Part 1: clearly understand goals, at each stage in the buying cycle, before beginning any keyword research or analysis effort
I'm Jorie Waterman and I work on the Microsoft Keyword Services Platform (KSP); we developed the adCenter Add-in for Excel and this is the first in a series of blog posts about understanding your keyword advertising goals and how keyword research data can help you to determine these goals.
What is a goal? A goal might be hitting a CPA for a keyword, or ROI per click, or number of page views per keyword, or unique visitors per keyword, etc… Understanding goals is probably the most important element of any keyword analysis and research effort. This may seem obvious, but the keyword is the proxy of the person searching and no keyword is created equal!
What is the buying cycle? The buying cycle is the process people go through as they research, consider, purchase, and maintain their purchases or decisions. This can be described in many ways: Attention, Interest, Desire, Action, or Attention, Interest, Conviction, Desire, Close, and more. Ultimately, the definition of the buying cycle is best defined for the concept at hand rather than a universally set rule.
Keywords, just like people, have different properties and attributes that need to be evaluated at each stage of the buying cycle. In many reports and decision making processes we consider the point of conversion (sales amount, or number of sales per keyword) as the penultimate goal and make decisions based on this point of analysis only. This is a reflection of the fact that there is so much data and there are so many choices to make often the only manageable way to optimize a campaign is at the point of conversion. We need to look for keywords that might drive significant traffic, impressions, queries, and page views, even if they don't create immediate conversions as well. We need to consider this and can consider this even through simple Excel functionality – though more automated methods are forthcoming.
Another angle of this concept is the understanding of the search funnel or the temporal inter-relationships between all digital media which the buying cycle represents (Microsoft just released a beta called Engagement Mapping that gets to the heart of this concept). The search funnel is an understanding of the searches a user performs over a progression of time, across both paid and natural search. I'll leave this one alone until this data is more universally available in advertiser's on-site analytics tools – but note that it is very important and something that we all need to consider while optimizing a campaign if we can. To whet your appetite if you have not been able to see this data through your on-site analytics package I offer one great nugget from search funnel analysis:
- Often many conversions come from branded terms and hence the valuation of branded terms is justifiably high; but hidden behind branded terms are the terms searchers used before the branded search. The searcher's process often starts with broad, non-branded terms, or even (eureka!) a competitor's branded term and then leads to an eventual conversion on the branded term. The nuggets to be found in the search funnel are many and worth understanding; add to this simple funnel the interplay between paid and natural search and the play from one search engine property to another and you have a wealth of information that can help you connect more with your audience.
Consider that a person searching for "SUV" might be at the early stage of their purchase process (the buying cycle from the marketer's perspective). If your site is visible in either paid or natural search for this term and you receive traffic generating many page views, but no clear conversion is this a wasted effort? I argue that a person searching so broadly is considering their options, looking for details and trying to make a decision – hence a click that leads to many page views and significant time on site is a clear win and definitely not a waste. Frankly, the terms at this stage of the game might be more valuable than "2008 Ford Explorer Prices" that might lead to a direct conversion. Why? The mythical power of branding. Getting possible customers involved in your brand and willing to consider your product as an option is the only way to grow your customer base, rather than simply maintaining what you have already.
I can't underscore the following enough – understand what you need to accomplish through keyword-based marketing and realize that there are many more stages in your customer's decision process than simply the point of conversion. Then you need to fully understand your goals and the metrics that you have access to in order to benchmark success and iteratively improve your campaign(s).
In my next post I'll cover different metrics (focusing on Monthly and Daily search volume and Impression data) you can use throughout the buying cycle to help determine and benchmark against your goals.