Since our eyes and ears have gotten a well needed vacation from the Presidential Elections back in November, for some in the industry, it’s time to start thinking about the new political races and how to best leverage what was learned with regard to Paid Search Marketing in particular. This topic is not only important to talk about for those who are involved in the political world, but also millions of others who are simply fascinated by what President Barack Obama’s campaign did last cycle. Let’s discuss shall we…..

In a previous post on SemGeek entitled “McCain and Republicans Turn To Paid Search To Influence Voters“, I spoke about the power PPC has as a main “influencer” to raise money, volunteer or just to continue the conversation. One of the biggest “shining moments” of paid search marketing, came when the campaigns quickly and effectively used Google as a platform to counteract and/or react to the rest of the media.

For example, here are just some of the strategies where paid search made a difference.

• Defense against negative campaign attacks
• Defense about leaks within each of the campaigns.
• Became a online behavioral barometer of the public on specific issues.
• Constantly identified what was popular in the online community (search volumes)
• Used as a tool to advocate certain issues that were raised in campaign and media.
• Used as a AD testing tool to determine which language is best associated with public.

Paid Search and Politics: It’s all about timing:
Probably the most effective part of paid search is the ability for a quick turnaround. In the spirit of Journalism and news agencies, timing is everything, and when a candidate is in the news or attacked on the campaign trail, people are going to search about it online, the more people start seeing an PPC Ad directing them to go to the website for more information or a statement from the candidate, the better it is for everyone, especially the campaign.

Since the Internet has become the source of the continued conversation from other media such as TV and Radio, support from paid search, from a online strategy perspective is a no brainer. Now, even though we have identified that timing is key to an PPC strategy, there is one major concern and that is messaging the correct message.

Paid Search and Politics: Get the Messaging Right
It’s very easy to throw a campaign on Google and make a splash right out of the gate. However, in Political campaigns, it’s very easy to get the messages crossed where an opinion or statement can be taken out of context or is just not aligned with other statements from other staff members. In paid search, this lack of communication and/or discipline can be devastating.

Since the Internet has become a breeding ground for information gathering, it allows opponents or their campaigns to obtain any misconceptions or simply “misleading” statements to their advtange. Even though the majority of the campaign’s media spends is still being use for TV, Radio and Print, the Internet has become the “SUPER POWER” for more real-time influence and the ability to persuade and continue the conversation.

In conclusion:
No matter what political party you may belong to, Obama and some others set a new standard for Politics on the Internet. Whether is was clever Social Media Tactics, Text/SMS Messaging, Blogs, Emails, Donation Platforms and Paid search, the “Online Political Benchmark” has been raised and if campaigns want to compete, what we have learned this last political cycle needs to be a part of the overall strategy.

The Secret To A Web Analytics Career: Stop Learning Web Analytics!

This post originally appeared on Corry Prohen’s blog.

Eventually, your web analytics career is going to hit a wall.  Learning interactive marketing as a web analyst, you start with the numbers and then seek context.  When you stop to think about it, it’s really an inside out view, isn’t it?

You can master tags, logs and the many intricacies of implementation and that will get you so far.  If you want to go from good to great, then you’re going to have to stop learning analytics.

Advance Your Career with Action

Measurement craves action.  That’s why site testing (a/b and multivariate) has been such a huge hit.  Your success as a web analyst is defined by the impact of the changes your work inspires: more leads, higher revenue, greater customer satisfaction.

Start your search for by following the money.  In most companies, the budget is often biggest in one of these 4 channels:

1. Paid Search

2. Email Marketing

3. Organic Search / SEO

4. Landing Pages

1. Paid Search

eMarketer predicts that paid search spend will hit $10 Billion by 2010.  Each year, more money migrates from offline advertising to online buys, often starting with paid search (aka pay-per-click or PPC advertising).

Who’s to blame them?  PPC advertising, most often on AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing, is among the most measurable marketing investments you can make.  That’s exactly why web analysts need to get up to speed… fast.

The basic structure of paid search advertising is simple: you select words, bid on them, write a text ad and send them to a landing page.  The reality is far more complex.  To get started, I recommend you start with a simple 5 point PPC questionnaire:

1. How are we performing against our yearly and monthly goals?

2. Which campaigns are driving 50% of our cost?  Which ones are driving 50% of our revenue (or similar KPI, such as leads)?

3. What are our ad groups and how are they performing?

4. What is our impression share for the top campaigns?

5. How is competition affecting our brand campaigns?

This is a mix of simple questions, but you’d be amazed how eye opening they can be for a web analyst.  I threw in “impression share”, because it’s a metric that few outside of paid search understand.  It once again highlights the need to move outside of just one tool.

You can get a good overview of paid search with this guide.  For free advice on measuring and optimizing paid search, check out the ClickEquations blog.

2. Email Marketing

Email is a rather unsexy channel.  Most people think of it as outdated at best or spam at worst.  The truth is that email is very much a part of online marketing in a basic way (support email, order confirmation) and more advanced uses (personalized offers, abandoned cart recovery).

As an analyst, you can lead the charge to maximize email ROI by asking:

• How does email stack up against other channels?

• What’s the most effective way to grow our subscriber list?

• What have we learned from past tests?  How can we structure future tests to boost results?

• Which segments of our list are most valuable?

• What kind of from and subject lines boost open rates?

I usually turn to the Email Experience Council to find resources for email marketing.  Their Email Stat Center is a really great collection of research and some stats for comparison.  The Email Benchmark Guide is a good starting point.  For more in-depth training, there is an Email Marketing Summit coming up shortly.

3. Organic Search / SEO

Of all the channels on this list, organic search is most likely to frustrate analysts.  Unlike paid search and email marketing, you can’t know or measure many of the aspects that contribute to successful search engine optimization.

Search engines are fundamentally secretive about what drives rankings to a.) keep their competitive advantage and b.) reduce the amount of gaming of the system.  To top it all off, it can take months (or more) before your changes produce results.

Even with those barriers, the value of measuring and analyzing organic search as a web analyst is huge.  A well optimized site can drive significant traffic with no per-click cost, which means more money for your company and more kudos for you.

Start with some basic questions:

• How has our organic search traffic trended year over year?

• Which pages are bringing in the most organic traffic?  Which search queries (aka keywords) drive them there?

• How does organic search drive our bottom line–profit, new customers, etc.?

Next, dig into some more advanced questions:

• What is your keyword share for our targeted search queries?

• How should we balance our organic and paid search efforts for maximum ROI?

• How do our blogging and social media efforts help SEO traffic?

I keep up with the SEO space by reading Search Marketing Gurus, SEOMoz and SEOBook.  Copywriting has a big impact on organic search efforts, which is why I read Copyblogger.  Their SEO Copywriting series is a good intro.  For something more in-depth, try this guide.

4. Landing Pages (aka entry pages)

Every marketing campaign has to point to a page on your site.  What should that page look like to yield maximum profit?  Welcome to the world of landing pages.

The immediate post-click experience has a tremendous impact on the profitability (or viability) of your tactics.  Paid search is getting more competitive and expensive, while display is as pricey as ever.  If you want to wring out the maximum results, then regular testing of your landing pages has to be a standard practice.

The good new is that there’s tremendous upside in testing for any analyst out there.  It’s all about data driven decision making instead of opinions and guesses.  Not sure which headline is best?  Test it!

The simplest way to get started is just to launch your own test using the free Google Website Optimizer.  If you’re familiar with page tagging, the setup should be pretty straightforward.  The real trick is understanding test design and measurement.

I recommend you start with Jonathan Mendez’s Expert Guide to Multivariate Testing.  Bryan Eisenberg’s blog often features useful testing tips.  I read Marketing Sherpa’s newsletters for new ideas and they have a handbook.

Conclusion

The fastest way to advance yourself, or your own business, is to focus on action and the bottom line business goals.  The more you can partner with marketing and improve results, the more invaluable you’ll become.  Take some time to expand your horizons beyond web analytics and you’ll be a better analyst for it.

By Rene LeMerle

For the best part of 2008, we heard the common tale of marketing budgets being shifted online, as companies sought affordable and measurable results. It seems the retail sector was no exception.

A report out by search management firm SearchIgnite suggests retail paid search grew 12% in Q4 2008, compared to 2007’s fourth quarter results. The growth trend was consistent across all the top three search engines (Google, Yahoo! and MSN).

Of the three months in Q4, Nov 2008 was the stand out, experiencing a phenomenal increase of 43%, which suggests retailers we going on the offensive to leverage Black Friday/Cyber Monday activity. Roger Barnette, president of SearchIgnite said:

Retailers were more aggressive with their paid search spend in the first half of the quarter compared with the year earlier in an effort to capture more consumer dollars ahead of the holidays.

Sales reports around the start of the holiday period were mixed, preThanksgiving down 4%, and Cyber Monday only up 1%. It’s not surprising then that December’s paid search growth was only 14%, as retailers remained wary about spending.

The report also observed a consistent conversion rate YOY (year on year) with only 3% growth, but the interesting shift was in average order value (AOV)—which dropped 10%.

2009 will see more retailers turning to paid search to drive sales, but as the report highlights, changing consumer habits based on the economic climate will force them to work harder and smarter to maintain revenue levels.

Rene LeMerle is the VP of Marketing at ineedhits.com, a leading provider of results driven Search Engine Advertising and SEO services.