeting Options
• Demographics: Age, gender, parental status.
• Topics: YouTube video or Google Display Network content
targeted by category or sub-category.
• Interests: A few thousand categories of specific topics
• Affinity audiences: People with a strong interest in your brand,
product, or service.
• In-market audiences: People in the process of buying
something.
• Placements: Add unique websites or placements within those
websites.
• Channels (YouTube Partner Channels)
• Videos (YouTube Videos)
• Sites on the Google Display Network
• Remarketing lists: Reach viewers based on their past
interactions with your videos or YouTube channel or Website.
• Keywords: YouTube viewers’ search queries.
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #SEARCHFEST
87. YouTube Ads Hack #2: Test Going Longform
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #SEARCHFEST
94. The Top 10 PPC Hacks of All Time!
1. Say No to Low
CTR in AdWords
2. Unicorn Ads Get
+6x Average CTR
3. Exploit Quality
Score for Twitter
& Facebook
4. People Based
PPC Marketing
5. QS on Google
Display Network =
Cheap Clicks
6. Make Display Ads
Look Like Content
7. Triple Conversion
Rate with Mobile
8. Get in People’s Gmail
Inboxes!
9. YouTube Ads Boost
SEO Traffic, Too.
10.Always be First
Mover!
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #SEARCHFEST
95. You are Part of the Quality
Score Rebellion … and a
Traitor
Larry Kim (@larrykim) #SEARCHFEST
AdWords is just one big computer algorithm and any algorithm can be cracked.
Talk about how google makes it very hard for PPC spammers, too. Google shut down millions of spammy accounts year. All keywords/ads are graded with a quality score. The higher your quality score, the higher your ad ranking and lower your cost per click.
For every increase or decrease in quality score, you can expect your impression share to go up or down by around 9% on average.
And of course twitter has noticed the people based advertising trend, too. They’re kind of the last mover here so a lot of this stuff isn’t working that great just yet (like it takes 4 hours for them to process a list – yikes) – but you can target whatever you want to promote to specific twitter IDs or emails, too. And of course twitter is super powerful because a lot of influential folks hang out there. To summarize – I think the email marketers and PPC marketers should be collaborating on this new “people marketing” thing since there is a lot of magic that can happen when you target specific people with the right message. It also supplements a lot of the problems associated with email marketing, such as low delieverability rates (due to filters), unsubscribes (it’s harder to unsubscribe from ads), more inventory (since you can only blast your email list a limited number of times per week), etc.
The call extensions make things much better in the following 2 ways:
You avoid sending people to a landing page (which is the leakiest part of the funnel and where you lose 97% of them)
Commercial intent decays rapidly over time. Even if 3% of people fill out a “contact us” form, if it takes you a day to process their inquiry (say it came in in the evening or on a weekend) then you’ll end up losing half of them anyway – because the moment has passed.
As a result it’s worth forcing your mobile ads on mobile go straight to a phone number. Yes, I realize this goes against all the articles that you read about having a mobile site and mobile landing page. We’re finding that for the majority of businesses (especially services based companies or companies doing lead generation, or companies whose business involves telesales) that it’s worth skipping all that crap. Test it out and see for yourself.
So here are a few examples of People based advertising.
Here’s what the Gmail sponsored promotion looks like when you click on the promoted email. It’s an HTML creative.
So overall, is an example of PPC marketing that feels a lot more like email marketing.
Infact the whole concept of “people marketing” (targeting ads to specific people) has a lot more in common with email marketing than conventional PPC marketing, with one key difference being you can target specific people who haven’t yet opted into your mailing list. (or even people who have opted out).
By my estimations, there are over a thousand new features added in AdWords every year – and that’s just AdWords -- not including other big ad platforms like Bing, Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, etc. There’s a huge, decisive advantage in being the first in your niche to adopt the latest ad formats and targeting capabilities – here are just a few examples of my favorite latest and greatest features.
Another recent example is the +Post ads for promoting your company Google+ posts as ads throughout the Google Display Network.
Now, I’m not saying G+ is the greatest (actually I think it’s kind of crappy) but just as an example of the massive power of first mover advantage..
I set up a +post ad campaign with a 20$ daily budget to promote the latest Google+ post from my +WordStream company page.
The impact was profound. Before I was doing the google+ updates and it was not getting much traction. Add a little but of sponsored promotion and the page visibility increased dramatically. From 0 to 30k views / day! How? It’s because nobody uses this feature and there’s a huge advantage to being the first (sadly, nobody uses google+ either, heh).