Understanding the value

Before determining the fate of a keyword – either by drastically changing a bid or eliminating it from a campaign — B2B marketers need to fully understand its performance. This is essential because while a keyword may not be credited with a direct conversion, they can actually operate in an “assist” capacity.

In doing so, they play a key role in getting the user to convert. In fact, by leveraging assist keywords, such as select generic terms – B2B marketers can help users discover and understand the products or services they offer. As a user continues with their research, they may eventually search for your brand terms and convert.

For example, if someone was looking for an accounting firm, chances are that they would start with broad terms. Perhaps they might search using a generic keyword such as “accounting firm.” Doing so provides them with a discovery opportunity before they narrow their efforts and start clicking-on ads for specific firms. By keeping these “high funnel” terms live, and often times in prominent positions, marketers can tap into their power to drive conversions.

Never assume

However, when it comes to keyword bidding decisions, many B2B marketers don’t carefully examine the evidence. Instead, they often make assumptions about keywords and jump to conclusions.

One of the first assumptions marketers make is that their keyword data is both accurate and complete. This is a mistake. While the information may be accurate, it is often does not represent the full picture. As a result, a keyword’s ROI may very well be understated.

For instance, with last click analysis, B2B marketers often know where their sales or leads are coming from, including the specific search engine and keywords. While they may know the end result, a large piece of the puzzle is typically missing. Namely, how users end up on their website or even know that they sell a specific product or service.

Tips for bidding success

Below are a few tips to help B2B marketers make better keyword bidding decisions:

1. To identify your assist keywords, set up some type of click-path analysis. Doing so will enable you to better understand the details of your conversion cycle so you won’t be forced to make decisions based on incomplete data.
2. There are a number of technology providers that offer such reports and insights. By tapping into these reports, marketers can identify those keywords that garner clicks, and that in turn, cause other keywords to be clicked-on that ultimately produce a conversion.
3. Marketers who use Google Conversion Tracking set up for their campaigns should consider leveraging Google’s new Search Funnel Reporting. Besides the above, this tool allows marketers to see which keyword phrases received impressions or clicks before the final conversion.
4. Once you have this detailed information, be sure to leverage it. Though it may not be feasible to use this data with every single bid change, it is important to reference it as frequently as possible to ensure that you aren’t eliminating assist terms from your search campaigns.
5. This data will help prove that assist terms are important to the overall campaign. For instance, knowing which keywords are consistently showing up as critical players in click-path analysis reports in the conversion funnel will allow you to better target your copy and landing pages.
6. Strive to also understand the types of conversions or leads your assist keywords are helping. For example, if a generic term is consistently aiding with leads for a new product, be sure that it is called out in the copy for the assist term, and that it leads users to a landing page specific to that same product.
7. Once you understand what users are looking to learn when the query these assist keywords, help provide this information to them, and guide them towards your product or services as an end result.

Overall, while some keywords might appear to be sub-par performers, smart B2B marketers will work to better understand their contribution before making a big change to their campaign. Otherwise, they could very well be eliminating the very keywords with the potential to boost their conversion rate.

So what are marketers doing wrong?  There are numerous ways in which marketers bungle their keyword selection process, including selecting keywords with little or no research to back up their picks, or choosing keywords based on the needs and opinions of various individuals or divisions in their organization without considering what customers might be searching for.

And while it might be tempting to ascribe such bungling to search newbies or the uninformed, the reality is that long-time search marketers also fall prey to these mistakes.  Let’ take a look at a few of the most common mistakes marketers make with keyword selection, and how you can avoid them.

Lack of external perspective. All too often, marketers refer to their products or services from an internal perspective instead of how their online searchers view them.  Because marketing teams often use internal terminology to refer to their brand, it results in content that reflects a product or service that may only be understood by insiders.  For example, what if I created a website that sells computers, but I determined that they should be called “high tech typing machines?”  Although my page would be organically optimized for those keywords, and that my PPC campaign would be focused on that keyword phrase, I would only receive traffic to that page if consumers were searching for “high tech typing machines.”  In other words, I would be missing out on the millions of users who are searching for the term “computers.”

To avoid this mistake, be sure that you are not operating in isolation when you select paid and organic keywords and optimize the content around these terms.  A good way to do that is to ask yourself a few questions:  Do your keywords reflect industry terms or internal terminology? Is your business also marketing itself via these terms in its email, print, or TV ads?  Is there any reason why there would be search volume on these selected terms?  The bottom line is that you need to make sure that you are identifying yourself and branding your company in a way that mirrors how others refer to you.

Lack of research. This mistake relates to the first one as marketers often create keyword lists based upon internal branding initiatives rather than research or past performance data. For instance, they may select a few generic terms that they feel relate to their business, but the research is not always being done upfront to substantiate their selection. This is a big mistake as being found on relevant terms will not only bring traffic and potential conversions to your website, it can also provide you with a brand “halo” effect as research shows that 39% of search engine users believe that the companies whose websites are returned among the top search results are the leaders in their field.

The simple truth is that research is critical in the keyword selection process as you need to make sure that the terms you are optimizing for, or bidding on, are popular.  Fortunately, there are free online tools such as Google Adwords keyword tool, Google Insight trend tool, and Microsoft’s AdCenter Labs Keyword Forecast tool that can help assess the popularity of terms. With organic search, you may be choosing one or two terms per page of content.  With PPC there is more flexibility, as multiple keywords can all be part of the search campaign. Some may receive more traffic than others, but at least the volume can be captured across several terms. Doing your research upfront will help you discover the terms your audience is searching for.

Lack of testing. For many marketers, keywords become permanent fixtures. For instance, your list might be comprised of keywords that are associated with your brand, as well as others that may be on the list because they’ve always been part of the campaign. But just because they are on the list doesn’t necessarily mean that they need to remain there. The only way to know for sure is to test their performance, but few marketers do.

Don’t let this mistake happen to you—test the performance of your keywords regularly. If you can track a keyword through both organic and paid search all the way to the final step in the conversion process, you will be able to justify whether or not to leave keywords running in a PPC campaign or to optimize for them organically.  Tests will also help you confirm or dismiss terms thought to be “top” keywords or “must have’s.”  Make sure to properly test and track keywords through the entire conversion funnel, and collect as much data as possible before determining the fate of specific keyword phrases.

Understanding the most common errors made by marketers going through the keyword selection process is one key to a better performing campaign.  Smart marketers will work to avoid keyword selection mistakes and reap the benefits of doing so.