Merchant SEM Tactics

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Merchant SEM Tactics

• Selecting Tail Terms
• Ad Copy
• Inverted Optimization Pyramid
• Duplicate Content Issues
• Being Creative in a Dynamic Marketplace

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Tail Terms

• Common phrases will have many competitors
• dewalt parts
• dewalt saw parts
• dewalt drill parts

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Tail Terms

• Instead of a few terms to optimize for, we have
  682,000 very specific terms

• Going into the tail allows for very specific
  phrases without competitors
• We don't need ads for many of them
• dewalt dw744 switch
• dewalt dw744 brushes
• dewalt dw744 armature

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Ad Copy Creative Value Proposition
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What makes a value proposition?

• Free stuff

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Putting the Free message first.

• First ad maintained a decent CTR over 22,000
  clicks
• Using Dynamic KeyWord Insertion in the title made
  no difference for CTR
• Updated ad increase CTR by 20 and maintained for
  well over 100,000 clicks by moving the Free line

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Other Free Stuffs

• Free Shipping
• Free Quotes
• Free Trial
• Free Consultation
• Free Gifts
• Use your imagination...

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What makes a value proposition?

• Free stuff
• Variety / selection
• Ways your store is unique

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Selection a unique solution

• First ad focused on variety and value
• Second ad increased selection message, but
  lowered response rate
• Third ad put value back in, but had a low
  response rate
• Fourth ad saw 10 lower CTR, but 45 higher
  conversion

Net result 65 more sales
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What makes a value proposition?

• Free stuff
• Variety / selection
• Ways your store is unique
• Ways you can help them address a need

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Addressing A Need

• Under 3 CTR
• Increased 12
• Increased 22
• Increased 18
• Overall, 61 CTR increase and CPC dropped by 66
  for more clicks and more sales

Customers don't want a drill, they want a
hole. Address their need, not your product.
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Inverted Optimization Pyramid

• Working for the conversion first

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Typical Optimization Pyramid

• Typical SEO approach is to start with the
  homepage
• Homepages are best suited for very general terms
• General terms don't result in sales all that often

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Inverted Optimization Pyramid

• People can't buy a product if they can't find it
• By working on making the pages closer to products
  rank, the conversion rate goes up
• Inversed thinking can really increase revenues

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Optimize Specific to General

• Specific phrases convert much better
• Easier to rank for organically
• Lower cost per click for advertising
• Creates a snowball growth opportunity

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Duplicate Content
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Duplicate Content

• Obvious sources
• Copy Paste to add product information
• Scraper sites
• Mirror sites
• Old pages (oops)

• Hidden Sources
• Competitors
• Splogs
• Your web designer
• Under Construction sites
• eBay

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eBay, Competitors, and Other Thieves

• We have tracked as many as 40 eBay auctions at
  once that have used our content and formatting.
• We have taken an active approach since eBay
  hasn't addressed the matter, even when we email
  them about specific auctions.

• Hint This is the part where you may have ideas
• This isn't a totally new idea, just a newer
  approach to make content theft profitable instead
  of detrimental

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ModRewrite More than pretty URLs

• By using referrer data, we can change images
• Some images were 1x1 pixels on our own site with
  absolute links to the same page
• Some images just get promotional text added

• We have this entirely automated via ModRewrite
  and a simple CGI script
• We can manually edit any text / changes on a per
  page (auction) level
• We've caught other interesting thieves

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Formerly 1x1 pixel, now on eBay
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Dynamic Text on eBay
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Image on Competitor's Site
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Profiting from Duplication

• If someone is using our content, they may
  accidentally send some traffic to us
• Many of the auctions get edited quite a bit when
  the person sees what happened. We don't mind, the
  content isn't duplicate any more.
• We contact repeat offenders directly and ask them
  not to duplicate our content.
• Unless the conversion rate from their auctions
  is good for us.

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What's Number 1?
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Merchant SEM Tactics Summary

• We've got a little tougher job as retailers since
  our products have set, usually low, margins.
• Our ads need to not only hit broad audiences, but
  also need to convey a helpful image.
• As merchants, we can have more duplicate content
  issues than other types of sites.
• Keep an eye on what's going on and you just may
  find yourself ahead of others in your space.
• Creativity can turn into opportunity.
  Think outside the box.

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Thank you

• Brian Mark
• www.ToolBarn.com
• brianm_at_toolbarn.com
• brianmark.blogspot.com
• blogs.toolbarn.com/brianm/