How Google’s latest design choice impacts consumers’ ability to search and discover
How has Google's recent update to its SERP display impacted consumers, advertisers and Google's bottom line? Adobe's Siddharth Shah looks at the data.
Siddharth Shah is head of web analytics, digital strategy and insights at Adobe. He leads a global team that manages the performance of over $2 BN dollars of ad spend on search, social and display media at Adobe.
Attribution: Busting The Myths
As one of the hottest topics in marketing, attribution is often presented as a panacea for marketers’ dilemmas, allowing you to understand how different advertisements in a purchase funnel work together. The typical description first shows how conversions attributable to various channels change when going from last-click to even-distribution or U-distribution (pick your favorite open-shaped […]
Does Weather Affect Site Traffic & SEM Performance?
Omni-channel retail marketers with online sites and offline stores have often wondered about the effect that weather might have on their site traffic (which in turn would affect their paid search bidding strategies). There appear to be three competing hypotheses about weather affecting site traffic: Hypothesis #1: Site traffic is negatively correlated with weather quality […]
The Christmas Jump, Tablet Hump & CPC Bump: Recent Trends In Mobile Usage
“I grab my tablet and get busy with the pen. Y’all could not be just like me if y’all was my twin.” –Andre 3000 That consumers are rapidly changing the way they interact with advertisers is no secret – but the rapidity in which they are doing so is quite surprising. As I looked into […]
January Survival Tips For Search Marketers: Revisit Your Budget, Rest Up – The Superbowl Is Coming
The beginning of the new year is usually a very busy time for marketers. Not only do they have to execute on their new goals and budgets, but they also have to deal with seasonal factors that affect many verticals. While search marketers in particular have to overcome several tactical and strategic issues in January […]
Why Attribution Really Matters For Product Listing Ads
With the holiday shopping season in full steam, advertisers are continuing to invest significantly in Google Shopping via Product Listing Ad (PLA) campaigns. Given the different format of these ads, one might expect users to interact differently than regular search ads. Perhaps people interact with them earlier in the sales funnel because these ads have […]
3 Mobile Trends Every Search Marketer Must Know
When I last blogged about mobile trends in 2011, I had predicted that mobile, i.e., smartphone + tablet traffic would be 10% of all paid search traffic by the end of 2011. I had also predicted that mobile traffic would be between 16-22% of all traffic. It turns out, at least for a few categories, […]
How To Effectively Use Attribution With Complex Campaigns
As marketers, we think that attribution is important. However, despite all the talk in white papers, blogs, etc., little has been discussed about its effective use. For instance: is attribution always useful, what are the common attribution techniques, which is the best attribution model, what improvements in efficiency can one expect from the right attribution […]
A 3 Step Model For High Seasonality Forecasting
In many verticals, much of the year’s business gets done during a short period. For instance, tax software is mostly sold at the end of January in the US when the W2 forms are mailed and right before the last day of submission in mid April. This is seen clearly in the Google Trends chart […]
Best Practices To Get The Most Out Of Google Shopping
As you should know by now, Google recently announced that it was combining its free Google Product Search listings and Product Listing Ads (PLA) to Google Shopping, where all listings would be shown in an auction based process akin to PPC. This is a significant change for retailers as it means that a significant percent […]
Singular vs. Plural: What Search Queries Can Tell You About Your Customers
“Remember: Y’all is singular. All y’all is plural. All y’all’s is plural possessive.” – Kinky Friedman In display or social advertising, the marketer can reach customers with different offers based on demographics or behavioral signals. This is not so in search where one only has the query searched as the fundamental mode of segmentation. This […]
Sometimes You Just Need To Go With Your Gut In Data Analysis
It is difficult to understand why statisticians commonly limit their inquiries to Averages, and do not revel in more comprehensive views. Their souls seem as dull to the charm of variety as that of the native of one of our flat English counties, whose retrospect of Switzerland was that, if its mountains could be thrown […]
Basic Econometric Modeling: Measuring The Offline-Online Effect Of TV Advertising On Search Spend
Multi-channel advertisers often ask me how to measure the effect of their TV ads on their online marketing channels. The question is important because it is the first step in the answer to the media mix question: What is the right distribution of budget across TV and online channels to maximize return on investment. This […]
Understanding The Limits Of Attribution
While there is much discussion about attribution and its benefits, marketers seldom discuss what it can’t do. Unfortunately, this creates a perception with many marketers that attribution will solve all their multimedia problems and that their media mix problems will go away. While I believe that the evolution of attribution and media mix modeling technology […]
Why Patience Is A Virtue With The Long Tail
A recent article by fellow Search Engine Land contributor Matt Van Wagner on long-tail keyword management – as well as some recent experiences with several large-scale advertisers, inspired me to write this article on quantitative long-tail management. Too often, I have seen cases where marketers apply incorrect reactive rules on the long tail and kill it in […]
Setting Campaign Budgets: Maximizing ROI While Controlling The Risk
Campaign budgets enable advertisers control over campaign-level spend on search engines. Once the campaign spend approaches the set budget, ads show up with lesser frequency, and ultimately ads do not compete in the auctions. However, this is not the best way to control your budget for two reasons: (1) If you have hit your campaign […]
Data Shows Retailers Need To Pace Spend To Maximize Black Friday Performance
Traffic volatility can make spend pacing during Black Friday very challenging. Spend too much too soon and you might suffer a lower ROI and not have money left for Cyber Monday. Spend less and you might be missing out on consumer volume. Performance data from the past three years reveals that search marketers are indeed […]
How The Rise Of Mobile Devices Has Affected Search Spend
A few months ago, I published a report about the rise of mobile devices including tablets. In this report, I showed that in a span of less than a year, mobile paid search spend went from 0.5% to 4.2% — an almost 9 fold increase. In that report, I also projected that by the end […]
Cost Per Like Campaigns On Facebook: The CTR, Conversion Rate, Reach Tradeoff
Managers of Facebook Fan acquisition campaigns are often faced with a dilemma when creating campaigns. They often ask whether or not they should they go for a broad audience and greater reach or should they go narrow and target audiences that might have a very small reach but a high affinity for a product. Marketers […]
Making Sense Of Multi-Click Data
Click path reports can be very useful tools in understanding how customers behave. For instance, they can tell you how much time consumers spend research before they buy a product. They can also tell you if there are certain keywords that help other keywords convert, e.g. assisting keywords. Finally, when coupled with attribution, they can […]