Companies wise up to search marketing

Antony Yiu, search director for wwwins Consulting and iProspect Hong Kong observes the downturn has seen many clients shifting money from SEO to search marketing due to the immediate results in generating sales in the short term.

He explains search marketing refers to the coloured areas on the top and right hand side of search engine results page and SEO refers to organic search results displayed on the left hand side of the screen after a keyword is entered in the search box.

While search marketing is great in the short run to generate sales, Yiu says it will be too shortsighted to focus on search marketing only as you potentially lose the people who will be clicking on the organic search results and vice versa.

He says search marketing and SEO need to work hand in hand to capture all potential customers. Yiu strongly recommends marketers should start their search marketing campaigns while  they are optimizing their websites as it usually take a few months to see the full benefits of SEO.

He points out most marketers have the misconception that search marketing is expensive. With search marketing, you only pay when a user clicks on your ad, unlike traditional offline ad or online banner ads that are sold at a fixed cost for each thousand impression.

Yiu adds that having a beautifully designed website doesn't guarantee it will be ranked high in SEO. The website needs to be optimized so that search engines could read and understand the content of the site.

A search campaign requires both search marketing and SEO or you will lose clients that may click on paid search results by using SEO only and missing out on potential clients that click on organic search results if you solely focus on search marketing.

To build a smart search campaign, Yiu suggests always integrate your offline advertising media plan with SEO and search marketing. Sony is a good example in getting rid of displaying URLs on their offline advertising and replacing it with a keyword phrase instead.

He advises marketers to optimize their websites and run paid search campaign together or risk limiting exposure to relevant search terms by focusing on one or the other.

"Even with a limited budget, you need to plan which keywords to optimize on the website and which keywords to pay by running paid search ads."

Yiu reiterates the importance for all website owners to optimize their websites through SEO.

"I have seen many companies spend millions on a website that turn out to be impossible to find online, unless consumers diligently type in their exact URL. I cannot think of a reason why you build a website but you don't want people to find it!" he says.

In China, GroupM is expecting a very strong year in search marketing having recently appointed former Google China executive Sara Ye to lead search marketing efforts across its four media brands, MAXUS, Mediacom, Mediaedge:cia and Mindshare.

According to iResearch, search engine marketing revenue for China in 2009 is estimated to be worth 7.84 billion and will continue to grow to 13.78 billion in 2011.

Indeed, GroupM has noticed more clients in China understand the importance of search marketing and are requesting for paid search with large marketers such as Dell, HP and Nike taking the lead.

Statistics from CNNIC revealed China has the largest number of netizens at 253 million in 2008 and figures from iResearch shows search engine users are estimated to reach 303 million this year.

While demand for search marketing is increasing at a rapid rate, Ye, general manager, search marketing for GroupM China observes some marketers are using search the same way they approach traditional media.

Marketers turn search on when they roll out a promotion and switch it off when it ends. She says search marketing is not a short term media vehicle. To ensure ROI, marketers should adopt an "always on" approach and deploy search marketing all the time.   

Robbie Hills, CEO, Asia Pacific GroupM, Search adds there is a strong correlation on what clients do offline and online. They need to integrate their offline activities to drive people to use search. He says a marketer is wasting money if they launch a large scale above-the-line campaign without complementing it with search.

When it comes to best practices in search, Hills says relevancy is key. Make sure you select the right key words to meet your business objectives. While most paid search only brings users to the home page as the landing page, a good search marketing campaign brings users deep into the website that is close to transaction.

Make sure your website could be found in search engines and understand the technical element behind SEO.

Most importantly, he says to make sure you clarify your objectives for utilizing search marketing as a channel whether it is to sell more products or acquire more information from users through registration.

"You need to have clear search marketing objectives in place before you start."

Box Out: Case Study of Maxus' Asia Pacific search client HP

HP has engaged Maxus for a year-end promotion campaign. The objective was to promote HP products including consumer/commercial laptops, consumer/commercial desktops and accessories targeting mass consumers as well as to increase sales before the Spring Festival holiday.

Maxus used a combination of search products including Baidu search, Google search, Google AdSense, Google mobile and Google video with various creative formats such as video and text ads. The agency continuously optimized promotion-related keywords and holiday keywords.

The results was a 150% over-achieved Key Performance Indicators with average CPC decreased 40%.