Reaping the Benefits of Co-Optimization

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REAPING THE BENEFITS
OF CO-OPTIMIZATION
Bill Hunt, President, Back Azimuth Consulting

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CONTACTING ME
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Bill Hunt
@BillHunt
Back-azimuth.com & whunt.com
Facebook.com/BackAzimuthConsulting
bill@back-azimuth.com
President

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CO-OPTIMIZATION DEFINED
Integrating, measuring, and optimizing
simultaneously high ranking PPC & SEO keywords
to maximize their collective potential for traffic and
conversions.
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CO-OPTIMIZATION BUSINESS VALUE
• Identify missed opportunities for exposure due to irrelevant
snippets, lack of ranking, mixed messages and segment
cannibalization
• Maximizing PPC budgets by reducing cannibalization and
increasing share of voice for non-ranked keywords
• Maximizing SERP ShelfSpace
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CO-OPTIMIZATION SUCCESS
• $300k in PPC savings in 40 days (funded FT analysis)
• $250k in incremental SEO revenue in 60 days
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DATA ALIGNMENT

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IS YOUR DATA THIS FUNKY?
• Paid Search Spend $20 million US
• Critical/Important Keywords – 1,120
• SEO Team - 98 important keywords
• Active Paid Search Keywords – 187,252
• Omniture Keywords – 397,832 (>20 visits)
• SEO Tool – 298 keywords (allowance was 10k)
• 4,887 keywords in PPC are Top 3 Organic
• No coordination between teams

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AFTER COORDINATION
• 1 to 1 alignment of Tier 1 Keywords
• Found 2,783 PPC keywords cannibalizing SEO
• Shift saved $180k in first month
• Shift went to 1,016 important words not ranking
• SEO revenue Increased 67% w/no loss from PPC
• Weekly monitoring of Top 3/Top 3 keywords
• Weekly monitoring of new and expensive
• Co-Optimization Monitoring

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GOOGLE ADWORDS & ORGANIC
Google’s State Value of Co-Optimization
• Discover additional keywords.
• Optimize presence on high value queries.
• Measure changes holistically.

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Sources:
http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2012/03/impact-of-organic-ranking-on-ad-click.html
http://adwords.blogspot.com/2011/08/studies-show-search-ads-drive-89.html
89% of the traffic generated by search ads is not
replaced by organic clicks when ads are paused.

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81% of paid ad impressions DO NOT
have a Page 1 organic listing for that
advertiser

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66% of CLICKED ads don’t have a Page
1 organic listing for that advertiser

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GOOGLE RESEARCH DISCLAIMER
• “A low value for IAC may occur when the paid and organic results
are both similar and in close proximity to each other on the search
results page.”
Translation:
When you have top listings for BOTH
Paid and Organic AND messages are
similar – they click ORGANIC

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GOOGLE ADWORDS & ORGANIC
Google’s State Value of Co-Optimization
• Discover additional keywords.
• Optimize presence on high value queries.
• Measure changes holistically.

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DATA JUDO
Based on Screen Capture in article
• Organic listing improved paid click by 64%
• Paid was 14.95% w/organic jumped to 41.77%
• Organic listing increased total visits by 4x
• 23k paid + 5ok organic
• Organic click rate was 37% but dropped to 36.88%
when paid was added
http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2290907/Google-Finally-Supports-Paid-and-Organic-Co-Optimization

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QUESTIONS YOU HAVE TO ASK
Q1: How many of my paid words do not have
corresponding organic words?
Q2: Are both paid and organic ranking well?
Q3: Are the messages collaborative?
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MORE CONFUSING FACTS & FIGURES

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Source: GroupM Aug 2012
http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/10586-ppc-accounts-for-just-6-of-total-search-clicks-infographic

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Source: Wordstream http://www.wordstream.com/articles/google-ads

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OPERATIONALIZE CO-OP

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WHY DON’T WE CO-OPTIMIZE?
• Search Programs are siloed
• Assume agencies are doing it
• Lack of Agency Collaboration
• No tools to do it
• Don’t have time or budget to manage
• It seems too complicated
• Data has brainwashed us not to do it

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CO-OPTIMIZATION WORKFLOW
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Keyword
Selection
• Identify
keywords
• Collect
performance
data
(PPC/SEO)
Model Data
• Integrate data
and model
collaborative
performance
• Isolate tests
and edits
Execute Test
• Test the
collaborative
impact
• Test
cannibalization
• Lock down
optimal
performance

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TIPS:
• Use a control and test group of words with paid and
organic both in top 3 positions
• Ensure both paid and organic are able to measure
conversions or actions
• Do your tests across devices since they may not be
able to take all actions across each device
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STEP 1 – CURRENT STATE ASSESSMENT

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QUESTION 1:
How many of my paid words do not have
corresponding organic words?
How many of my HIGH CPC paid words do not
have corresponding organic words?
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HIGHEST CPC COLLABORATION
• Only 6 of Top 30 CPC keywords have top 5 ranking natural search phrase
• Top 5 get less than 5% of of the clicks in organic
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HIGHEST CPC COLLABORATION
• 0 Top 20 Highest CPC keywords have top 5 rankings 0 visits
• 137 people have found same problem at their company

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TIPS:
• Ensure you have adequate PPC budgets for
newly ranking organic since click rate will
increase
• Once organic introduces, day part paid to see
cannibalization
• Monitor brand and non-brand performance
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STEP 2– PROXIMITY PERFORMANCE

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QUESTION 2:
When they are both ranking are they the right ones?
• Does the paid listing represent the “interest” of the
searcher?
• Is the organic listing the “PLP”
• Does the organic represent the interest of the
searcher?
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PROXIMITY MAXIMIZATION
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Review the simultaneous paid and organic performance – it may
actually surprise you!

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TIPS:
• Test matched/opposite paid and organic offers
• Change organic snippet & Fetch as Googlebot
• Change HTML titles on site links to match intent
• Find the best combination and lock it down!
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STEP 3 – FIND ANOMALIES

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QUESTION 3:
How to I maximize performance?
• When both rank, does one convert better than the
other?
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HIGH CONVERTING PAID LISTINGS
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HIGH CONVERTING SEO
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STEP 4 – MAXIMIZE THE SHELF

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ARE THEY SHARING DATA?

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MAXIMIZE THE SHELF!
• Have we maximized ShelfSpace?
• Are the “assets” collaborating?
• What is the “intent of the searcher?
• What is the device of the searcher?
• What is the location of the searcher?
• What price point is optimal for phrase and the location?

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WRAPPING UP

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KEY STEPS TO SUCCESSFUL CO-OP
• Understand the “real” performance of keywords
• Understand the “intent” of the user queries
• Understand value of “proximity” of paid and organic
• Do anything other than just collecting in Excel

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Thank You