Truth About Pay-Per-Click Search Advertising, The

Product Author Bios

Kevin Lee, Didit Founder, Chairman, and CEO, has been an acknowledged Search Engine Marketing (SEM) expert since 1995. Kevin’s years of SEM expertise provide the foundation for Didit’s proprietary Maestro search campaign technology. Didit’s unparalleled results and client growth have earned Didit recognition not only among marketers, but also as part of the 2007 Inc 500 (#137), as well as a #12 position on Deloitte’s Fast 500. Kevin’s “Paid Search Strategies” column for ClickZ is read by thousands, and his book, The Eyes Have It: How to Market in an Age of Divergent Consumers, Media Chaos, and Advertising Anarchy, has been widely praised. A founding board member of SEMPO and its first elected chairman, Kevin is also active on DMA and IAB committees.

The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, The New York Times, Bloomberg, CNET, USA Today, San Jose Mercury News, and other press quote Kevin regularly. Kevin lectures at leading industry conferences, as well as at NYU, Columbia, Fordham, and Pace Universities. Kevin’s expertise is also valued by Wall Street; he has briefed analysts and clients of JP Morgan, RBC, UBS, Piper Jaffray, Goldman Sachs, Citicorp, and others. Kevin earned his MBA from Yale School of Management in 1992 and lives in Manhattan. Kevin was recognized as an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2008 Award Finalist in Metro New York Area and received the 2008 Direct Marketing Club of New York, Mal Dunn Leadership Award.

In addition, in 2008, Kevin and partner David Pasternack launched a social entrepreneurship venture, www.We-Care.com, a web technology that generates passive donation revenue for nonprofit causes, including schools, universities, associations, clubs, and houses of worship.

Everything you must know to optimize your search ads, increase your profits, and help customers find exactly what they’re searching for

•    The truth about the search tax

•    The truth about competitive and network click fraud

•    The truth about testing and expansion

The Truth About Pay-Per-Click Search Advertising is a valuable resource for Internet marketers at both the tactical and strategic level regardless of company size. While PPC search engine advertising in Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and other engines looks easy, competing successfully against competitors in a real-time auction for consumer's attention, clicks and dollars is no simple task. There are two kinds of PPC search marketers at the top of the paid placement results: brilliant marketers and irrational clueless amateurs. This book is designed to make sure that the reader becomes one of the brilliant marketers and learns how outmaneuver the competition. This book arms the reader with proven tactics and strategies that ensure success.

This book provides concrete, easy-to-grasp concepts, strategies, and tactics designed for both the hands-on search marketer as well as the supervisor focused on strategy. However, a basic understanding of some key search marketing and Internet marketing fundamentals will be helpful, though not essential, to the reader. To empower readers of all levels, the book contains a basic glossary of often-used terms (CPC, CPM, MaxBid, SERP) to ensure accessibility to all readers. Conversely, even the most seasoned paid search marketing professional will learn a great deal from this book.

To win in today's SEM PPC auctions and to continue to thrive, marketers need to figure out how to allocate budgets effectively and efficiently. The future of their business may depend on a good understanding of paid search and auction-based keyword-targeted media.

Table of Contents

Part I:  The Truth About Why You Need Paid Placement SEM

Truth 1             Paid placement search, supply, demand, and auctions  1

Truth 2             Intrusive media versus the psychic postal carrier  5

Truth 3             Search: Beyond the "new Yellow Pages"  9

Truth 4             Search: It's like the stock market  13

Truth 5             Top organic position: It's not enough  17

Part II:  The Truth About the History of Paid Search

Truth 6             The rise of search  21

Truth 7             GoTo.com and the birth of PPC search  25

Truth 8             Google introduces relevance and yield  29

Truth 9             The rise of content and context  33

Part III:  The Truth About Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft

Truth 10           PPC search: CPM in disguise?  37

Truth 11           The search tax: Are search engines leeches?  41

Truth 12           Search versus keyword-targeted versus behavioral  45

Truth 13           Competitive and network click fraud: Problems and solutions  49

Truth 14           Better targeting with Microsoft adCenter  53

Part IV:  The Truth About Customer Acquisition, ROI, Profit, and ROAS

Truth 15           Search engine sales versus search engine marketing  57

Truth 16           Manage your campaigns for maximum profit  61

Truth 17           ROI and profitability: Beyond ROAS to lifetime value and CRM  65

Truth 18           Missing conversions, offline conversion tracking, and SEM  69

Truth 19           Search marketing as a metric  73

Part V:  The Truth About Branding and Search

Truth 20           Branding metrics for SEM  77

Truth 21           Search and the buying cycle  81

Truth 22           Branding opportunities in keywords  85

Truth 23           Paying for shelf space in the search supermarket  89

Truth 24           Brand discounts at the major search engines  93

Part VI:  The Truth About Technology and Analytics

Truth 25           Dirty data equals bad bids  97

Truth 26           Should you be using web analytics to manage search?  101

Truth 27           Who's watching the bids?  105

Truth 28           The click fraud conundrum  109

Truth 29           Broad match keywords  113

Truth 30           PPC backward and forward  117

Part VII:  The Truth About Best Practices

Truth 31           In-house versus outsourced SEM: The CMO's guide to the outsourcing debate  121

Truth 32           PPC search: Create, influence, capture, and harvest demand  125

Truth 33           Moving beyond campaign efficiency to campaign effectiveness  129

Truth 34           Keyword testing and expansion done right  133

Truth 35           Test or die: Tune your Google ad campaign  137

Truth 36           Best practices for PPC: Capturing the search curve tail  141

Truth 37           Improve site usability to enhance conversion rates  145

Truth 38           Beaten at your own name: Buying your brand  149

Truth 39           Brands, trademarks, and the brand marketer's dilemma  153

Part VIII:  The Truth About Optimizing Your Bids

Truth 40           Start at the ad: CTR improvement with better creative  157

Truth 41           Day-parts, day of the week, and other cherry-picking techniques  161

Truth 42           Power segments deliver powerful results  165

Truth 43           Better account structures deliver better results  169

Part IX:  The Truth About Landing Pages

Truth 44           Creating new PPC search landing pages  173

Truth 45           How to make landing pages better  177

Truth 46           Best practices for landing page excellence  181

Part X:  The Truth About Second-Tier Engines and Non-Search Keyword-Targeted Media

Truth 47           Beyond search: Keyword-targeted media taps the power of Google's AdSense  185

Truth 48           Quasi-search: Contextual and behavioral marketing  189

Truth 49           Behavioral marketing: Behaviorally retargeting searchers  193

Part XI:  The Truth About B2B Paid Search

Truth 50           Keywords are not enough for B2B marketing  197

Truth 51           B2B search best practices  201

Part XII:  The Truth About the Future of Keyword-Targeted Media

Truth 52           Mobile keyword targeting  205

Truth 53           Social search  209

Truth 54           Are organic results an endangered species?  213

Truth 55           Search beyond the browser  217

About the Author  220

Sample Pages

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