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Google AdWords – Search vs. Display Advertising

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Google Search vs. Display – Pros and Cons

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Search vs. Display: What Are They?

In Google Adwords, there are two primary “venues” on which you can display ads, the first being Google Search, the second being the Google Display Network (GDN).

Google Search and their search partners, such as search.aol.com, allow the display of text ads along with organic results (unpaid) that are triggered by keywords. You type in a keyword or phrase, Google displays the most relevant ads. When you click on the ad, the advertiser is charged based on an auction price and you are re-directed to the advertiser’s website.

GDN on the other hand are “contextually” targeted ads based on content, interests, or topics. Publishers of content use Google Adsense as the vehicle for displaying ads. In addition, Google uses your demographic data and interests to display ads you might be interested in.

So if, for example, you are reading an article about Tiger Woods skipping the US Open and see an ad for the new Nike 20XI golf ball, the ad is there. Nike recognizes that, if you are reading an article on golfchannel.com, you probably have an interest in Golf. So you might buy golf balls.

On the other hand, if you are reading an article on nytimes.com, you might see the same Nike 20XI Golf ball ad. Most likely, this ad was displayed because your Ad Preferences indicate “Golf” as an interest.

How to Find a Good Site Where You Can Advertise?

There are a variety of ways to find relevant/high quality sites to target. Generally speaking, I look for them in this order:

Search Google using the most valuable keywords I am trying to target. I prefer using Google Search initially to find sites to advertise on, since those that show up on the first page are presumably more relevant. From the organic search results, I look at the websites on page one to see if they are running ads from either Google or Double Click. I also check the depth and content of the site for quality. If you see display ads on the site, check the link of the ad by either hovering over it, or look for the “Ads by Google” logo. (Hint: If you are a publisher, invest in SEO so we can find your site.

Next step is to use the Google Adplanner. Adplanner allows me to more specifically target websites running Adsense based on audience parameters such as geography, language, demographics, online activity, and interests. Adplanner also provides filtering based on Google Ranking method, inventory, category, ad specific, and domain suffix.
I’ll use the “Placement Tool” in Adwords, even though the results are typically comparable to those found in Adplanner.

I look at the sites referring traffic in Google Analytics to find sites that are sending some traffic, but would be good prospect for sending more.

From the research above, I will add sites as “Managed Placements,” in addition to a list of standard sites I always target such as mail.google.com, ehow.com, about.com. and nytimes.com

Managed placements are my highest value group of websites, as opposed to automatic placements, which are those that Google is determining as relevant and then displaying my ads accordingly.

Think of the difference between Automatic and Managed placements as if they were baseball teams. Managed placements are the players on the team that have made it to a Major League Team. I hand picked them, and if they don’t play well, I kick them off them team. In the past, they have performed well and are of above average quality.

Automatic placements are those that are still in the farm system working extremely hard to perform well enough to make it to the Major League. Automatic placements, like a Baseball Scout, are also always on the lookout for new sites to target or new players to add to the team.

Search Pros:

Simple to set up and manage

Search Cons

It’s the first thing everyone thinks of when launching a paid search campaign, so the competition for a keyword may be high resulting in poor ROI / Return-on-Investment.
In order to have an effective search campaign, a large amount of emphasis needs to be on targeting high Quality Score keywords
It is available as “Cost-Per-Click” Pricing Only (also referred to as PPC / Pay-per-click pricing)
Text ads are the only format allowed

Display Pros

Lower Cost per click and conversion. On average the CPC is 30% less for display than search.
Remarketing – This is the practice of displaying an ads on GDN to someone that visited a particular page on your web site
Measuring “view-through-conversion”, which is a metric of the number of conversions that happened within 30 days of someone seeing the ad
Casts a much wider net (better reach) across content that is related to your keywords
Pricing flexibility: Cost per Click or Cost per thousand (CPM pricing)
Better targeting to content-rich and relevant sites
More visually appealing ad options rather than just text
Behavioral, demographic, and geographic targeting capabilities

Display Cons

Getting your boss or client to understand why such a low Click Through Rate (CTR) is a good thing can be challenging
Initial set up is more complicated that search
Initial cost to set up is higher than search as you may incur a cost for advertisement design
Less control can mean lower quality traffic if you are using automatic placement. Automatic placements require increased maintenance to exclude sites that are of poor quality (i.e. one page websites running Adsense on what is essentially nothing more than a doorway page)
So how do you sell this to your metrics-driven Boss or Client?
First, focus on what the key metrics are as follows:

Impressions: Depending on a number of factors, including your overall budget and how much of it is allocated to display, you can see 10-20 times as many impressions as you can in search

Cost per click: As a general rule of thumb, your cost per click on display should be 30% less than Search

Cost per conversion: The metric I personally manage to for display conversions is 20% less than search
Info from ReturnonNow.com

North American Search Market Heats Up!!

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Search engine marketing spending is expected to be up 14% to $16.6 billion in North America in 2010. While growth in this marketing channel, which includes paid search, search engine optimization, and other search engine marketing technologies, slowed in 2008 and 2009, it still proved to relatively recession-resistant. As we progress into 2010, the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) projects steady growth to return.

In a recent survey, SEMPO found that a majority of marketers planned to shift marketing budgets away from other channels such as direct mail and spend more on paid search and search optimization. Marketers see search optimization as a valuable means for increasing Website traffic and generating leads. In turn, site traffic metrics could measure the success of campaigns, such as conversation rate.

Respondents, however, are concerned about measuring return on investment, effectively optimizing their sites, and choosing the best keywords. Further, markets were also daunted with the challenge of integrating paid search and search optimization with other online and offline marketing strategies.

“Smart” Phone Users Trust Carriers The Most

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There is no question that mobile devices are becoming the next trend for marketers to reach their consumers. Marketing via mobile devices allow companies to reach their target markets anywhere and at anytime! There is an estimated 650 million people worldwide who use “smart” phones to access the Internet monthly and a recent study shows just who these users trust with regards to their services.

According to a Tellabs survey conducted by The Nielsen Company, two-thirds of mobile users around the globe are interested in “smart” services that would feed them information based on personal preferences, location, time of day and social setting.

Looking at the graph provided here, mobile users place a significant amount of trust in their mobile carriers in terms of protecting their information and actions on their phones. They also overwhelmingly selected their mobile carriers as the “most appropriate” provider of services for their devices like phone service, Internet accessibility, and applications.

Within the survey, consumers preferred to find their news, media, and entertainment content provided by their mobile carriers, then followed by other web providers, and then a combination of the two.

When it came to shopping services, however, there was a notable difference: Mobile carriers dropped somewhat in importance, and advertisers became a much more prominent source of information.

US marketers have already begun experimenting with exactly this type of smart shopping service. “Geo-fencing” of “Geolocation apps” provide personalized marketing messages to shoppers based on their location or proximity to a marketer’s store. A recent experiment from a store called 1020 Placecast, piloted a ShopAlerts program that was embraced by mobile users:

* 60% said the location-triggered messages were “cool” and “innovative.”
* 79% claimed to be more likely to visit a store.
* 65% made a purchase.
* 73% were likely to use the service again.

As technology continues to become more innovative and creative, we will soon be living in a world where you cannot escape the annoyances of advertising. Soon enough, we will have ads sent to our phones in correspondence to our physical location and time of day! This is very exciting yet horrifying but I am excited to see what the latest technological advances can do for companies that can benefit consumers.

Information Provided By: eMarketer
Blog Post Written By: Kent Seiders

What causes consumers to search online?

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The one thing that makes social media marketing so attractive lies in four words: word-of-mouth marketing. This is one of the most effective and credible forms of marketing a product or service and is the reason why so many companies feel the need to have a presence on many social networking sites. However, these social media users prefer a different type of interaction to help them inspire or prompt an online search…

According to a recent survey, conducted by BIGresearch for the Retail Advertising & Marketing Association (RAMA), they found that in-person, face-to-face communication was a social media users’ top reason to start an online search for a specific product or service.

The study revealed that social media users were even more influenced by face-to-face word-of-mouth than an average adult’ opinion found online.

This preference of face-to-face communication held across all age groups within the survey, and the only difference among any age group was that 18- to 34-year-olds were more likely to search online because of something they had seen on cable television, which was a smaller force among older users.

The study also demonstrated that online communities, such as MySpace and Facebook, influenced less than one-quarter of social media users to search for a product or service which is still a notable percentage. When it came to gender differences, men were marginally more likely than women to report such an influence from a social networking site and age had an even larger effect. Among the 18-to-34 group, nearly three in 10 searched because of social networks, compared with less than 20% of 35- to 54-year-olds and 15.3% of those 55 and older.

More than 71% of the respondents communicated about a service, product or brand in person after an online search, compared with only 21.6% who spread the word via sites such as MySpace or Facebook. Not all digital communication was shunned, however; about one-half used e-mail to tell others what they had found.

Social media users are particularly attractive to marketers because they are more likely to both look for and give purchase advice than the general population. Word-of-moth marketing continues to be one of the most valuable marketing tools available to companies so they should be focusing a lot, but not all of, of time in the online arena, especially in social media.

Information Provided By: eMarketer
Blog Post Written By: Kent Seiders

Happy Holidays from WebitMD! See you in 2010

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The 2009 year encompassed enormous growth, for WebitMD. The success of our agency has been driven by the success of our client’s websites. 2010 will encompass new local search optimization services, advanced phone call tracking, updated SEO strategies, and the WebitMD expansion into New York, Miami, and Houston. The WebitMD team is looking forward to this exciting opportunity!

The WebitMD offices will be closed from December 23, 2010 until January 3, 2010. Our project management team will be available during this period; they can be reached at Support@WebitMD.com.

From all of us here at the WebitMD team, we wish you a safe and happy holiday season and look forward to servicing you in 2010.