Inside Search Marketing - Part 1

This week starts an insider’s view of an active Internet Marketing Campaign. We have created a new Sponsored Search Account with Yahoo! Search Marketing (YSM) and you can follow the account activity almost as it happens. A much-expanded version of this article, including detailed search term analysis, is available at www.myklin.com/campaign.

The product is a newly updated version of an electronic book, “SEO-Tactics v2.6”. Since the subject is search engine optimization techniques it is necessary to update this book about every six to ten weeks. The search engines change their algorithms at least this often. This time we’ve changed the title so we’ll need to rebuild relevance with the search engines over the next three to seven months and by then we’ll probably revise it several times. In the meantime, we’ll use sponsored search to generate some sales. In effect, with a new title and new marketing account this is just like you launching a new product.

Once we created the account with YSM (formerly Overture) we had to choose search terms we would bid on. Different terms will have different costs and the costs can change daily. We started with four terms ranging in cost from .11 to $1.02 per click (the list of search terms and the specific costs is available at www.myklin.com/campaign). We chose a couple of terms with few searches and one term that was expecting high numbers of searches. At the end of this first week I have added a fifth term.

In each term we’re shown how much other advertisers are paying per click. You can decide what position you want in the Sponsored Search Results and bid just enough to get that position. We started with two number 1 positions and two, number 2 positions. At the end of this week I have just reduced my bids so we have number two positions in all terms.

The results for the first three days are encouraging. We had 451 impressions (the number of people who saw our sponsored ad) and a total of 11 clicks for a total cost of $6.76. That’s an average CPC (cost per click) of just 62 cents. Plus, our click rate is over 2% meaning the ads I’m writing are creating interest.

YSM says we’ve had no conversions (no sales) yet. YSM tracks this by placing a cookie in the browsers of people who click through my ads and then checking to see if the cookie is still in the browsers at the sale completion page on my website. If people delete cookies when they go off-line (a common practice) there would be no cookie to track unless they completed the purchase during the same on-line session.

Look for more explanations next week as we continue to watch this active campaign.

Mike Myklin is an author, a lecturer, and an e-commerce owner specializing in Search Engine Optimization. If you have questions about the Internet and e-commerce, you can send them to him and he will try to answer them in his column. You can also get information on-line at http://www.myklin.com/.

Autoresponder Update

I have been experimenting with the latest autoresponder systems available. Some are free and some cost a small fee each month to use. There have been several powerful changes in the software over the past couple of years. The interfaces have become smoother and testing has become easier.

What is an autoresponder? This is a program that sends out a series of emails at predetermined intervals. You enter your email address in the sign-up area and a response is sent almost before you finish.

There are several reasons for a business to use autoresponders. It’s a good way to help your potential customers get more information very quickly. Since the customer has to sign up for more information you know that something about your website has sparked their interest.

Most people don’t buy until they’ve had time to think about the purchase. Typical sales result after 5-7 visits to a site. The autoresponder messages help maintain a relationship with people as they are considering the advantages of buying from you. Since each message can add information or even a special coupon you have continuous opportunities to make the sale.

I have used autoresponders to deliver daily and weekly lessons to students. A major advantage was each person working on their own schedule. You can change the interval between messages as well. The first message is delivered immediately, the second message was three days later, the third message was delivered two days after the one before, and so on.

Sometimes my autoresponders are set to deliver 5 days of information then wait a week and send another one reminding viewers they haven’t bought a product. The point is that each message gives you an opportunity to make a sale. Since people sign up for the services you get at least an email address for a lead. You can ask for as much information as you want, of course. I generally ask for very little until they have received more information. By the time a person has received three or four messages I’m no longer a stranger. They feel they know me and should be more willing to share some personal information.

One big advantage to a business is once the autoresponder is written the process is completely automatic for you. You can then spend your time paying attention to other parts of your business.

Mike Myklin is an author, a lecturer, and an e-commerce owner specializing in Search Engine Optimization. If you have questions about the Internet and e-commerce, you can send them to him and he will try to answer them in his column. You can also get information on-line at http://www.myklin.com/.