Conversion Rate the metrics which makes every online markers thinking on how it can be improved. The basic fundamental A/B testing and various online marketing channel, design and templates are done on a yearly basis. However everyone forgets easily that we got to be present every-time consumer are searching for us.

In an online arena a Conversion Rate of 2% is considered as a minimum target but people easily forget that 98% of the people left the site. To capture these consumer who left a 360 degree marketing approach needs to be implemented.

How to approach the 360 Degree Advertising?

• Branding: Brand Advertisement is a the most essential and the first step in an advertisement. It is the first mantra of online advertisement.
• Display Advertising: Content Network Advertisement or Display Network: It is one of the second mantra of tapping untapped visitors. This will get a boost in the total visitor and it is advantageous as the CPC is less competitive.
• Social Advertisement: One of the channel which is really important to engage visitors. These visitors would help spread the word with their tweet or online sharing.
• Email Marketing: Now once all these channels are starting to drive traffic the most important task is to start reminding them via means of Email Marketing. 
• Re-Marketing: Dropping cookies and capturing these visitors via means of Readvertising i.e. Remarketing is one of the last but most important step. Those visitors who came to the website are the visitors who are interested in the product which is being offered. These visitors are potential buyers and missing to provide the product information once they are in there process of researching is like missing the potential buyer. Hence re-marketing comes into play and it will ensure that the message is delivered to the visitor.

Quality Score of a Keyword is related towards the performance of the Keyword participating in an auction and it is a real time calculation when the auction is being conducted and the keyword is eligible to participate. Quality score does is tied with the Adtext, Campaign, Account and Website Performance.

The quality score binds directly with the URL but it has other factors influencing the score.Please be mindful that the Quality score is not influenced by Google Display Network but it soley relaies on Search Network.

Tips Improving Quality Score:

• Always build the Campaign, AdGroup, Adtext and Keyword which are tightly Knitted. A thorough check is vital to be done immediately to see the Quality Score of the keyword.
• Dynamic Keyword Insertion in the Text Ads helps improve the overall Qualty Score of the Keyword.
• It is all about relevancy - Keyword should be relevant with the Adtext, AdGroup and the most important Landing Page URL and its Content.
• Initial Bid should be high enough to accrue higher CTR which would improve Quality Score and the actual CPC which is to be paid.

PPC and Organic Search are two completely different segment of traffic. The traffic which are being bought either CPC, CPA, CPM  etc. are classified in terms of PPC while those traffic which are being pouring as a result of search engine optimization or being referred via search engine are classified under organic search.

SEM professionals are always placed under a radar to a very generic question like -

• Does PPC takes away conversion from Organic Search?

• The answer to this question is:
  No, PPC does not take away conversion from Organic Search. It helps drive additional traffic to the website in the form of organic search. With the help of PPC and a significant improvement on the landing page via web-optimizer tool; an improvement could be made to the overall website.
  
  The improvement in the website and optimizing the page for the keywords is only the first step. Next step would be the SEO efforts like keyword analysis, keyword density analysis, keyword proximity analysis, link building, Social network awareness, Press release, Article publication etc. Finally, PPC activity is a must to uplift the quality of traffic. Once enough traffic is seen coming and the SEO effects comes into play the organic traffic received by the page is increased.
  
  It is seen that the PPC traffic can help us optimize the keywords which are to be targeted for SEO purpose. Not all the keywords which generates tons of clicks always convert. Hence to decide the keywords which are difficult to rank and it is worth testing the goal of the website using PPC. Once the myth is proved with the help of PPC it can next be passed to SEO team to optimize the keyword for Organic search.

It is seen that there is 6% to 8% increment in traffic while the both organic and PPC are running simultaneously. This stat might vary based on the size of the website and total traffic the site is receiving. Moreover also note seasonality and category of website would influence the the traffic numbers.  

Forrester Research revealed that by 2016 there will be 35% growth in the Ad Spend. It would become a $77 billion industry. The online industry would almost double by 2016 a massive growth of  85% from 2011 to 2016 (19% vs. 35%).

The Online Search trend is growing with a tremendous speed. Especially Mobile it is moving with a much faster speed. The AdSpend in Mobile would over take the combined AdSpend over Social Network and Email Marketing. The search trend is increasing in both Mobile, Tablets and handheld devices. The search trend is shifting in mobile with a tremendous speed. and it looks very promising as the will hit $8.2 Billion by the year 2016.

If the mobile arena is growing with a massive speed it would definetly capture the online marketing share resulting in the fall of other online marketing channel. The victim would be seen as Search. Display Advertising, Mobile Marketing and Social Media all are growing in a rapid pace. Although search would still be leader the $55 Billion AdSpend it is going to experience a massive -10% fall. (55% vs. 44%).

Another promising area which would see a growth is Dynamic Banner, this industry would be growing from $10.9 Billion industry to $27.6 Billion industry. The advertisers would enter in the competition of displaying their ads via means of Dynamic Banner. They would want to present every-time the searches are being made or someone is showing interest in the product. The stalking or  re-marketing would utilize these dynamic banner to a great extent. The blend of re-marketing and dynamic banner would be seen in a very extensive manner. The more segmentation the site would have the more granular stalking or re-marketing or re-targeting would occur. Majority of content network and even social network would start serving these dynamic banner.

Daily Deals would tend to decline as advanced technology and micro sites would start serving the deals and promo. Also, advertisers would tend to reach the consumer everytime they are online. Also, Social media would still tend to remain only $4 Billion AdSpend which is just 7%. 

Display 

AS per Google "Re-marketing is a feature of interest-based advertisement". Re-marketing in a layman terms could be explained as those visitor who visited your website are being again served with advertisement across various website. Re-marketing or call it Re-targeting it is highly targeted as the end users being targeted are not a new visitors but are visitors who once during their purchase cycle had visited the website. These users might have dropped off during their purchase cycle. Re-targeting these users will allow us to re-offer the inventory which he was interested or in other term Convert Repeat Visitors into Customers.


Having said that re-marketing is targeting the visitors who are not the new visitor but returning it is always very significant to classify these users. These users should be segmented properly. The users segmentation would be based upon the type of page and category the user was browsing. The granular the segmentation higher probability of conversion. The user could be re-targeted and thanks to re-marketing but the strategy of implementing the user categorization is vital. It is also important to consider that the visitor had left off the page because the product was not available to catch the interest a mechanism of serving those products which others were interested could lead towards conversion.

A general information on how re-marketing works:

• It is all about tracking:
• A JavaScript or Pixel Image is placed in the website. The code is activated every time the page loads. The data is transmitted via the code to the server which is responsible for offering remarketing ore re-targeting solution.
• It is all about getting to know your visitor: 
• Cookie is placed for every visitor who visits the website. The cookie has specific information at a granular level which is not only limited to the page the users visited but also the place where he dropped off.
  
• Follow visitor during his purchase cycle:
• The third party offering the solution is than capable of serving the visitor with the same product at a discounted price. Or serving alternative products with a highly targeted message as "Purchase now until the stock lasts - Last 3 items remaining".
• Providing sense of urgency and serving the item along with related product would help ease the visitor to make quick decision.
  

How can Remarketing influence Website Performance?
The answer to this question is very simple. The targeting and re-targeting visitor who are interested in your products in every step of purchase cycle could influence the visitor to purchase. There wouldn't be any company in this world who wouldn't want to appear in the search result or either in the form of MSE, PPC, CPC, CPA, CPM or even email marketing. The presence is utmost when the visitor is looking for you. It would be a crime against marketing if the presence is not marked especially when the user is looking for you or your product. Influence on the performance of the website would be seen as generally there is 2% visitor of the website converts while 98% visitors would abandon the website. To improve the performance a highly targeted campaign should be crafted to capture not only the visitor during the Pre-purchase but also Post-purchase. Based on the segmentation different kind of message is to be delivered.

Is price comparison available on Google? The search query are returning pages with the hotel properties and its review along with an arrow which would display the prices. This could also be a test being conducted over the google search pages. It might possibly being done for a better user experience. It could be the user conducting research might also be interested to purchase the properties.

Google search results for the term "hotel budapest" is displaying price for hotels for the selected date range. The query triggered the hotels with review and and price. These results are being seen only for the organic search result. A small drop down beneath if clicked would display the starting rate in US$ and the website offering the property at that price. It also displayed the rate with tax in small letters.

Price Comparison on Google Search Page - Search Query - "Hotel Budapest"
  

Price Comparison on Google Search Page - Search Query - "Hotel Bangkok"

View Through Conversion - Mostly when the campaign is running in CPM mode or if the Campaign is crafted for display advertisement, it is essential that there are two different metrics being reported. Actual conversion and View through Conversion.

Now, let us understand -  What is View Through Conversion?
Those people who are exposed via an advertisement which they actually saw during their research and purchase cycle. They might not actually click the advertisement but would later at certain period of their purchase cycle would commit their purchase via different advertisement or the same campaign. All those advertisement which they were exposed are in-fact view through conversion. And the advertisement  which they ad influence them to buy was actual conversion.

Advantage of tracking View Through Conversion -

• Justifying those advertisement which have brought traffic and played a minor role in conversion. This metrics would than help re-define the marketing campaign.
• Tracking visitor based on those people who had seen the ads and they who went forward to buy the product via different ad. These metrics wold help enhance the performance of the campaign.
• Higher click through rate doesn't actually means they are ot performing, they might be part of view through conversion (micro-conversion).

Last click attribution model has always been debated. In a natural buying cycle an end user would tend to research for the products over various networks. The user is than exposed to various campaign across Search Engines, Meta Search Engines, Content Network, Email Campaign, Re-marketing Campaign etc.

Now once the user is being exposed to various stages of product research till product purchase life cycle, he is exposed to different Campaign. The million dollar question would be Who should be credited for the Purchase made?

There are two different approach -

• Last click attribution method.
• Measure Micro Conversion.

 Usually in a natural buying cycle while research is being made often keywords search funnel could help track Keywords during buying cycle. Similar approach is to be used for tracking micro conversion. Tracking which campaign assisted in executing the conversion.

Advantage of Measuring Micro Conversion -

• Justice towards the campaign which is exposing the user during the purchase cycle. Mostly the probable consumer conducting research once exposed to the Ads would tend to return back and the probability of user returning via Brand Campaign is higher.
• Higher Click Trough Rate and Lower Conversion rate isn't an impression that Campaign is under performing.
• Not optimizing the Campaign based on the last click attribution method would lead towards increase in conversion.

How to Major effectiveness of Micro Conversion -
To measure the micro conversion a simple approach would be by measuring the impact of the traffic being send across in one particular domain via a channel should to be monitored.

For instance, several  Campaign are running across various channel like CPC, PPC, MSE, SMM etc. These should be all tracked and time stamp should be placed on the user which was first exposed to towards the campaign. Next there should also be a provision of stamping the user every-time he actually lands on the website. This will easily allow one to track the performance on the campaign which was actually responsible for the conversion. Hence the justice is given to the campaign and both micro-conversion and macro-conversion.

Practically it is ideal to attribute the campaign based on the micro-conversion and macro-conversion. A value could be assigned to the type of conversion. And based on the conversion the total value attributed by the conversion could be measured. Now, when everything looks good there is always a hurdle and this hurdle is known as View through Conversion. Let us discuss the View through Conversion and its importance in next blog.

What the traffic data being gathered for the website is not being segmented? The data being viewed without segmentation is like not considering the the purpose of the traffic.  Every business should consider segmenting there visitors. Having segmentation allows a proper view of the purpose of traffic.

Certain things to be considered while viewing the data:

• Top level performance: An overview of the major KPIs , its performance over X weekdays, % change and probability for the upcoming weekday. A Graphical representation on the effect over the main KPI which would provide an immediate view over the performance.
• Secondary level: Break the Traffic in different segments and major its KPI compared with last weekday.
• Third level: Consider the top 5 negatives and top 5 positive and further break down the Secondary Level data.
• Fourth Level: Consider the origin of the data and keep the track of top changes or new entry among top 10.

Having segmented data would allow visualizing performance and dedicating the performance which could have impacted the overall performance. Also, it could be essential to concentrate on certain segment which is positively impacting the performance.

Is it a myth or a proven fact that Keyword Insertion has a positive Impact on Quality Score? The answer to this question revolves around the Quality Score itself.

What is Quality Score?
For every query that is eligible to participate in an auction has a capability to triggers an ad. A Quality Score is than updated frequently and is a performance based. Quality Score is determined by following three criteria:

• Click Through Rate
• Relevance
• Landing Page Quality

Now, coming back to our question earlier, does Keyword Insertion has a positive impact over the quality score. In-fact yes the quality score could have positive impact due to keyword insertion. The reason for this would be the Ad triggered by the keyword would enhance the Ad making it more relevant to the user hence probability of Ad receiving Click would be higher.

The two major criteria Click Through Rate and Ad relevancy is both met due to Keyword insertion. There are other external factor which shouldn't be ignored such as Landing page Quality, the bid and average position.

Brand, Brand, Brand everyone is trying to build their brand. Be either offline or online. In this era online presence is a must. Building a website and developing a logo alone are not the only work. Having an online presence, investing on offline advertisement, affiliate marketing, email marketing, online marketing, media presence etc. are all the channel which is needed to build a brand. Building brand is a constant process.

On numerous occasion it is mentioned to advertisers - "Why do we need to do PPC on our Brand terms? We have our website and organic link would appear if people are looking for the brand terms".

It is always good to have your website present if the brand term is being searched. There isn't any guarantee that the searches being made is only the brand term but it could be combination of brand terms and competitors brand term. It could also be that the searches are being conducted as a long tail which would than result the organic search not to appear for long tail keywords. No visibility means lost of opportunity. Being in the market it is always necessary to mark the presence when the searches are being made. It is a must to be mark the presence when people are looking for you. This could be tackled easily with the help of PPC.

A common mistake which is seen widely in the company while a promotional campaign is being executed. All the efforts are than places in an offline arena completely ignoring the online market. This would result into not tapping those people which see the brand offline and conduct their research online. Having offline campaign on and no supportive online campaign would lead towards loss of opportunity or even worse allowing the affiliate to cash onto the efforts made offline. It is equally important to conduct both offline and online advertisement simultaneously. Although the offline conversion could be a macro conversion, other sources could be considered as micro conversion. Classifying the conversion into micro and macro conversion could overall change the picture the way a brand is perceived.

Brand strength is a long term investment. It is equally necessary to build the brand first and then protect the strong brand which you have. The brand equity is just like financial equity. The longer the brand is existing in the market the more it is able to leave the mark in the mind of audience. It may also start to blend with the culture as people trust the brand and love it as they grow with the brand. Building a new brand is difficult but not tapping the market when the searches are being made is worse. It is more or less of a crime against the fundamentals of brand building cycle.

How can one build the brand Online? The following areas are specifically available for online marketing

• Online Search
• Content Network
• Image Searches
• Re-marketing
• Email Marketing

How can one utilize the data gathered from Brand? The metrics which would play a role in identifying the performance of how the brand is moving.

• Impression on the Exact brand Term
• Increment in Visitors
• Visitors Loyalty  (Repeat Visitor)
• Time spent on the site
• Bounce Rate
• Total Page Views

Google Adwords provides various kind of reports which are available under the dimensions Tab. These Reports are available under a drop down menu and are namely -

• Day of the week
• Day
• Week
• Month
• Quarter
• Year
• Hour of day
• Destination URL
• Conversion Tracking purpose
• Conversion Action Name
• Demographic
• Geographic (Formerly: Geographic Performance Report)
• Search Terms (Formerly: Search Query Report)
• Automatic Placements

If we see tons of traffic pouring in and not enough visitors are seen over the website. A common question pops in mind why the Click Through Rate is down? This drop in Click Through Rate could be brought about by following reasons:

• Adtext is not appealing.
• Lower average position resulting less clicks and reduce in CTR.
• New/Existing player bidding aggressively in the market.
• Lower Quality Score.

All these above scenario could be improved by improving the Adtext by improving the message being delivered. Increasing the CPC could result into better average position and resulting into more Clicks. The quality score could be improved by tightly targeting the adtext and keywords and also tweaking the landing page. New player keeps coming in market and existing player would become aggressive at times this could be difficult but google adwords automated rule could help overcome this. To improve the CTR please follow the tips mentioned below:

• Continous A/B testing to improve the AdCopy.
• Ensure the CPC bid would leave towards Top 3 spots where the click density is high.
• Include Sitelinks this would improve the presence of Adtext and resulting in improved CTR..
• A proper call to action.
• The message in the AdCopy should match the content of he landing page.

Example of AdCopy -

The above AdCopy could be improved. But before the new AdCopy is placesd it is recommended to do A/B testing over the AdCopy.


An example on the way ti would be displayed for short headline.

Longer Headline in AdCopy - 
Google recently started providing the Headline which is longer than 25 Characters. The longer Headline is more appealing providing To qualify for this longer Headline certain criteria should be met. Now having said that I would lie to rephrase that it is in fact not a longer Headline, but it is more of less of presentation of the AdCopy. Will this help? Yes, study shows that having longer headline improves the chances of CTR. It stands out and is more appealing than the Short Headline.

Minimum Requirements to meet longer Headlines requirment -

• Description Line 1 should end with proper punctuation.Example - Period, Question mark and Exclamation mark.
• Enough traffic for the search term which allows the ads to appear on the left side of top 3 spots.

Example -

It is seen that having a longer headline text would improve the CTR between 3% to 25%. On average a 7% improve in CTR could be seen across both non-brand and brand terms. This improvement in CTR could be assumed to be as a result of better user experience and visibility of the PPC advertisement over Organic result. The key take away from the combination of headline should be that the description Line1 and the headline should provide enough information for the people to click on the Ads. The Line 2 would serve as secondary information which AdCopy is trying to deliver.


Longer headline, it is the combination of Headline plus the description in Line 1.



Beside the longer headline which is the combination of headline and Line 1, it seems there are some results seen which infact has headline longer than 25 characters. It won't be surprising if it comes into picture sooner or later.

Keywords results into conversion and. every advertiser are always in the dilemma of researching the golden keywords. These golden keywords which could help improve conversion. There are various sources these keywords are available -

• Search Based Keyword Tool (SKTool)
• Search Query Reports (SQR)
• Google Analytic (GA)
• Blogs, E-mails and Product Reviews

Search Based Keyword Tool (SKTool) -
The tool helps generate those keywords from Title which are not present in the Adwords account for the selected domain. This tool also helps you find all the related search terms for a given keyword. The beauty of this tool lies in identifying the queries from, location with the amount of searches which the keyword is actually able to trigger along with its approximate Max CPC.



Search Based Keyword Tool
While I started this post, the SKTool has been migrated to a new location, however the functionality has remained and even been improved. A new section to choose category and include and exclude terms are additional option available for users.



Search Query Reports (SQR) -
Another important golden mine for researching golden keywords would be Search Query Terms report. This is a perfect source to see what other keywords are  being searched are could be considered to be bought. A quick and fast way of buying these keywords could be by downloading all the Search Terms and filtering down those which has brought conversion and excluding those which are very generic. Best practice of using these search terms listed be classified as below -

• Download all the Keywords or Search Terms, it is worth using at least 30 or more days data.
• Check for all those keywords which have brought Conversions and add them.
• Filter those keywords which brought tons of impression but no clicks, this would result into lowering the overall CTR and hence would impact the quality score.
• All those keywords which brought tons of costs and no bookings might be worth considering to add as an exact negative. Having said that it is always good to check the landing page, if it is working or is not and also the product if it is not out of stock.

Google Analytic -
It is one of the source which does not only relies on Google but various other search engine. The keywords which brings traffic from different sources could be considered to be bought in paid campaigns.Not every company considers advertising over all the search engine. But visitors do land up in our website via means of different search engine. Those keywords which results into goals are the keywords which we shouldn't be missing in our advertising platform. Digging these keywords is straight forward. Take a look in analytic where the keywords have conversion. With the aid of SQL query it is possible to remove duplicate keywords such that unique converting keywords could be bought in the Google Adwords.




Blogs, E-mails and Product Reviews -
Making use of keyword density to identify those keywords which are with higher density. These keywords than could be considered to be posted in the Adwords.

Overall it is wise to make use of various sources to consider different keywords. More keywords the merrier it is. The hidden golden keywords are vital to improve the performance of the campaign, it could be bought as either positive or negative.