The table below uses data compiled from GA for the weeks of May 9-15, June 6-12 and June 13-19. The sites bring in a range of monthly visitors and have varying percentages of keywords in the top 10 for each engine listed.

The key number to look at is the percentage change in market share from the week of May 9-15 to the week of June 13-19. This compares a stable period, where searchers were familiar with Live/MSN’s offerings, to the latest week of data for the new engine, Bing.

Google has very minimal changes, both in gaining or losing market share, across all three companies. This indicates that even though searchers are curious about Bing, Google isn’t really seeing many negatives from its introduction. Yahoo’s market share fluctuates among the companies with more gains than losses, demonstrating that Bing hasn’t really taken it’s market share either. Finally Bing/MSN/Live’s market share moves around as well, showing higher peaks and valleys for gains and losses than the other two engines.

Company A sees the most influence from Bing, and a majority of its terms show up on the first page of all three engines. This company is a good example to look at by itself because it has a significant amount of monthly visitors and searchers don’t have to look very far to find a result for Company A. If any market share is transferred, Company A shows it might come from Yahoo.

Although searchers are curious about Bing right now and using it more than MSN/Live was used in previous months, it doesn’t really seem like much has changed as far as market share is concerned, especially for all of the fancy bells and whistles Microsoft is using to lure in searchers. Perhaps Bing will be able to offer a different type of search engine, or decision engine as Joshua Palau coins it, in the future; however, searchers currently still like the simple blue links.

Think about the last pharmaceutical ad you saw on television. Usually towards the end of the commercial, an (often quite long) list of possible side effects is divulged. We’d like to think that pharmaceutical companies do this because they love us but it’s more likely that they do it because it is mandated by the FDA.

If this rule applies to television, print and radio ads, why wouldn’t it clearly apply to pay-per-click ads as well? In short:

Google’s character limits clearly weren’t developed with pharmaceutical ads in mind.

In an effort to self-regulate, pharmaceutical companies have been operating under an assumed “one-click rule” in which the side effects are listed within one click of an ad rather than in the actual ad text. In response to this “one-click rule” developed by pharmaceutical companies, an FDA spokesperson said this:

“Our laws for how products that are approved by the agency can be marketed to consumers are the same regardless of the medium, whether they are print ads, radio ads, television ads or Internet ads.”

In response to this, a representative from Sanofi-Aventis had this to say:

The FDA “has not issued specific regulations or guidance for Internet promotion.”

I’m not the biggest fan of pharmaceutical company advertising in general, but I have to take their side on this one. If FDA advertising regulations are inherently incompatible with pay-per-click advertising formats, the FDA should either adapt their rules to accommodate Internet advertising formats or they should flat out ban pharmaceutical companies from using PPC ads.

Google, however, does have clear rules on pharmaceutical advertising which you can read more about here. Basically, in the US, if you are a member of the PharmacyChecker Licensed Pharmacy Program you’re in the clear.

At least for now, companies selling prescription drugs don’t seem to be too terribly concerned. In the letters issued by the FDA, the agency recommended that recipients “immediately cease the dissemination of violative promotional materials…” which in layman’s terms means “turn off your PPC accounts now”. But just Google “Yaz” (a prescription birth control pill) nearly 3 months after the FDA warning letters were issued and here is what you’ll see:

But wait! It seems that these letters from the FDA may have gotten the creative juices flowing over at Google. Go to Google and search for “Latisse”, a prescription medication intended to stimulate eyelash growth, and here is what you’ll see:

It turns out that there is a loophole that Latisse and Google seem to be experimenting with. The ad above describes a condition but does not recommend or suggest any specific drugs. This is what the FDA calls a “help seeking ad”. As long as no specific drug is listed and no company’s name is mentioned, the ad will not be regulated by the FDA. Help seeking ads are regulated instead by the Federal Trade Commission.

After a little bit of sleuthing, I discovered that Latisse is part of a 1% test (confirmed by Google) in which the display URL is replaced with text. This is allowing Latisse (whose domain name is Latisse.com) to run PPC ads with no mention of their brand in the copy, effectively avoiding the scrutiny of the FDA. Sneaky!!

I think that this calculator may be a helpful tool for PPC, but it may be overly simplified and could use further improvement or explanation. Here’s why:

1. Is ROAS or ROI more accurate in determining the max CPC?
ROI is calculated as profit/cost and the cost includes overhead cost, salary and other costs.  On the other hand, ROAS is simply calculated as revenue/advertising cost, directly measuring revenue generated for every $1 spent on advertising.  There are different views whether to use ROI and ROAS for PPC calculation.  Some argue that ROAS is only a metric of ROI.  It is too broad and doesn’t consider the overall cost of sale (Death of ROAS).  On the other hand, others agree that ROAS is relevant for some businesses since it is simple and easy to explain.  A 100% ROAS means that the campaign spending is equally balanced with the revenue earned from the campaign.  Joanne, my own colleague, posted a ROAS related blog titled My ROAS is over 600% and I’m Losing Money?!!  Defining the ROI is critical before using this calculator for our PPC purposes.

2.  This calculator allows us to increase the values in revenue/conversion and landing page conversion% variables, but not in ROI variable which is capped at 500%.  In a number of instances, we have ROIs that are greater than 500%.  Is there any reason of why the ROI is capped, but not the other two variables?

3. Will this calculator be more practical for B2B or B2C clients?
It is quicker for B2C clients to obtain the final sales data which enable them to calculate their max CPC based on the profit margin.  For example, product X had a 10% margin and cost $34.95, meaning that the company made $3.50 in profit per sale. Just by looking at the profit and the amount of PPC competition for that product, its max CPC should not go over $3.50 or the company will lose money.  Now, how about B2B clients? They have a different, more complex and longer buying cycle than B2C clients.  Will this calculator be a practical tool for them to calculate the expected max CPC?

4.  Max CPC based on Google’s Quality Score versus max CPC from the calculator.
This calculator requires 3 variables to calculate max CPC.  However, as we all know, max CPC is determined by Google’s Quality Score.  I wonder whether the max CPC generated by the calculator is comparable to Google’s.

At the present time, I believe this max CPC calculator can be used as a supplement for our PPC research.  However, we may have to wait for the training video presentation that will explain the calculator and its functions in more details.  I also hope that the presentation will answer the questions that I have mentioned above.

As QUALITY link building matters more than ever the reliance on brainstorms has increased significantly in many SEO companies. I think everyone can admit that brainstorms are usually most effective face to face. In the world of video conferencing, shared whiteboards, shared desktops, shared bookmarks, shared project tools, etc, etc, we are functionally able to brainstorm remote, but it just doesn’t work as well.

Here are 2 examples of link building ideas that came from overhearing others or others overhearing me in the office.

What made me think of this post is when Adam (@adammm) came into the office to paint a wall in the conference room with whiteboard paint. After it dried, a few days later I saw this on the wall (pic):

Yes, I wrote down something about farting in the office, hey, its a brainstorm cut me some slack.

This whiteboard sits in our conference room every day, which is probably sat in by 5-6 people every day.

This means that every single day 5-6 people who visit the office (partners, clients, interviewees, consultants, employees, moms, dads, sisters, etc) sees that someone at SEER is thinking about the 5 worst TV moms of all times, and is encouraged to contribute. A skype session or gotomeeting can not replicate this.

Now I can tweet this out and get responses but not all of us want to be broadcasting to the world our next link building idea. And sure I can have some private people who I share an idea with but what if at that time they draw a blank? What if they have absolutely no ideas? Nothing happens.

What if that person or group of people saw your link building idea everyday because it stared them in the face daily? One day they might draw a blank, 2-3 days later something might click.

So learning from this experience, the wall leading to the bathroom is next to get painted, why? Because we all go to the bathroom or go downstairs 3-4 times a day, meaning that each blog post idea we are developing gets viewed by 12-13 people 3-4 times a day, it stays as a reminder every single time you go to the bathroom that we have 5-6 different ideas.

This is just one example, but there are others like the 2-3 times a week, when someone overhears me talking about a link idea with someone else and chimes in to bring GREAT fire and resources to our conversation giving the idea a better angle or a better resource which helps make it more likely to connect with the target audience.

There are days when someone on the team will grab 6,7, or all 8 SEOs and say hey check this thing out that I just saw about Digg search or some new search query, and right then and there 5-8 people who do SEO all day start shooting holes through the idea with the goal being to make it better and stronger or kill it. We don’t really need to IM a bunch of people, set up screen share and a phone line, we just do it, which makes sharing those kinds of ideas much easier.

Strategic link building can’t be forced sometimes it needs to marinate for days, weeks, or even months, having a whole team of other people who are thinking about your link building ideas too NEVER hurts.

So while I have always thought that it is best to have most of your SEO team under one roof, I think the importance of link building has made it even more critical as the basic blocking and tackling of SEO (like site structure, keyword research, etc) doesn’t need as much of idea sharing, hole shooting, and brainstorming, it’s the creativity in building links and overhearing others as they struggle or succeed with an idea that will become more important to getting QUALITY long term links.

Does this mean that having a solo SEO or a distributed team is a bad thing? Absolutely NOT, I was a solo in-house SEO at one point in my career, and a solo SEO consultant at another point. Being distributed help prevent interruptions and can help keep you more focused. With that said I, personally, still believe that it is undeniable that having someone else (whether it is 1 person or 10 people) 5 feet from you as you brainstorm versus on IM or skype helps in the creative link building process.

Take this scenario:

In a competitive market, your competitors are bidding on their branded keywords, and probably yours as well. With the recent changes in Google regarding trademarks, it is now possible for competitors that sell or re-sell  brand name or trademarked items, or have review sites for those items, to use trademarked terms in  their ad copy, further increasing the competitive landscape.

If approximately 50% of Internet traffic for company websites comes from Search, don’t you want to be the first ad to appear when a user searches directly for your company?- 5 Reasons to Buy Branded Keywords

In relation to other media: print, TV, radio…etc, buying branded keywords makes offline forms of advertising more effective. After seeing a TV commercial or hearing a radio spot, users routinely turn to Search for further research. With PPC ads, you can fluidly convey your brand messaging from offline to online, strengthening your advertising initiative.

Brand Confusion, SEO vs. PPC:

Sometimes PPC clients don’t see the relevance of bidding on branded terms. According to a case study by Search Engine Journal , companies assume if they stop advertising for their brand, users will click on their natural search listing anyway, thus they still get the visit, but at no cost per click. It is SEO vs.PPC, a battle of free vs. fee, but this shouldn’t be the case.

In the case study, research showed that the one client that stopped running its branded campaign saw its natural sales drop dramatically, compared to two other similar clients (with the same vertical and similar business structure) who continued to run their branded campaigns and saw no drop.

Instead of SEO vs. PPC, understand how the combination of both can positively impact your campaigns. When you show up on a search results page with a natural listing and a paid ad, you have more presence, thus less competition. The user is seeing you twice; it increases their attention to your brand and makes you seem more trustworthy. Two ads compared to one can add up to potentially more traffic to your site, more conversions, a higher conversion rate, and an increased ROI.

With Paid Search, you can also customize your PPC ads to reflect new promotions and offers… “newer & faster version available now, free shipping, limited time only sale, etc.” that can grab a buyer’s attention and persuade them to convert, more so that of an SEO meta description.

It is also important to understand that when you advertise on Google specifically, you are also advertising on thousands of search syndication partners if opted into the Google Search Partner Network (which 99% of the time you are). Take for example Earthlink, AOL, and Ask.com, a few of Google’s Search Partners. Searching for a few of SEER ‘s clients’ branded terms on Earthlink, showed that PPC ads actually take up the majority of the SERP space over organic search results, the top five to seven ads being PPC sponsored results.  Similar results can be found, though not as substantially, on AOL and Ask as well. The important message here is if you choose not to bid on brand terms and only utilize organic search, you may show up at the bottom of the page and lose out to a competitor that is bidding on your branded terms.

Branded Terms vs. General Terms:

It is true that branded searches are usually preceded by general searches in the research process, but the actual optimal mix of PPC general search and PPC branded search is unknown . There is a high amount of variability per user and it is hard to stamp down the exact user process as a whole. According to the case study conducted by the Search Engine Journal with Yahoo’s conversion assist tracking, 14% of PPC sales can be attributed to previous searches, 25% of brand name sales being assisted by a general keyword search. Both brand and general searches could be conducted by the same prospect before buying, making the multi-touchpoint journey complicated.

What is known is brand keywords are usually less expensive than general terms. The more specific a keyword, the more relevant it is to the user and the more likely that ad will get a click and a conversion. With this reasoning, what keyword is more specific to your brand, than the brand name itself?

In the end, if your goal is new customer acquisition, go for more ad spend towards generalized terms, if a higher ROI is important, spending more on brand keywords is a better strategy.

To Brand or Not to Brand:

Bidding on branded terms makes sense for most situations but there is always the exception to the rule. Certain circumstances may warrant testing the pausing of branded campaigns, such as little to no competition. If you are top organically and offer a product/ service that has little to no competitors, it  may be wise to pause branded campaigns and see the effects it had on organic search conversions. It is always important to understand, every major decision in PPC comes down to testing and analyzing results. What works for one client may not work for another.

In conclusion, the golden rule to go by is, with the proper management, each marketing effort makes the other more effective. Organic or paid, general or branded keywords; they can all work together to create a successful online marketing plan. The key is integration of all the elements.

I started searching around for some supplements like Whey Protein, Muscle Milk, NO Xplode and others that might bring back links in the Google Suggest box, but no other links were coming back. I started searching for some other websites like bestbuy, webmd, 1800contacts and these all brought back links in the Google Suggest dropdown.

So What?

This is being tested by Google and is not rolled out for all searchers. It may go away and this post could be a meaningless piece of search history, BUT if it becomes a regular part of Google Suggest it WILL impact PPC & SEO.

In the example above, bodybuilding.com showed up before the word “bodybuilding” was finished being typed. This can create a problem if you are targeting keywords that have monster sites using that keyword. Any type of keyword around bodybuilding, bodybuilding supplements, bodybuilding products, etc could be impacted by seeing bodybuilding.com show up before the keyword is finished being typed.

Side note - this could significantly impact the number of longtail searches.

The same scenario happens when searching for “Panasonic digital camera”. Before you get to the “digital camera” part of the keyword, Panasonic.com shows up. I need a Motorola Bluetooth Headset, but before I can type in “bluetooth headset”, Motorola.com shows up. If a user clicks on the link in Google Suggest, they’ll never see a site you worked on hard to get onto the first page. Hellomoto, Amazon, momandpopheadsetshop all get the pass.

Maybe you’re on the PPC side & have a client that sells Adidas products. Shoes, soccer balls, apparel, everything Adidas. Any keyword starting with the brand name you’re targeting in PPC just lost visits because an Adidas.com link showing up in Google Suggest when you type in “Adidas”. Some people may type fast enough to bypass this link, but Google Suggest will take away traffic from Zappos, ShoeMall & mom & pop shops by landing users right on the brand’s site.

One point to make, once you’re off the Google homepage and on a results page, Suggest does not link anymore. As with everything else above, this could change.

Ultimately, Google will make the decision based on if they feel users found better results through this addition to Google Suggest. Keep an eye on this as it could go away or roll out for all searchers.

The PPC Team at SEER is no different. The Yahoo-woos are often heard, and often heard multiple times a day around the office. In the past the SEER PPC team has mentioned Yahoo Search Query reports on our blog. Back then my colleague, Bonnie, was the only privileged PPC Manager at SEER to get her hands on those reports. However, recently SEER landed a Yahoo Agency rep, who has truly been fantastic. One of the things she’s been able to do for us is to FINALLY provide all of our clients with the Search Query reports, on a monthly basis. (It seems that there are also other agencies out there that are finally gaining access to these reports as well according to a recent post on the PPC Hero blog).

However, along with the pure excitement of getting our hands on these top secret reports, unfortunately the SEER team also came to realize that the great privilege to receiving these report also brings along a dark cloud.

Why you ask? Let me tell you….

1. No matter how much you wish upon a star you cannot exclude “NOISE” words, Not EVER, No WAY!

What are “noise” words you ask? Well unless you specifically reach out to Yahoo regarding one of these terms, this is also kept top secret by our beloved Yahoo. “Noise” Terms are terms that are more commonly thought of as “articles.” This list includes the following terms:
A
About
All
An
And
Are
At
Be
Do
For
How
http
is
me
my
of
on
or
out
the
to
was
what
with
you
your

How does this hurt your campaign performance you ask? Well, just to name a few:

a. If you are offering a service, let’s say, “hair styling”, you obviously don’t want queries triggering your ad of users in a “learning stage,” such as “how to style hair,” “about hair styling,” etc. However, based on the list of terms above, both “how” and “what” are actually “noise” words, and you can’t stop your ads from showing? Absurd, I know!

b. How about if your company name is something like “Wisdom Tree Landscaping.” After receiving the almighty Search Query report, you realize you are showing up for “Tree of Wisdom.” Obviously not relevant, AT ALL. However, since “of” is a “noise” word, guess what, you cannot exclude this query!

Blood boiling yet? Let me give you one more piece of info…

2. Now, Yahoo’s “Standard” Match is to be similar to Google’s “Exact” Match type. Yahoo defines their Standard Match Type as:
The Standard match type displays your ads when a user searches for something online and you have already bid on the same keyword phrase. The Standard match type accounts for singular/plural variations and common misspellings.

Sounds great right, Yahoo will catch all the one-offs you can’t think of off the top of your head.

Actually, it’s not so great.

Yahoo’s matching technology is certainly not up to par with Google’s. After receiving the Search Query report, it’s heart breaking to see how many queries trigger your Standard Terms.

Here’s a great example; for a client of mine I bid on a 2 term phrase, on Standard Match and it’s one of our highest converting terms. However, I found through Search Query reports, that I am actually being matched to a 12 term query, that does NOT relate to my term. The kicker?

Because this term is on Standard Match, I CANNOT add the 12 term query as a negative. Yup, you heard right. On Yahoo Negative terms are not applied to campaigns/ad groups set to Standard Match.

So, now not only are your forced to show up for terms that include “Noise” terms, but also for any term Yahoo deems is a misspelling or singular/plural variation of your term.

The only “quick” fix you can implement if you see your Standard Match terms being matched to a TON of irrelevant queries is to change it to Advanced Match and then add the irrelevant queries. This then does open a whole other issue, as now your terms will be matched to all terms you were being matched to via Standard Match but now also queries that include pieces of your terms, your terms in different order, etc. (Here is more detail on Yahoo Advanced Match.

No wonder Yahoo keeps the Search Query reports a secret! Even if you see the terms that you are being matched to that are not driving relevant traffic, in some instances, there is nothing that you can do about it! Can you imagine what would happen if EVERY single Yahoo Advertiser was privy to these reports? Yahoo would receive a flood of angry emails!!!

The above example is only a small example of how keyword research could be used to develop a branding strategy, but this exercise really got the SEER team thinking about how search behavior can provide invaluable insight in developing a marketing strategy and could potentially save a company $1,000’s if not millions of dollars on a marketing campaign that would have otherwise ended up as failure.

SemGeek.com posted the blog post: 5 Ways to Persuade Your Clients to Spend More PPC Dollars, which highlighted this concept of how SEM can help in the research and development phase of a marketing strategy.

The paragraph that really stood out to me in the above post is below:

“III: More Affordable Testing:
In most cases, search marketers promote landing page A/B testing and Ad/Creative testing and that is a good thing. However, there are many other ways to use PPC as a testing vehicle not only for the website, but for the entire company and its offline ad initiatives. Let’s explain…
For example, making the case to use paid search to determine which Ad Messaging works more effectively before the Ad campaign hits the airwaves and cable stations is a very valuable tactic. Over the years, many millions of Ad dollars were spent on messaging that did not entirely make a good impression on the companies. With PPC, it’s a cost effective “pre-campaign” strategy to test the market before spending $100,000’s of dollars on TV, Radio and Print.”

This concept is truly insightful. Think of how much time, effort and money a company might spend thinking and developing the perfect messaging to resonate with their audience. Think of the time, effort and money spent developing the creative. I have never worked in the offline advertising world, but I can only imagine the hours of back and forth bantering it takes to develop a concept that you “think” will work. Being able to A/B test different messaging in a PPC Ad or on the landing page, instead of just guessing what may work and spending millions developing this messaging is an invaluable way to use paid search. I know best practices in online advertising often fail and that all the experience in the world can not ensure you an ad or a landing page will win over another. I am sure this is the same in the offline world as well.

This idea of testing Ad messaging before it is launched can be taken one step further to product development. Again, I have never worked as a product developer, but I can only imagine the time, effort and money it takes determining the best price point, the best packaging or the best way to sell the new idea. These elements can all be tested in a landing page to see what motivates individuals to sign up for product updates before a single dollar has been spent actually creating the product. This can help your team assess if there is actual demand for your new concept before you waste money creating a product that no one will want.

Now, this idea is a great theory, but how can it be accomplished in reality. This comes down to truly integrating your online/offline marketing strategy. Many times, you may have different agencies handling the different elements of your marketing mix, which is actually extremely smart, as you want to have “the best” in all aspects and finding one agency that is the “best” in everything may be impossible. While finding one agency may be impossible, integrating your strategy is not. All it takes is cooperation between the different agencies and making sure the online team is involved in the process before any ideas are finalized. Your online team can then create a paid search campaign designed to test the different ideas.

Being able to gather statistically significant data on which concepts work better than others enable paid search to be so much more valuable than just the web visit, the CPA or the conversion. Using paid search in the testing phase or the research and development phase, as SEMGeek’s post highlights, could potentially save millions.

The usual suspects are advertisers like eBay, Amazon.com, who seem to have recklessly dumped every word in the English language into an AdWords account, set them to broad match and paired them with a generic ad using dynamic keyword insertion.

Check out this query for the French dancewear company, Repetto.

Now, Repetto is not the best example because they do not actually sell shoes on their website. If they did, however, they would be foolish to allow retailers like Anthropoligie and Saks to capitalize on brand equity being built since the 1940’s.

If you’re going to advertise online, one of the first things you should do is protect your brand. Here is how it’s done:

Google

Google doesn’t require you to wait until you catch someone using your trademarked term in their ad copy to file a complaint. All you have to do is register your trademark by filling out the Google AdWords Trademark Complaint Form. Just fill in your trademark details and indicate in the Clarifications Section that you do not want to allow other advertisers to use your trademarked terms in their ad copy. Viola!

It’s no big surprise that Yahoo, MSN and Ask do not have a simple and comprehensive one step process like Google’s. With these engines, you must report each violation separately, which means that you have to monitor your brand in order to find any violations to report. One tool that may make this process a bit easier is BrandVerity, which will monitor Google, Yahoo and MSN and alert you whenever your trademarked term appears in a sponsored listing.

Yahoo

In order to file a trademark complaint with Yahoo, you need the following information:

1. The search term which triggered the ad you are reporting
2. Trademarked term(s)
3. Trademark registration number
4. Description of evidence a violation occurred (sending a screenshot should suffice)
5. The status of your correspondence with the advertiser committing the violation, assuming you have contacted them.

You can submit this information via snail mail or e-mail them. More details here.

MSN

Reporting a trademark violation on MSN is similar to Yahoo’s process but the form is a bit more complicated. You’ll need to include the ad title, description and display URL of the advertiser using your trademarked term. And each individual violation must be filed separately. More details here.

Ask

Ask provides a Word doc that you must fill out and send back via snail mail or fax. You will need to enter much of the same details required by Yahoo and MSN. Everything you need to know can be found here.

In addition to ensuring that you are able to maintain control over brand messaging delivered to consumers, there are many more benefits to protecting and monitoring your brand in sponsored search listings. Just to name a few, being the only advertiser allowed to display your trademarked terms in ad copy should improve CTR and improve quality score, helping to lower CPCs. But the bottom line is that you’ve worked hard to develop your brand and you shouldn’t allow your competitors to benefit from brand equity you have worked hard to build!