Maybe I’m ‘old school’ but when it comes to optimizing PPC conversions there’s simply no set-and-forget ‘technology’ out there that can do the whole job. It simply doesn’t work that way.
In my opinion there will never be a substitute for solid keyword research, targeted creative messaging, and optimized landing pages. It is this ‘Conversion Success Triad’ and a lot of blood sweat and tears along the way, that ultimately drives the results for your campaigns and clients.
Now before I go on I need to first explain that this is not a dig at PPC campaign automation, bid management, or Conversion Optimizer, for these can each be perfect solutions when employed correctly. What I get annoyed at is when I either see or hear of people who claim that their conversion optimizer is all a Search Marketer will ever need to hit their goals, or even more dangerous, when a Search Marketer truly believes that conversion optimization automation (try saying that 3 time fast!) is actually all they need…
It’s unfortunate, because there is so much misinformation out there, or perhaps more succinctly, many young eager search marketers willing to jump onto the next big thing flying past and never get the opportunity to discover what is actually happening under the hood.
Automating conversion optimization will only truly be successful if the principles of the Conversion Triad are adhered to: Keywords, Ad Text, Landing Pages. – Automation then is pretty painless because you’ve already done the hard work to get the most you possibly can out of your campaign.
When Google first released Conversion Optimizer I thought, Great, yet another tool designed for lazy search marketers. Because, all of a sudden many time poor marketers saw this as a quick win for their clients – Oh let’s just set conversion optimizer going on the account and Google will do the work for us. Wrong, wrong, wrong!
But it happened time and time again. I’ve witnessed it first hand, and you know the worst part? It actually works well enough to get a job done. So no one, not the client, nor the noob search marketer actually know that they’re leaving opportunity on the table. This is why it’s so dangerous.
Google Conversion Optimiser, as an example, works – simple as that.
Turn it on, and it will optimize the bids and keyword positions to ensure that you get your conversions at or around the specified Cost Per Lead/Sale etc. (no guarantees on volume etc.)
The issue here is that if the account was not first structured correctly i.e Keywords were poor, issues with match types, bad ad copy, or bad landing pages, then the ‘Automation’ of the account is based on sub optimal performance… Result - Sub-optimal conversion optimization.
So by all means automate your account if required, and turn on Conversion Optimizer to give it a whirl, but if you have not already put in the hard yards to get everything humming along, then don’t expect Conversion Optimiser to be the be-all and end-all solution for your needs. After-all, you know what they say “Shit in, Shit out!”
I’d disagree strongly with your post, Bid Management can do a lot to streamline the conversion process & free up your time as a campaign manager:
Real Referring Search Terms – Something that the Search Query report just isn’t good for.
Automated Negative addition – A laborious process by hand
Tracking ROAS down to Keyword level – Again something that Adwords doesn’t handle appropriately (you can obviously track this in Analytics but hard to make quick changes at a campaign level with so much data)
You can’t search campaigns at a granular level (i.e. show me all keywords that are below the threshold ROAS)
Model based bidding – How far can you push the campaign within current thresholds testing all possibilities
Whilst there still needs to be a considerable amount of human interaction, bid management (done correctly) can save a large amount of unnecessary time & wastage to allow you more time to do what you said:
Target better landing pages
Write better creatives
Spend more time analysing Analytics
Maybe you just haven’t found the right too yet
Stu
Hey Stu,
So, you ‘disagree strongly’ hey? Those be fighting words!
Seriously though, and as I made a point of explaining ‘…this is not a dig at PPC campaign automation, bid management, or Conversion Optimizer, for these can each be perfect solutions when employed correctly…’
The key here is ‘used correctly’, and believe it or not, we may may just be on the same page, or close to it! Where I see the issue is that too many people hid behind automation tools such as Google’s basic Conversion Optimizer, and fail to truly understand what they should be focusing on when it comes to optimization.
Surprisingly, I actually agree with you pretty much 100%! and when you say of bid management that there ‘still needs to be a considerable amount of human interaction’ – that’s my point exactly, a tool is only as good as the people using it, so no automation tool is going to be able to maximize results if the account is not optimized correctly in the first place.
I’ve seen it time and time again – poorly structured accounts chugging along using one bid management tool or another, but probably only achieving 50-60% of what it could. It’s not an issue with the software, it’s a lack of understanding from the people driving it.
Ahh the age old question of “is search marketing a science or an art”. It’s kinda like building a house… you can build a perfectly good house by hand, but using power tools you can build a house a lot faster and more efficiently. However the power tools don’t build the house themselves, you still need to know the principles of building a house along with how to use the power tools. It’s the same with search, bid management tools and conversion optimisers etc can help you build a search campaign faster and manage it more efficiently, however you still need to know the principles of search marketing and how to properly use these tools.
Your blog is so informative … ..I just bookmarked you….keep up the good work!!!!
Thanks for the post ! I like the ‘Conversion Success Triad’ you refer to. Succinct and clear.